Tracing the Origins of Fantasy

[Rane Longfox]

With Homer, it is difficult to define, because, as far as I know, its really the only widespread account of the battle of Troy... (please correct me if I'm wrong), and so it is really a sort of historical fiction, rather than fantasy. While he cannot possibly have known all the movements to the detail put down in the Illiad, he can have known the general outline, and who was where when, and he can have made very well educated guesses at the facts behind the story. He would, however, have had to make big guesses at times aswell. I will admit now that I haven't read the Illiad all the way through, and I'm far from being an expert, but while it blends in mythology to the story, its hard to say that it is fantasy, as Brys said, the greeks firmly believed that the gods walked among them and took part in battles and all such things... Nonetheless, the Illiad was made up, at least in part... does creating your own myths as you go count as using established mythology in writing?

Then again, the minutae of discussing what qualifies as fantasy and what doesn't annoys me most of the time

 

[GOLLUM]

Alia,

As has been alluded to if we're talking about one of the the first pieces of known literature then I guess Gilgamesh could get the nod.

Here's a link that has the story translated from the cuinieform found on the orginal 12 clay tablets, dating back to 5,000 years ago. It certainly has mytholgical elements in it although as Brys mentioned the story is based like a lot in that time on historical fact in that Gilgmamesh was an historical king of Uruk in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates (Iraq) around 2700 B.C.

I'd therefore go with Gilgamaesh too. The author is named which is pretty rare for those times, the name being Shin-eqi-unninni and therefore possibly the earliest known human author.

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/


In answer to another query from someone Gulliver's Travels was published in 1726.

Bye...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But all this refers back to what I said, Alia, about needing first to define Fantasy -- and whether the intent of the writer has any bearing on the matter. Because if you say Homer was writing Fantasy merely because he included gods and goddesses and mythical heroes, then what of other religious writings?

And just because so many Fantasy writers past and present have drawn so much inspiration from mythology, that doesn't make them interchangable. Fantasy has a whole array of ancestors, but I think we make a mistake if we make too close an identification between the genre and its sources, just as it would be a mistake to identify a child and his or her parents and grandparents as the same person.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I don't think Gilgamesh closes this topic at all. It's a convenient but totally unexamined supposed trump-card that I see used too often in genre-origin discussions.

As Kelpie, I think, has attempted to point out, intention is crucial here, more so than the inclusion of elements that to us today may seem fantastic. I think the writer of Gilgamesh was probably acting in good faith - he was attempting to narrate something that he thought had really happened, and if he stretched things a bit, it was to make his story and point stronger. Also, ascribing great powers and magical encounters to figures from the past is pretty common to the legendry of all civilizations. It's a way of aggrandizing yourself by building up your roots, and of contributing to the function of social-cementing that such myths and legends perform. And, seeing how people from the modern era are willing to allow race or national pride to lead them into believing that their ancient ancestors might well have pioneered things like air travel and the atom bomb several milennia before the fact, I'm willing to bet that a lot of the ancient legend tellers and their audiences may well have been convinced of the literal truth of even their wildest tales.

While the imaginative creations of early myths and legends have had an impact on what we have come to know as fantastic fiction, I think we need to be clear about the issue of intention before calling any work the earliest piece of fantasy. I'd say that a fantastic tale can, broadly, be defined as a story that includes elements that the writer knows are unlikely or impossible in reality, and that is not intended as a literal account of real events, but as a fictional offering that is intended to amuse and maybe instruct. As such, I'd certainly agree that Aesop, and the writers of the Indian Panchatantra (http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/panchatantra.html#about) are certainly fantasy writers. Homer, the author of Gilgamesh and other epics are not really fantasists in this sense.

I'd reckon, to reiterate a point I've just made, that mythology and legends are an important source since they provide archetypes and story-forms that the modern genre has mined. But the real development of the genre as a genre as a discrete entity should probably begin a little more recently. More on that later.

 

[Jay]

That's what I'm wondering... could such situations be viewed as fantasy even if they weren't intended on being fantasy?

I want to make something that i think we may be taken for granted - the notion that anyone here can discount everything in either Homer' work, not to mention Gilgamesh as not containing anything fantastic intended by the author is a reach, and at the very least questionable. We certainly have no idea what Homer's intention's were, jsut like we don't know if Homer even existed.

