Dictionary

eucatastrophe en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˌjukəˈtæstɹəfi/ (General-American)
• /ˌjuːkəˈtæstɹəfi/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. A catastrophe (dramatic event leading to plot resolution) that results in the protagonist's well-being.
   • 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. 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:
   • 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. 1969 June 5, W. H. Auden, “Epistle to a Godson”, in The New York Review, issue:
   • 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). [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:
   • 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. 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:

Forms

Deriveds

eucatastrophically · eucatastrophic

Relateds

catastrophic · happily ever after · catastrophe · catastrophically

Synonyms

silver lining · necessary evil · happy ending

Translations (6)

de Eukatastrophe (catastrophe that results in the protagonist's well-being) · es eucatástrofe (catastrophe that results in the protagonist's well-being) · el ευκαταστροφή (catastrophe that results in the protagonist's well-being) · fr eucatastrophe (catastrophe that results in the protagonist's well-being) · grc εὐκαταστροφή (catastrophe that results in the protagonist's well-being) · gl eucatástrofe (catastrophe that results in the protagonist's well-being)