germanic lore and contemporary fantasy the rediscovery of germanic lore, especially icelandic sagas,...

Germanic Lore and Contemporary Fantasy

• The rediscovery of Germanic lore, especially Icelandic sagas, in the 19th century inspired Victorian writers of medieval romances – what we would now term Fantasy Literature.

• Fantasy literature developed during late Romanticism, influenced by Norse sagas, medieval romances, gothic novels, fairy tales, and historical novels (Walter Scott).

• Escapist or nostalgic fiction in the dark days of heavy industrialization in England.


• An early writers of Fantasy literature is the Rev. George MacDonald (1824-1905). Close friend of Lewis Carroll.

• He wrote The Princess and the Goblin (1872) and Phantastes: A Fairie Romance for Men and Women (1858), and Lilith: A Romance (1895).

• “I write, not for children, but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.”

• MacDonald’s works are set in a fantasy fairy land, following earlier British traditions. Extremely influential on C. S. Lewis (Narnia), who called him his “mentor.”


• The “inventor” of fantasy literature located in an original fictional world (and not in classical antiquity or in English fairyland) was William Morris (1834-1896).

• Morris had a wealthy family and a happy, spoiled childhood – he had his own pony and a tiny suit of armor for quests in the local woods!

• Discovered interest in art and design while at Oxford, joined D. Rossetti and Pre-Raphaelites.


• The Pre-Raphaelites were fascinated by the art of the middle ages, designed works in the medieval style before the Italian Renaissance.

• Rossetti’s “The Blessed Damozel” – an illustration of the poem of the same title. The model is Morris’s wife, Jane Morris, nee Burden.


• Morris found his calling in graphic design; he founded a company (later called Morris & co.) which sold his wallpaper, tapestries, illustration designs, stained glass, etc. Many of his patterns are still popular today.

• “Flora,” by Burne-Jones, tapestry design by Morris.


Morris as a young man. Jane Morris in his painting “La Belle Iseult” (1858, also called “Guinevere,” ironic illustration of an adulterous love).


• Morris was multi-talented – he wrote poetry and prose stories along with his graphic works.

• In 1868, he met Eirikr Magnusson, an Icelander living in England, and the two began collaborating on translations of Icelandic sagas.

• Not the first translations of Old Norse, but the first literary translations of high quality, they helped to popularize the sagas for the English-speaking audience.

• In the following years, Morris made several voyages to Iceland with Eirikr.


• Saga of Gunnlaug Worm-Tongue. (poet saga)• The Story of Grettir the Strong. (outlaw saga)• Morris later translated the Saga of the Volsungs

(1870).• In 1870, Morris began his political career as a socialist

politician, became a founding member of the Socialist League, began to read Karl Marx.

• Engaged in many social and political causes, even early environmental and cultural causes, such as founding the “Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.”


• Morris’s interest in socialism provided the inspiration for his turn to utopian, idealized worlds toward the end of his life.

• Essays on socialist and aesthetic topics, as well as works of socialist non-fiction and utopian fiction.

• Fantasy Literature emerged as a utopian corrective to the social injustice and squalor of Victorian England.

• 1887 “Bloody Sunday” demonstrations in London, great political disappointment, but also the year he began work on his first fantasy novel based loosely on Icelandic models: The House of the Wolfings (1888).


• 1894, The Wood beyond the World, perhaps the finest of his prose fantasies.

• 1896, The Well at the World’s End.

• 1896, Morris dies. Two later works published posthumously:

• The Water of the Wondrous Isles and The Sundering Flood.


• Morris created fantasy worlds permeated with his own beliefs about political economics.

• He was especially drawn to Germanic models because he understood their tribal culture to be individualistic, democratic and pre-capitalistic.

• Medieval and chivalric elements also appear.


• Edward Plunkett, Baron of Dunsany (Ireland) wrote a large number of fantasy stories and novels, following in the tradition of William Morris.

• Wealthy and eccentric like Morris, Lord Dunsany’s works were often set in a particular fantasy land; with The Gods of Pegāna (1905), he created his own original Pantheon.

• Lord Dunsany was very popular, influential on Tolkien.• His “biblical” style is often imitated : "The Hoard of the

Gibbelins" from The Book of Wonder (1912).


• Morris and Dunsany were extremely influential on the following generation of fantasy writers, especially J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973).

• When Tolkien won the Skeat Prize for English at Oxford (1914), he spent the prize money on … books by Morris! He bought the fantasy The House of the Wolfings, as well as an epic about the Greek hero Jason and Morris’s translation of the Volsunga saga!


• Unlike the wealthy Morris, Tolkien was orphaned as a child, and grew up “on the genteel side of poverty,” as one biographer put it.

• He spent time both in the West Midlands countryside (the idyllic shire?) and in the industrial slums of Birmingham (Mordor?).

• Tolkien showed an aptitude for languages at an early age, learned Greek and Latin in school, later studied Gothic, Welsh, and Finnish (difficult languages).

• Early experiments in creating his own languages.


• 1911 enrolls at Oxford College, majored in Classics, which did not suit him. Changed to English (specializing in Anglo-Saxon). Early degree in 1915.

