Dunsany for college fantasy course

[Extollager]

I'm roughing out the reading list for a college course on fantasy. I expect to use several of Lord Dunsany's stories. My tentative list:

"The Sword of Welleran"
"The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth"
"Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean"
"Bethmoora"
"The Bride of the Man-Horse"
"The Hoard of the Gibbelins"

All of these are included in the selection made by Lord and Lady Dunsany shortly before his death, except that I have substituted "The Hoard of the Gibbelins" for their "Distressing Tale of Thangobrind" and added "The Fortress," which they did not choose.

Dunsany fans, how would this be for an intro to the guy's major high fantasy? (I am intentionally passing over "The Kith of the Elf-folk" etc.)

The stories that the Dunsanys selected were:

[FONT=&quot] “The Sword of Welleran,” “The Kith of the Elf-folk,” “The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller,” “The Three Sailors’ Gambit,” “A Story of Land and Sea,” “The Wonderful Window,” “Idle Days on the Yan” (formerly “Yann”), “The Widow Flynn’s Apple Tree,” “The Exiles’ Club,” "East and West,” “The Assignation,” “The Hen,” “The Bride of the Man-Horse,” “Bethmoora,” “Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean,” and “The Return.” [/FONT]

 

[j d worthington]

It's a good selection but, from my view, The Gods of Pegāna ought to be included, as showing an aspect of Dunsany which is, if not unique, quite unusual; and is also a quite brief text to introduce. At least, I would select several of the best tales from that, as well as the introduction and final tale....

 

[thatollie]

What college is this going to be at?

 

[Extollager]

JDW,

My (old!) memory is that I wasn't fascinated by Gods of Pegana. Well, to what would you direct my attention as worthy to be in the company of the stories I did choose?

Incidentally, when I got home I checked my copy of Lin Carter's first Dunsany anthology for the Ballantine Fantasy series, At the Edge of the World, and noted that, of my six selections, he chose four -- "Fortress," "Poltarnees," "Bethmoora," "and "Bride." He also chose "Thangobrind," but I favor "Hoard of the Gibbelins" over that one (they are basically the same story) -- for one thing because I think it likely Tolkien was influenced by "Hoard" in the writing of his macabre poem "The Mewlips" (in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil). As for "Sword of Welleran," my 6th story, Carter had chosen that one for his very first Ballantine fantasy anthology, The Young Magicians -- that was the story he decided to offer to the attention of readers who'd never read Dunsany before.

So I'm feeling a leetle smug about my selection -- which was much guided by Lord and Lady D's own.

Thatollie, I have replied to you privately.

 

[thatollie]

Hmm, yes. So, which other authors are you including in this curriculum?

 

[Extollager]

Well, I'm still working on the reading list. The course is an entry for our "World Literature Seminar." I am quite sure about using Waley's translation of Wu Ch'Eng-En's Monkey and pretty sure about Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Possibly some Kwaidan tales.

The emphasis of the course, though, is to be on the modern fantasy tradition in English. I will certainly include some work by George MacDonald (possibly as much as Lilith and "The Golden Key," "Photogen and Nycteris," and "The Light Princess") and am leaning towards Tolkien's Silmarillion and Children of Hurin. G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. Perhaps Rider Haggard's She. Maybe C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew, which I think responds affectionately to Haggard's romance. Howard's "Tower of the Elephant." Arthur Machen's "N." Blackwood's "Wendigo." Alan Garner's The Owl Service. Other possibilities.

I mean to include some science fiction: several H. G. Wells short stories (probably "The Crystal Egg," "The Country of the Blind," "The Sea-Raiders," etc.). Lovecraft's "Colour Out of Space."

 

[Extollager]

Those are things I have read. I might read Mirrlees's Lud-in-the-Mist and McKillip's Forgotten Beasts of Eld and see if one of those would be good for the course. But I can do only so much.

The book-length works need to be in print and reasonably priced. Short stories need to be in the public domain (so no Aickman's "Into the Wood"!) because I don't intend to include any anthologies as required texts.

