I read this fairy tale with my daughter from Hans Christian Anderson’s collection. I must say, she did not enjoy it quite as well as I did. I found it quite thought provoking and have pondered it a good bit over the past month.
The goblin’s dilemma between the student’s poetry and the grocer’s Christmas porridge is quite intriguing. I have not sought out the answer to precisely what this parable points to, but of course I have my suspicions. But, like all good parables, the meaning is often taken differently depending on the context of the reader.
My mind was brought back to Chesterton’s theme in Orthodoxy of how bare reason can lead to insanity. It is not usually those with vivid imaginations who go mad. Rather, it is those who become trapped in their own reasoning. It seemed to me upon re-reading this tale that this is precisely the pickle that faces the goblin – should I choose beauty and imagination or settle for the newspaper and porridge. In the end he chooses to straddle the fence.
This is a compromise that we all face. If you have experienced the beauty of poetry and art you wish that you could live in that beautiful world all the time. But then reality sets in, and you need to find your next meal.
Does poetry and art perhaps point us to heaven, or even the new creation? That was a question I found myself asking. Perhaps it does, for in the new creation I cannot help but think that all will be art. Perhaps there will be a place for news and simple prose, but it will certainly be the best of news and the best of prose. There even porridge will be best and beautiful, for it will come from the hand of a best and beautiful Savior.
It’s quite funny isn’t – that fairy tales can often offer more to adults than to their intended audience of children? I think it’s a credit to their authors that children’s stories are often laced with moral metaphors and therefore thought-provoking to the adults that read them (usually parents to their children).