Whether the Greek's believed the gods walked on earth is not proof of anything. A huge number of the earth's population appraently believes in the the holy of the invisible man in the sky and a book, and yet if i were to write a novel today about a burning bush communciating with someone or angels flying around it would be in the fantasy section - even in the bookstore next to Vatican City.

Quests, dreams, visions, prophesies, journeys...
Knights, squires, peasants...
Wizards, mages, sorcerers, and witches...
Kings, queens, princes...
Hermits, damsels in distress, gatekeepers, crones, fairies, elves...
Dragons, princesses...
Magic swords, shields, armor, spells, books...
The Middle Ages, Middle Earth..."

Off topic, but You just described 95% of all sub-par fantasy.

I don't think Gilgamesh closes this topic at all. It's a convenient but totally unexamined supposed trump-card that I see used too often in genre-origin discussions.

Again, no one is using it do define the term genre as Gilgamesh nor Aesop had anything to do with the genre of fantasy. Alia asked the question, gave her guidlines, and under such Gilgamesh is clearly the answer regardless of how common it may be (an it is).

I'd reckon, to reiterate a point I've just made, that mythology and legends are an important source since they provide archetypes and story-forms that the modern genre has mined. But the real development of the genre as a genre as a discrete entity should probably begin a little more recently. More on that later.

This is the crux - particularly the last line, as this topic is based on pure opinion. There is tendency in all genre to attemtp to tie into other more works whether due to popularity or to give it more hstorical merit. I tend to consider the genre of fantasy (as I know it) to be no more then a few hundred years old - of course understanding there were many books that had fantastic elements in prior too. I think the begining of the fantastic as I follow it started with people like Poe, and afterwards Machen, Lovecraft, Hodgson, Burroughs, Dunsany, and all owing to Edmund Spenser in some regards.


The question, where fantasy originated from has no answer (and if there is we certainly are not going to come up with it here) - it's much easier to look at the various time or movements and try to gauge there influences of that of individual authors.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I think the begining of the fantastic as I follow it started with people like Poe, and afterwards Machen, Lovecraft, Hodgson, Burroughs, Dunsany, and all owing to Edmund Spenser in some regards.

Add Tolkien in there, and you'd have a comprehensive summary of the roots of the modern genre for all intents and purposes. I'd also want to delve into non-English sources, such as ETA Hoffman, Balzac, de Maupassant as well as people like Hawthrone and Dickens, not to mention Poe.

As to the intention of Homer or the author of Gilgamesh, if you claim to be unable to draw any conclusions in that respect, that hardly forms a strong case for advancing any of these works as proto-fantasy!

I think we do understand enough about the contexts in which these ancient epics were written to conclude they were not purely fictional in intention, which rather takes them out of the discussion as actual works of fantasy, although they obviously contribute by way of influence.

 

[Stalker]

Many of people you mentioned, JP, contributed greatly to "gothic" genre.
I would also like to agree with you on putting forth intention as the key notion for distinguishing between fiction literature and legendary or mythological chronicles. Ilyad and Myth of Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, both were intended as such chronicles.

 

[Jay]

Add Tolkien in there, and you'd have a comprehensive summary of the roots of the modern genre for all intents and purposes. I'd also want to delve into non-English sources, such as ETA Hoffman, Balzac, de Maupassant as well as people like Hawthrone and Dickens, not to mention Poe.

I defintely agree with Tolkien's inclusion (my damn Inkling Bias), I would also have to throw in Eddison (whose Worm Ourborous I think is great).I guess in soem sense George Macdonald might be included (due to his nfluence on Lewis), but he may very well be decsribed as victorian.

If people think Lewis is unbearable, wait untill you read Macdonald.

I would include however, Lewis Carroll, Frank Baum, and perhaps JM Barrie,

As to the intention of Homer or the author of Gilgamesh, if you claim to be unable to draw any conclusions in that respect, that hardly forms a strong case for advancing any of these works as proto-fantasy!

I think neither side of debate could really come up with facts which is why I named those that I think whose ties to fantasy are much less opaque (well, quite certain). On a personal level, I have to believe they were some notion on the fantastic implied in either work, but that's not really argument worthy, just my opinion.

I think we do understand enough about the contexts in which these ancient epics were written to conclude they were not purely fictional in intention, which rather takes them out of the discussion as actual works of fantasy, although they obviously contribute by way of influence.

The key word I guess would be purely, and because of that I would agree.