I would like students to come away from the course with a decent acquaintance with several of the major names in English-language classic fantasy and with some sense of fantasy's variety, although I want to emphasize high fantasy as opposed to weird fiction, sword-and-sorcery, etc. Many of my selections were in the Ballantine series (1969-74) or could appropriately have been.

 

[D_Davis]

I would say that The Gods of Pegana should be included because it is a superior example of world building, a convention that is so intrinsically tied to the fantasy genre. That Dunsany builds his world in a mere fraction of the pages that most modern fantasy authors would use is extraordinary.

With that said though, I haven't read a ton of Dunsany. Although I do plan to read much more.

BTW, sounds like a great class.

 

[Extollager]

For all its possible historical significance, I don't know if The Gods of Pegana is intrinsically compelling enough for me to add it -- which would mean pushing out something else. Tolkien is surely a far greater world-inventor than Dunsany and I will probably be asking the students to read most or all of the First Age material in The Silmarillion and the entire book of The Children of Hurin. I do appreciate the thoughts, though. So far I'm getting the sense that, aside from the omission of Pegana, everyone's pretty happy with the six stories I did select.

As for the course in general -- thanks for the affirmation! I'm leaning away from including excerpts, so probably no William Morris, E. R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake, David Lindsay. Charles Williams, and other worthies.

I might include Ursula Le Guin's Wizard of Earhsea.

I haven't definitely ruled out some pre-modern Western fantasy such as Saga of the Volsungs and the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, but I probably will omit them. I include Malory, Spenser, Milton ("Comus"), and Coleridge ("Rime," "Christabel," "Kubla Khan") in another course. Otherwise I'd need to think about them.

Deciding the reading list is always one of the most enjoyable even if a little vexatious things about working up a course.

 

[j d worthington]

In part, it is the world-building but, as you say, Tolkien has done this much better -- and with far more detail -- since. However, the entire fabulist tradition in modern fantasy owes a great deal to this little book of Dunsany's; and many of the stories are themselves charming "nature-fables" or allegories, a type of fantasy story which, while not all that popular now, has certainly had its impact on the genre. You might also look at Poe's "Silence -- A Fable" and "Shadow: A Parable", which influenced both Wilde and Dunsany in their fantasies and fairy tales.

Incidentally, The Gods of Pegāna can be found online, complete with the original Sime illustrations:

http://www.archive.org/details/godsofpegana00duns

As far as Morris, you might consider his The Story of the Glittering Plain, which is quite short, and also available at the same site.

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=The%20Glittering%20Plain%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts

I believe it may also be in print from Wildside Press... yep, it is:

http://www.wildsidepress.com/The-Glittering-Plain-by-William-Morris_p_302.html

 

[Fried Egg]

The problem with "Gods of Pegana" is that you can't just extract particular stories from the collection. In my opinion, they are best read together, one after the other. Either include the whole of it or none of it.

 

[Connavar]

"Gods of Pegana" would be more interesting if you read the whole collection. In literary course with limited time the stories you choosed show his qualities better.

Frankly i dont like that collection as much his collections with story like fantasy. They are less weird god this and.

Pegana is more Lord Dunsany fans, literary fantasy fans with alot of time, effort to get in to it. Not for college students that wants to know why this author and that author is great,important.


Tolkien is not better world builder than Lord Dunsany. He could never build the worlds Dunsany builds in 20 pages stories and 200 page novel like The King of Elfland's Daugther. Its one thing to have 1000s of pages to build LOTR and another thing to create amazing worlds in few pages.

Its like saying modern epic fantasy with huge role playing like worlds is better than effective world inventor like Lord Dunsany. There is fav authors of yours and there is literary ability stronger authors in the case of Lord Dunsany vs Tolkien world inventing.....

 

[woodsman]

Whilst I agree that Dunsany had a gift for doing so much with so little, Tolkein took world building so much further. In fact I don't think I've come across any other fantasy which has developed background to such a degree. Middle Earth and the other areas which he writes of have their own languages and mythologies with more depth than the key locations in most other people's works. The Silmarillon in particular puts this across.

Sword of Welleran is where I started with Dunsany and it makes a very good introduction, although I wonder if it would be possible to make comparisons with the Bible which appears to be of some influence on both content and style.

