After having discussed the origins of fantasy earlier, here is a short overview of how the genre developed during the second half of the twentieth century and positioned itself as a genre to be taken seriously.
Authors and their works
After publishing The Hobbit in 1937, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was published in 1954-1955. The books became very popular and influenced the whole genre. Around the same time C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia and not long after, during the late sixties and early seventies, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote her Earthsee novels. Soon after, several other influential authors entered the scene. Most noticeble were Terry Brooks (Shannara) and David Eddings (Belgariad) who wrote their fantasy series mainly in the late seventies, the eighties and the early nineties.
The likes of Raymond E. Feist, Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, Robin Hobb and Robert Jordan joined the genre throughout the eighties and nineties, helping to make fantasy into a mature genre.
Movies in the eighties
Not only the world of literature picked up and started to accept fantasy, Hollywood also stepped in. Many great fantasy movies were produced of which several were big hits with mainstream audiences. Everyone has heard of movies like The Neverending Story, Conan the Barbarian, Legend and Willow, and probably can name a few more they remember from those days. Together with the new fantasy books and series that were coming out, these movies helped introduce fantasy to the masses and make it allright to like the genre: people no longer needed to feel embarressed to read or watch fantasy.
This is how a genre that started out as myths told over camp fires and children’s tales, became a mature literature and movie genre, read and watched by many millions.
Next time, I will go into the developments during the first decade of the new millenium.
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.