BTW I really, really, can't stand wikipedia!

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Why not? It's a very cool resource, and purely democratic at that! Although I only use it to cheat on online quizzes.

BTW, it's true that some of the names I cited such as de Mauppasant and Balzac are more associated with Gothic fiction, but I think the Gothic movement and horror literature in general are a very important part of the fantasy landscape, and that many elements of the fantastic tradition derive from the horrific. Actually, I think fantasy in general could do with a large infusion of horror, but that's a different matter altogether. Certainly many of the most powerful moments in fantasy are the scariest.

 

[Stalker]

Disagree on Gui de de Mauppasant and Honore de Balzac. Cannot deny that they (especially the latter) used gothic elements in their works but both were realists, and de Mauppasant, IMHO, was even naturalist (the trend of positivism in literature).

The list of epics that are to be considered as legenrary chronicles can be also enriched by Older and Younger Edda, Mahabharata and Ramayana, the Book of Veles (if it's not fake).
However, the other epic, Beowulf, seems to fall into the group of earliest fantasy books if it can ever be proved that it had fictionous intention.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Well, yes I was pushing it a bit with Balzac and de Mauppasant, on the strength of horrific works in otherwise more realism oriented canons. A handful of Balzac's stories are redolent of Gothicism, just as certain tales by de Maupassant are clearly horror, but it's probably a bit of stretch.

 

[cyborg_cinema]

A Cro-Magnon cave painting depicting hunter cocking spear at woolly mammoth could be a written record of sub-man tribal leader acquiring food. Exploits of tribal leader king with spear as staff. The "author" might embellish the "story" by sketching the mammoth noticably larger. Fiction by torchlight.

The exploits of an imperial leader—a semi-divine Sumerian king—acquiring territory and hegemony, or a courageous king plunging his double-edged sword into the heart of a firey dragon.

Based on original "intention", fantasy could be traced back to cave paintings.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Let's not lose sight of the difference between fiction, fantasy, and wishful thinking -- as I think we are beginning to do in some of the more involved explanations of why this or that ancient source was really writing fantasy. If you include everything that didn't happen but somebody wrote about it (or drew a picture of it) then all fiction and most art is fantasy. If you include every example of someone gilding the facts, then a great deal of history, autobiography, etc. has to be classified as fantasy, too.

And surely there is a different impulse involved in writing about things one believes to be true or could be true (no matter how fantastical in the eyes of later eras), and venturing out into the realm of "what if the laws of nature were not what they are, what if the world were a very different place?" Because the second requires an imaginative leap on the part of the writer and the reader. An imaginative leap, by the way, that a lot of people are unable to make, which is why they can never get into fantasy.

 

[Alia]

It falls back to the intent of the writer... how do we know if the artist of a picture or writer of an ancient story intended for a certain piece to be fantasy or not? We don't know... That's why I wonder about Galgamesh and it's intent. Having not read or researched it other than what I have already posted, I can't draw a conclusion on the writers intent. Homer is mythology and I believe in one sense is fantasy. I believe that mythology is one of the earliest fantasy writing we have. Homer wrote to appease an audience using information provided to him at the time. Imagine what the man would write now if he were alive.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

A huge number of the earth's population appraently believes in the the holy of the invisible man in the sky and a book, and yet if i were to write a novel today about a burning bush communciating with someone or angels flying around it would be in the fantasy section - even in the bookstore next to Vatican City.

I think you are wrong there, Ainulindale. In fact, I know you would be wrong if the novel were a biblical epic, like a retelling of the story of Moses or David. Conversations with God notwithstanding, the book would go in with the mainstream fiction.

Even in a contemporary setting, the mere presence of the miraculous wouldn't necessarily land the book in with SF and Fantasy, it would depend on how it was handled -- for instance, on how many of those angels would be flying around (a question for the ages: how many angels can dance on the pages of a mainstream novel?) and how well the religious elements agree with what that large portion of the population you mention actually believes.

A character who was inspired to sainthood by conversations with God might well be regarded as mainstream fare, particularly if written by a usually mainstream author, while a book about Jesus coming back as a woman would definitely be categorized as fantasy (when it wasn't called something a whole lot worse).

But arguments based on where a book might be shelved in a bookstore probably won't get us anywhere, because in the end the books go where somebody thinks they have a good chance of being sold.

 

[Alia]

I agree with you Kelpie...