 

[Fried Egg]

Yes, we have Tolkien to thank for excessive world building, a phenomenon who's stranglehold can still be felt around the neck of fantasy today.

 

[D_Davis]

Yes, we have Tolkien to thank for excessive world building, a phenomenon who's stranglehold can still be felt around the neck of fantasy today.

Yep. Had subsequent authors followed in Dunsany's steps, rather than in Tolkien's, we'd probably have many more slimmer volumes of fantasy fiction.

While Tolkien did it in greater detail, his stuff is all so bogged down and spelled out that there isn't much room for reader interpretation. On the other hand, Dunsany does so with broader strokes, and so his work encourages the reader to use his or her imagination more.

I contend that Dunsany's approach is the better one, or, at the very least, the one that I prefer.

 

[woodsman]

Oh I would agree, it's actually a reason I loved Earthsea. Le Guin really created a world with very little material. I think the decline of the short story also appeared to follow Tolkien; although I've never really studied the matter.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed Gormenghast which goes the other way entirely.

 

[Extollager]

I think Dunsany is almost the anti-Tolkien. By that I don't mean that readers must line up as Dunsanians or Tolkienians! I enjoy both authors and have enjoyed their writing from the first time I read either.

But surely their outlooks and methods could hardly be more different. Here's a twofold thesis for discussion:

1.It's of the essence of Dunsany's fantasy to emphasize its insubstantiality. It's all dreams. Our world is but a dream too. It isn't that there is a blissful reality beyond the endless dreams of worlds. Dreams are all there is. I suspect that Dunsany would have liked it if someone had said, "Might your dreamer Mana-Yood-Sushai himself be only a dream begotten by a dream?"

Accordingly, Dunsany's worlds are without depth. There is little sense in them of a history that the author could tell us if he wished. The geography feels improvised and ad hoc. The actions of characters have little or no real consequence. A group of heroes may act ("Sword of Welleran") but their victory is not really significant. The much-praised Dunsanian names are musical improvisations. There is no sense that behind them lies a profound understanding of semantics, phonology, etc. They are delicate or imposing or grotesque as the need of the moment requires, that's all. While the Dunsanian story lasts, it may be quite engrossing, like a dream or nightmare. But dreams and nightmares don't last. Nor (it is implied) will this dream that we call our waking life.

2.Tolkien loves the sense of a (secondary) world. While we are reading, we enjoy its consistency. One measure of Tolkien's unique achievement is his ability -- astonishing when you think about it, but you don't even think about while you are reading -- to create a world of such variety that yet is always consistent with itself. It is a world big enough for hobbits carrying umbrellas and dressed like Victorian or Edwardian gentlemen with waistcoats and pocket handkerchiefs -- and for "Atlanteans" (descendants of Numenor), Old English wraiths and warriors, dragons akin to the "worm" of an Icelandic saga, and much more. Despite so much variety, Tolkien's world never seems like a patchwork of inconsistent materials. Its geography and history make sense and constantly have an impact on what can or can't happen in the story. The very phases of the moon for the duration of the story have been worked out carefully. His languages (including nomenclature) are not just "consistent" with other elements of the story, but actually underlie it.

Moreover, many readers have found that the "values" implicit in the story are genuine ones that never came alive for them so much before. An example: the love of the natural world, the respect for bird, beast, flower, tree and water, that informs every page; this is something that, I believe, has affected the enhanced concern for "the environment" that has emerged since the 1960s. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was of great importance in the fight against DDT. Tolkien's writings, I have no doubt, have helped to stiffen resolve against industrial pollution and, in terms of positive action, have gotten a lot of people out of their cars and onto their feet to walk. I'm not talking simply about an "appreciation" of nature here. But that is valuable too. One of the very best writers on Tolkien (the others would be Verlyn Flieger, Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, Humphrey Carpenter, John Garth, Douglas Anderson, and of course Christopher Tolkien), Tom Shippey, said in footage for a film about Tolkien that reading Tolkien makes people "bird-watchers, tree-spotters, hedgerow-grubbers." A personal testimony: my own involvement with growing some of my own food certainly is prompted in part by my passion for Tolkien's writing. If you are at all interested in this aspect of Tolkien, look up the excellent book by Dickerson and Evans called (somewhat schlockily) Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R. R. Tolkien. This sensibility has appeared in Tolkien's readers from the beginning of the time his books were available, in the mid-Sixties, in paperback.

