Fantasy literature
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, the majority of fantasy works have been literature. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of video games, music, painting, and the like.
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[edit] History
It is difficult to define the precise 'beginning' of fantasy literature, as stories involving magic and terrible monsters have existed since time immemorial. On the whole, the genre, as a distinct type, began to become visible in the Victorian times, in the works of writers such as William Morris, Lord Dunsany and George Macdonald.
Some commentators assert that the South African-born, English professor of philology, J. R. R. Tolkien, was seminal to the mass-popularization of the fantasy genre, with his hugely successful publications – The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien himself, though, was largely informed by an ancient body of Anglo-Saxon myths — particularly Beowulf — but it was after his work that the genre began to receive the moniker, "fantasy." J. R. R. Tolkien's close friend C.S. Lewis, author of the The Chronicles of Narnia, also an English professor interested in similar themes, was also associated with popularizing the commercial success of the fantasy genre.
Preeminent authors in the genre who undertook popular fantasy works after Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings phenomenon of the 1950s and 1960s are listed below. The names listed are presented in chronological order, from the earliest published to the latest, along with their most significant works.
- Piers Anthony : The Xanth series
- Ursula K. Le Guin : The Earthsea series
- Terry Brooks : The Shannara series
- David Eddings : The Belgariad and The Malloreon
- Raymond E. Feist : The Riftwar saga
- Terry Pratchett : The Discworld series
- Guy Gavriel Kay : The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy
- Robert Jordan : The Wheel of Time series
- Terry Goodkind : The Sword of Truth series
- Robin Hobb : The Farseer, Liveship Traders and Soldier's Son trilogies
- George R.R. Martin : A Song of Ice and Fire series
- Philip Pullman : His Dark Materials trilogy
- J. K. Rowling: The Harry Potter series
Lloyd Alexander: The Chronicles of Prydain
- Dave Duncan: The King's Blades series
Many other, slightly less notable fantasy authors have published under the popular TSR label, usually in the Forgotten Realms sanctum.
In recent years, the ratio of female-to-male authors in a typically-stocked bookstore has skyrocketed, with female authors surpassing the volume of their male counterparts.[citation needed]
[edit] Style
Fantasy has been distinguished from other forms of literature by its style.
Ursula K. LeGuin, in her influential essay, "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", criticized the use of a colloquial and modern-day style for writing high fantasy.[1] While she admired the archaic style for its ability to distance prose into a fantasy world rather than appear as a modern world in disguise, when it was used by masters such as Lord Dunsany and E.R. Eddison, she also noted that it was a dangerous trap for fantasy writers because it was ridiculous when done wrong.[2]
Whereas Science fiction writing has a tendency to espouse the short story form strongly, this length of prose writing is still less in evidence than the longer fantasy novel. In novel form a frequent example is the multi volume, high word count, fantasy series or sequence.
The fantasy world requires, like any genre, appropriate language, and that language can vary. In various forms of fairytale fantasy, even the villain's language would be inappropriate if vulgar.[3]
Acclaimed fantasy author Raymond E. Feist considered his genre to be one where 'ordinary people' were placed in extraordinary situations, and writing about what would happen.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Ursula K. LeGuin, "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", p 74-5 The Language of the Night ISBN 0-425-05205-2
- ^ Ursula K. LeGuin, "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", p 78-80 The Language of the Night ISBN 0-425-05205-2
- ^ Alec Austin, "Quality in Epic Fantasy"
[edit] References
- Todorov, Tzvetan [1970] (1973). The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, trans. Richard Howard, Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University. ISBN 0-8295-0245-9.
[edit] External links
- Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works - fantasy as literature
- Avari Press website: http://www.avaripress.com/
- Fantasy 100: Top 100 lists and short reviews of the all-time greatest fantasy books, films and TV shows: http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/fantasy100/index.html