I think you are wrong there, Ainulindale. In fact, I know you would be wrong if the novel were a biblical epic, like a retelling of the story of Moses or David. Conversations with God notwithstanding, the book would go in with the mainstream fiction.

It falls back to the intent of the writer... As I read over some of the posts in this thread referring to Galgamesh and Homer I thought of the bible and it's referrences to creation and other miracles... but I disregarded it due to the fact it was written as a history with no real intent to entertain it's audience even though many may think it's a fantasy. It wasn't written as a fantasy story like Homer did for his audiences.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes, but intent to entertain is a whole different matter, Alia, than the intent to write "make believe," which is what I would say distinguishes the fantasy writer from all others.

For one thing, we don't know that Homer put the mythical elements into the story for their entertainment value, or because he believed (based on earlier versions of the story) that they were historically accurate. In fact, considering his audience, he more likely put them in to inspire awe, or to give the events more importance or validity in the minds of those who heard the story.

People in different times than ours had different touchstones for evaluating the "truth." To an ancient Greek, placing the story in even more ancient times and throwing in a few gods and goddesses or mythical heroes would lend the whole thing authority, in a way that is quite foreign to the way we think today. We tend to believe in something because it reflects the latest thinking, because it's up-to-date, or because we can project a future when it might be true -- all this because our big cultural myth is the Myth of Progress. But through most of history the prevailing myth was that of the Golden Age. As we believe that our descendants will be capable of greater things than we are capable of now, the Greeks believed that their distant ancestors had knowledge and abilities (not to mention contact with the gods) which they themselves lacked. A modified version of this still existed through the Middle Ages, when, for instance, if you were to write a treatise on any subject, in order to give it weight you would include quotations from the oldest authors available, rather than quoting your contemporaries.

For another thing, even a writer who doesn't believe in the literal truth of the fantastical things that he or she puts into a story may do so with serious intent, for the sake of symbolism, or for the psychological power of certain familiar fantasy archetypes. Plenty of modern fantasy writers are plenty serious about what they are doing. Is someone who writes grim, dark, tortured fantasy intended to tell something important the writer thinks he or she knows about the human condition less of a fantasist than someone who writes light and whimsical fantasy just for it's entertainment value? I don't think so, anyway. Nor is it always accurate to say that those fantasy elements are there to make the message more dramatic or interesting or entertaining. The fantasy elements may be there because they are the only way that the author's thoughts can be explained or demonstrated (while the perfectly ordinary bloodshed and sex could just as easily be there for the sake of entertainment value).

 

[GOLLUM]

Hi all I've been following this dicsusion thread and found it quite interesting.

I'd like to ask a question here "What is Fantasy?". That is to say do we have a definitve defintion on this or does the very fact of trying to construct a defintion by default limit one in terms of what may be included?

The reason I ask this is because in my mind I'm not sure how easy it is to tie down something like this and perhaps the best way we can do this is by example (i.e. pointing to specific literatury works that may not always be immeditaley apparent to all and sundry as fantasy) rather than a specified defintion. Perhaps we should also be exploring the term "Genre" and what historical implications or bearing this has had on the defintion of fantasy.

Also the way the term fantasy is viewed today by society vs. say late 18th Century with writers like Hoffmann, 19th Century with Poe, Caroll etc.. and 20th Century with Tolkien, Lewis etc.. is something I find interesting to contemplate.

I'm heading off now but please feel free to answer these queries...

PS Obviously there's plenty of references from Wikpedia etc.. but I want to know what people here think.

 

[cyborg_cinema]

...the term "Genre" and what historical implications or bearing this has had on the defintion of fantasy.

...based on what anthropologists managed to dig up, Gilgamesh-type fictional tales poked into clay tablets may have been the only genre in town. What other "genres" existed at that time around the world?

 

[Alia]

When I think of Homer I think of Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars Series... both rich with religion aspects. Kate's religion is very close to modern day catholicism setting in a medival fantasy world filled with magic and wonder. Kate's work is viewed as pure fantasy... Homer I believe has done the same thing...

I'd like to ask a question here "What is Fantasy?". That is to say do we have a definitve defintion on this or does the very fact of trying to construct a defintion by default limit one in terms of what may be included?

Awesome question, mate! And I'm tempted to cut and past the definition from Wikpedia... but my own thoughts are that Fantasy involves magic. There's more, but I think magic is a must when dealing with fantasy.