There is little of that in Dunsany. Reading Dunsany notoriously makes people want to write like Dunsany for a "phase." But I'm not saying reading Dunsany is a waste of time, just as I am not saying that the justification for reading Tolkien is that it will make you reduce your carbon footprint. I'm mostly trying to highlight a difference in sensibility.



Incidentally, I do see one point of convergence between Tolkien and Dunsany. Both do stand up for art. Tolkien's thoughts on the dignity of imaginative art are expressed in his indispensable essay "On Fairy-Stories" and I won't try to summarize them here. Dunsany wrote that "dreams" are the "one thing that we can add" to the world and it would be poorer without them. "We cannot add to the weight of the world by an ounce, we can only bring to it fancies, and whether they are expressed in towers by architects, or carved in jade by craftsmen in China, or written on paper by poets, it seems to me that they are the only wealth by which Earth can increase its store" (quoted from Carter's anthology of Dunsany called At the Edge of the World, p. 238).

 

[D_Davis]

Man, I'd love to take your class.

I think we'd talk for hours! I'd probably annoy the other students.

 

[Extollager]

D Davis and Thatollie -- thank you -- it would be great to have you on board for the class!

 

[Extollager]

Following up on my long post about Dunsany and Tolkien just now, here's some more -- I can't let go of this topic.

Again, don't interpret what I say as disparaging Dunsany. I'm talking about what, as it seems to me, he does and doesn't do, yes, but not in order to discourage reading him. Writing about him makes me want to go back and (re)read him.

But on this idea of Dunsany as the "anti-Tolkien": Part of Tolkien's achievement is to get into his fantasy so much of what we know and experience as people living in the "primary world." Take courage, suffering, love.

Dunsany's heroes show courage because heroes are courageous (e.g. when it comes to fighting monsters). It would actually work against the effect Dunsany the anti-Tolkien seems to seek, if his characteristic fantasies grappled with courage as a topic. Conversely, courage is a real theme for Tolkien -- often including that "three o'clock in the morning courage" that all of us need sometimes.

It would work against Dunsany's own magic if he addressed himself to the topic of suffering. (Dunsany's sometime disciple Clark Ashton Smith was interested in suffering in some of his stories, but from an aesthetic point of view; e.g. to develop a sense of morbidity by evoking cruelty, torture, etc.) Conversely, the suffering (physical, spiritual) of a number of characters -- Frodo, Gollum, and others -- is part of the reality of Tolkien's secondary world. Tolkien "gets in" much more of our own world of experience, its trials, than Dunsany -- and this is not a fault in Dunsany; again, the effect of his stories actually requires the exclusion of very much indeed of our experience.

Love as a conventional passion might appear in a Dunsany story ("Bride of the Man-Horse"?), but it would work against the effect he seeks if he gave love a serious presentation in his stories. Conversely, it has been argued that one of the things that brings people back to The Lord of the Rings is a rich, if sometimes subtle, presentation and exploration of varieties of love in it. See this essay:

http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=15-01-048-f


In what I have been saying about Dunsany in this and my previous long message of today, I am thinking of his characteristic high fantasy short stories. Someone reading my comments on "environmentalism" (a term I dislike) in Tolkien may have wanted to point out to me Dunsany's evocation and advocacy of nature in The Curse of the Wise Woman, etc. But I'm not talking about Dunsany's total literary output, just his characteristic fantasy -- the work that we all have in mind when we use the adjective "Dunsanian." Dunsanian fantasy is ironic, aesthetic, and very limited. I'm reminded of something Ursula Le Guin said about Dunsany mining a very narrow vein that was pure gold and all his own. I'll enjoy pieces of Dunsanian "jewelry" from time to time. But Tolkien has far more to offer!