• Enlisted in the Army in 1915, quick marriage to Edith Bratt (Lúthien), then off to France and immediate action in the Somme offensive.

• Spent free time working on stories later collected in Book of Lost Tales (some incorporated later in Silmarillion). Trench warfare experiences very disturbing. Sickness brought him back to England.


• After the war, Tolkien worked as a lexicographer on the OED (similar to the Grimms’ work on their dictionary).

• 1920 he was unexpectedly hired as a Reader at Leeds College (a very advanced position for one so young).

• First scholarly publications and translations.• With E. V. Gordon he founded a “Viking Club” for

undergraduates, devoted mainly to translating Icelandic sagas and drinking beer. They also translated English drinking songs into Old English and Old Norse!


• 1925 a professorship at Oxford became available, and Tolkien returned there, where he spent the remainder of his professional career. Much teaching, relatively little scholarly publishing (other expectations back then).

• One very important monograph on Beowulf.• Founding member of the “Inklings,” a loose group of

literary-minded friends at Oxford, including C. S. Lewis, one of Tolkien’s closest friends, and author of the Narnia tales.

• More work on fictional languages and stories for his children, but nothing written for publication.


• Once, while grading student exams, he found a blank page and wrote, apparently without knowing why, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

• He was not sure what a hobbit was, or what sort of a hole it would inhabit, but – as a professor by nature – he set out methodically to discover what he had meant in that cryptic sentence. The story gradually emerged as a bedtime tale for his children: The Hobbit.

• A manuscript fragment found its way to a publisher in 1936, who asked for a complete copy.


• Tolkien’s typescript was then handed over to the publisher’s 10 year old son, Rayner Unwin, who wrote a very favorable report for his father.

• The Hobbit was published in 1937 and was an instant success. The children’s novel is still recommended reading for grade-schoolers in many countries.

• Unwin senior asked for similar stories, but Tolkien’s other materials were both incomplete and intended for adult audiences, so the publication took some time…


• Nearly 20 years later, the precocious critic Rayner Unwin helped oversee the publication of the three volumes of Lord of the Rings in 1954/55.

• Originally 6 books, the work was refashioned as a trilogy.

• The publishers liked the quality of the work, but expected a rather hefty loss on their investment.

• The initial reaction was surprisingly good, and Tolkien made enough money in the first few years that he felt he should have taken early retirement.


• Lord of the Rings owes an obvious debt to Tolkien’s studies of Old English and Old Norse literature.

• Some of the obvious borrowings: Germanic names (Wormtongue, Shadowfax), symbolic imagery (a cursed ring, a broken and mended sword), different types of beings (elves, wizards, dwarfs, “troll-like” creatures), runes (created by Tolkien himself, like all of the languages in the work).

• Other sources of inspiration as well.• Modernization of material: environmental and pacifist

themes, idyllic rural life, industrialization, etc.


• In the early 1960’s, Ace Books launched a pirated paperback edition in the USA (copyright loophole); the issue was eventually resolved in Tolkien’s favor, which encouraged the publishers to issue authorized paperback editions.

• Sales of Lord of the Rings soared in the mid 1960’s, granting the work cult status and making its author rather wealthy.

• The “Bible of the 60’s Counter Culture,” which somewhat embarrassed the elderly Oxford professor.


• Tolkien continued to publish a number of other stories related to his fictional Middle-Earth.

• Retirement in 1969 and death in 1973 – the family tombstone bears the names Beren and Lúthien, the fictional personas of the couple.

• Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion in 1977, a book of Middle-Earth mythology that forms the historical background for the events in LotR.

• Christopher then published History of Middle-Earth (12 volumes) from 1983 – 1997.


• Tolkien’s work inspired a great number of reproductions, imitations, and satires.

• Animated versions by Rankin-Bass of Hobbit (1978) and Return of the King (1980). Warner Brothers also 1978.

• Directors shied away from filming the novel until computer generated imagery enabled a realistic depiction of the action. Peter Jackson’s LotR (2001-03).

• Trailer: http://www.lordoftherings.net/

• Popular music songs based on LotR, Led Zeppelin, Rush, and others. Leonard Nimoy’s “Bilbo Baggins” is a classic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF5ROpjRAU&list=RDAGF5ROpjRAU).


• Satires also appeared rather quickly, including Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings.

• LotR was also influential in other markets as well, inspiring the fantasy board game Dungeons and Dragons, as well as popular computer and video games.


• Imitations: The genre of Fantasy was decisively influenced by the success of Tolkien’s works. Among the authors inspired by Norse mythology and lore are: • Stephen R. Donaldson• George R. R. Martin• Greg van Eekhout• Neil Gaimon• Jim Butcher• Markus Heitz• Kevin Hearne, and many others.


• One author of popular fantasy literature who was not influenced by Tolkien was Robert E. Howard, of central Texas (1906-1936).

• Admired works of Lord Dunsany. • Father was a country physician,

traveled about Texas, eventually settling in Cross Plains in 1919.

• Robert E. Howard Museum now in the old family home.


