Time for a bit of background information. A resource on any topic should contain some background info on the topic in question and what better then a look at the origin and history of the topic. This being a website focusing on fantasy… here is an insight in the origin of the fantasy genre.
I don’t want to go too far back in history but all fictional stories as we know them today have their origin in storytelling as was done by our ancestors: sharing stories at the camp fire. At some point mythology came into the picture with stories about the fantastic deeds of gods and the horrors committed by terrible mythical creatures like werewolves and the like.
Fantasy as we know it today definitely has its origins in these stories. Gods or godlike characters are still very popular in the fantasy genre, often based on ancient cultures like the Greeks, the Romans, the Vikings or the Egyptians. Mythical creatures like vampires and werewolves also often pop up.
Whereas storytelling clearly was the origin of all fiction and thus also fantasy, the actual start of the genre of fantasy as we have come to know it today originates from the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Although opinions differ, an author that is seen by many as (one of) the creator(s) of the fantasy genre is George Macdonald. During the second half of the 19th century he wrote several fantasy books and by doing so inspired fantasy legends like J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings) and C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia).
These authors, together with the likes of Robert E. Howard (Conan), H.P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu) and L. Frank Baum (The Wizard of Oz), showed up during the 20th century and really put fantasy on the map as genre that was to be taken seriously. The works of these authors were much more than simple childrens storie about boogymen and it became more and more accepted to acknowledge fantasy as literature.
So far this overview of the early days of the fantasy genre. In the near future I will discuss the development of the fantasy genre during the second half of the 20th century when in the sixties Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings began to take the world by storm and the eighties and nineties brought fantasy to the movie theatres.
