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felis_ultharusReading and enjoying the second book of The Dark is Rising series has got me thinking about fantasy lit, and about its weird place in the canon -- as far as English literature courses are concerned, the stuff does not exist.
(Even science-fiction has begun to break through the barrier of "canon," but fantasy has been cast into the outer darkness along with erotica and a few other despised genres.)
This is strange, because the fantasy novel is now almost 250 years old. It can be traced back to a man named Horace Walpole -- son of Britain's famous (or infamous) first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole.
Walpole came of age in a witty comedy -- which was mostly political or social satire. The heavier stuff when it came to novels and poetry were all edifying religious arguments, exhortations to chastity, stories about modernity and progress. As for knights and dragons and ghosts, Don Quixote had set the tone -- that stuff belonged to the middle ages, not the modern one, and we're better than that now.
Walpole had big shoes to fill -- his father had been prime minister to a do-nothing king who wasn't interested in ruling, and so Robert Walpole ran England for him. Everyone expected Horace to follow in his father's footsteps.
They pushed Horace into a career in politics, for which he was completely unsuited. Neurotic, shy, and incapable of hiding his homosexuality, his political career was a disaster.
His most famous affair was with the poet Thomas Gray, whose "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" is one of the most gorgeous romantic poems out there, but whose elegy for a dead cat (with illustrations by Blake) is also gorgeous. The two shared a romantic temperament, but broke up while travelling Europe.
Unsuccessful at either love or politics, Walpole retreated to a medieval castle of a mansion that he'd had built, and which he had named Strawberry Hill. There he turned to old manuscripts and study.
In 1764, a book arrived in shops entitled The Castle of Otranto. Its title page claimed that it had been written by a monk named Onuphrio Muralto, and translated from Italian by one William Marshal -- a surviving manuscript from the middle ages. Actually, Walpole had invented the thing, though it was inspired by the medieval romances he liked to read.
Otranto is a weird book -- full of ghosts, a prophecy, romance, and a medieval castle full of secret passages. It's also not very good. It's poorly plotted, lurching from one weird, supernatural scene to the next, with a backstory tacked on at the end.
Respectable people thought it was ludicrous. But Otranto launched a movement, which included literary manifestos and theories, and produced dozens of imitators. There was a thirst for some escapist fun at a time when all novels (drama and comedy) were incredibly preachy.
It helped launch the Romantic movement of poetry -- Coleridge was a major fan, as was Blake. Pretty soon, ghosts, magic, monsters, secret passages, prophecies, and castles were everywhere. This new novel was called "Gothic" -- a Siamese twin that was later split into the separate genres of "fantasy" and "horror."
People railed against this kind of novel, considered it disrespectful or even dangerous to young minds. That didn't stop Gothic novels from flying off the shelves in days when novels were mass entertainment. It came in thousands of variations after awhile -- the lighter and un-supernatural romances of Sir Walter Scott, to the bizarre ghost-visions of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," to the science-fiction of Mary Shelley.
Finally, in the 20th century, a professor of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English lit instilled new life in the genre by going back to inspirational sources even older than the ones Walpole had used. And that's how The Lord of the Rings reshaped the fantasy novel.
From there, there's a pedigree linking Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander's Prydain chronicles, then The Dark is Rising, and finally Harry Potter.
Don't know how interesting other people find that all, but it fascinates me ^_^
(Even science-fiction has begun to break through the barrier of "canon," but fantasy has been cast into the outer darkness along with erotica and a few other despised genres.)
This is strange, because the fantasy novel is now almost 250 years old. It can be traced back to a man named Horace Walpole -- son of Britain's famous (or infamous) first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole.
Walpole came of age in a witty comedy -- which was mostly political or social satire. The heavier stuff when it came to novels and poetry were all edifying religious arguments, exhortations to chastity, stories about modernity and progress. As for knights and dragons and ghosts, Don Quixote had set the tone -- that stuff belonged to the middle ages, not the modern one, and we're better than that now.
Walpole had big shoes to fill -- his father had been prime minister to a do-nothing king who wasn't interested in ruling, and so Robert Walpole ran England for him. Everyone expected Horace to follow in his father's footsteps.
They pushed Horace into a career in politics, for which he was completely unsuited. Neurotic, shy, and incapable of hiding his homosexuality, his political career was a disaster.
His most famous affair was with the poet Thomas Gray, whose "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" is one of the most gorgeous romantic poems out there, but whose elegy for a dead cat (with illustrations by Blake) is also gorgeous. The two shared a romantic temperament, but broke up while travelling Europe.
Unsuccessful at either love or politics, Walpole retreated to a medieval castle of a mansion that he'd had built, and which he had named Strawberry Hill. There he turned to old manuscripts and study.
In 1764, a book arrived in shops entitled The Castle of Otranto. Its title page claimed that it had been written by a monk named Onuphrio Muralto, and translated from Italian by one William Marshal -- a surviving manuscript from the middle ages. Actually, Walpole had invented the thing, though it was inspired by the medieval romances he liked to read.
Otranto is a weird book -- full of ghosts, a prophecy, romance, and a medieval castle full of secret passages. It's also not very good. It's poorly plotted, lurching from one weird, supernatural scene to the next, with a backstory tacked on at the end.
Respectable people thought it was ludicrous. But Otranto launched a movement, which included literary manifestos and theories, and produced dozens of imitators. There was a thirst for some escapist fun at a time when all novels (drama and comedy) were incredibly preachy.
It helped launch the Romantic movement of poetry -- Coleridge was a major fan, as was Blake. Pretty soon, ghosts, magic, monsters, secret passages, prophecies, and castles were everywhere. This new novel was called "Gothic" -- a Siamese twin that was later split into the separate genres of "fantasy" and "horror."
People railed against this kind of novel, considered it disrespectful or even dangerous to young minds. That didn't stop Gothic novels from flying off the shelves in days when novels were mass entertainment. It came in thousands of variations after awhile -- the lighter and un-supernatural romances of Sir Walter Scott, to the bizarre ghost-visions of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," to the science-fiction of Mary Shelley.
Finally, in the 20th century, a professor of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English lit instilled new life in the genre by going back to inspirational sources even older than the ones Walpole had used. And that's how The Lord of the Rings reshaped the fantasy novel.
From there, there's a pedigree linking Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander's Prydain chronicles, then The Dark is Rising, and finally Harry Potter.
Don't know how interesting other people find that all, but it fascinates me ^_^
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Date: 2008-07-02 01:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-05 10:49 am (UTC)