• While in High School in Cross Plains, Howard began writing short adventure stories. His first sale, in 1924, was for the Pulp Fiction serial Weird Tales, a short tale about Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals entitled “Spear and Fang.” He made $18 for the story as an 18 year old.

• After school, Howard worked odd jobs around Cross Plains and submitted more stories to the pulp fiction presses, but had little success, so in 1926 he enrolled in Howard Payne College in Brownwood to study business.


• Howard wrote a number of pieces for the college newspaper in Brownwood and submitted many to the editors at Weird Tales.

• His successes increased after 1928, when Howard found the formula for his action-adventure characters:• Solomon Kane, the Puritan swordsman righting

wrongs…• Kull, the Atlantean savage who seized a throne…• Bran Mak Morn, the Pictish chieftain fighting the

Romans


• The Great Depression limited the publication of pulp fiction adventure tales – Howard tried detective stories, but found he was not suited for the genre.

• Howard was more successful with Westerns and humorous tall tales told through personas of Steve Costigan the sailor and Breckinridge Elkins the cowboy.

• In 1932, his most famous character appeared in the pages of Weird Tales, Conan the Cimmerian, the Barbarian warrior from the North in the Hyborian Age (actually a rewrite of a rejected Kull story, “By this axe I rule!”).


• Howard published 17 Conan stories over the next four years.

• Conan: The Hour of the Dragon would have been his first full-length book, but the publication was delayed until after Howard’s death.

• Howard’s mother became seriously ill in 1935 and Howard was worried about her recovery.


• On 11 June 1936, a nurse told Howard that his mother would probably never recover from a coma.

• Howard walked calmly to his car, drove home, parked the car behind his house, and fired a bullet into his brain.

• He died, age 30, a few hours later. • His mother died the next day and the two were buried in

a double funeral.• Cross Plains has a Robert E. Howard Museum, and the

town celebrates an annual Barbarian Festival on the second Saturday of each June.


• Howard was one of the founders of the “Sword and Sorcery” genre of pulp fiction.

• Conan is one of the few works that appeared in magazines, comic books, novels and motion pictures.

• Marvel Comics purchased the license from the Howard estate in 1970 and began a long run of very successful comic books.


• The comic books revise the original magazine tales by Howard, but many were creative works written in a similar style, by a number of different authors.

• Unlike the aristocratic Morris and the professorial Tolkien, Howard’s efforts in fantasy were less literary and largely self-taught.


• Conan the Barbarian (1982).

• First major film for bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• Plot Synopsis: A barbarian trained in the arts of war joins with thieves in a quest to solve the riddle of steel and find the sorcerer responsible for the genocide of his people in this faithful adaptation of Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery adventures. This film briefly sparked a wave of fantasy films including the sequel, Conan the Destroyer, in the early 80s.

• Trailer: http://videodetective.com/home.asp?PublishedID=362

http://videodetective.com/home.asp?PublishedID=362

http://videodetective.com/home.asp?PublishedID=362


• Conan the Barbarian (2011)

The tale of Conan the Cimmerian and his adventures across the continent of Hyboria on a quest to avenge the murder of his father and the slaughter of his village.

Director: Marcus NispelStars: Jason Momoa, Ron Perlman, and

Rose McGowan

http://www.conanthebarbarianin3d.com/


Robert E. Howard, “The Frost Giant’s Daughter” in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian (reprint 2002).


Greg van Eekhout’s Norse Code (2009), tells about a new Valkyrie, recruited in contemporary California, who looks for Odin’s descendents in the U.S. to help supply Valhalla with soldiers for Ragnarok... which is coming soon.


Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (2001), tells of a coming war between traditional gods, led by Odin and Loki, and the newer gods of technology and consumerism. Set largely in the upper Midwest, it follows the attempts of Shadow (Balder) to unravel Odin’s secrets.It is a contemporary masterpiece.


• Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles narrate the present-day adventures of a (long-lived) Celtic Druid in Arizona.

• Hearne combines figures from Celtic mythology with other pantheons in this Urban Fantasy series.

• In Hammered (2011), Atticus O’Sullivan invades Asgard to take on Thor himself.


Kim Wilkins’s Giants of the Frost (2004), tells the story of Victoria Scott who takes a job on an isolated Norwegian island only to find herself the focus of haunting visits from the Norse past. In the world of Asgard, Vidar Odinsson has exiled himself in order to await the reincarnation of the woman he loved.


Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series also presents plot lines taken from Norse mythology – and much from Irish myth and legend. Harry Dresden is a professional wizard fighting supernatural evil in present-day Chicago. Side Jobs (2010) contains a short story about a valkyrie’s hunt for Grendel.

• Markus Heitz, a German author, has written books about Orcs and Dwarves, most recent release in 2010.


• Stan Nicholls has written books about Orcs, most recent release in 2011.

• Every creature mentioned by Tolkien gets their own treatment!


• George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire (1996-present), depict the personal and political conflicts of a fictional realm falling into civil war. Now also an HBO miniseries:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8zYeN9z8XY&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8zYeN9z8XY&feature=related

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