eucatastrophe

English

WOTD – 5 April 2018

Etymology

From eu- +‎ catastrophe, coined by English author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien in 1944 as part of a letter: see quotation.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌjuːkəˈtæstɹəfi/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌjukəˈtæstɹəfi/
• Hyphenation: eu‧ca‧tas‧tro‧phe

Noun

eucatastrophe (plural eucatastrophes)

1. (narratology) A catastrophe (dramatic event leading to plot resolution) that results in the protagonist's well-being. [from 1944]
   • [1944 November 7, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “88. From a Letter to Christopher Tolkien[,] 28 October 1944 (FS 58)”, in Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien, editors, Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1981, →ISBN; The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Houghton Mifflin paperback edition, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000, →ISBN, page 100:

     But at the story of the little boy (which is a fully attested fact of course) with its apparent sad ending and then its sudden unhoped-for happy ending, I was deeply moved and had that peculiar emotion we all have – though not often. […] For it I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce).]

   • 1969 June 5, W. H. Auden, “Epistle to a Godson”, in The New York Review, issue:

     Let us hymn the small but journal wonders
     of Nature and of households, and then finish
     on a serio-comic note with legends
     of ultimate eucatastrophe,
     regeneration beyond the waters.

   • 1988, Alzina Stone Dale, “Prologue: J. Alfred Prufrock among the Prophets”, in T. S. Eliot: The Philosopher Poet (The Wheaton Literary Series), Wheaton, Ill.: Harold Shaw, →ISBN; T. S. Eliot: The Philsopher-Poet, Authors Guild Backprint.com edition, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, 2004, →ISBN, page 5:

     The "problem" of T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot comes partly from our post-Christian sense of a world where Tolkien's eucatastrophes never happen, and partly from the way we write biography.

   • 2015, John J. Davenport, quoting Eleanor Helms, “The Virtues of Ambivalence: Wholeheartedness as Existential Telos and the Unwillable Completion of Narravives”, in John Lippitt, Patrick Stokes, editors, Narrative, Identity and the Kierkegaardian Self, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 159:

     Literary unity demands that once a eucatastrophe happens it must be accepted as part of the story rather than as an arbitrary whim of the author.

Synonyms

• happy ending

Derived terms

• eucatastrophic
• eucatastrophically

Related terms

• catastrophe
• catastrophic
• catastrophically

Translations

catastrophe that results in the protagonist's well-being

• French: eucatastrophe f
• Galician: eucatástrofe f
• German: Eukatastrophe f
• Greek: ευκαταστροφή f (efkatastrofí)

  Ancient Greek: εὐκαταστροφή f (eukatastrophḗ)

• Spanish: eucatástrofe (es) f

See also

• happily ever after

Further reading

• eucatastrophe on Wikipedia.Wikipedia