A Short History of Fantasy

The Fairy Way of Writing

The history of fantasy literature is the history of fairy tales and folklore. For more about the roots of fantasy, see Chapter 6. What unites fairy tales, folklore and fantasy is the lack of hesitation that defines the fantastic mode. If you recall the introduction, the fantastic mode relies on a sense of disruption to our baseline reality; fantasy is largely written in the virtual mode, meaning that it generates a new, secondary baseline reality, which forces the reader to orient themselves in different ways than in the fantastic mode. Folklore typically does not operate in a virtual mode, because much folklore reflects pre-scientific ways of seeing the world. Fairy tales, as a literary genre that emerged in the 17th century, do not necessarily share this pre-scientific view; instead, fairy tales demand a deep sort of belief that makes the impossible real in contradiction of empirical reality. In the same way, fantasy requires this sort of belief, but rather than leave it to faith, fantasy writers construct detailed worlds, virtual realities that are real for the duration of the text.

Despite having roots in fairy tales, the presence of fairies alone is not enough for a work to qualify as a work of fantasy literature. For example, we would not call most fairy tales works of fantasy literature. Sure, fantasy has an affinity for fairies, elves, hobbits, and gnomes of all kinds, but in Tolkien’s lecture “On Fairy-Stories,” he claims that fantasy is not about the fae-folk—a catch-all terms used to describe all sorts of sprites, gnomes, elves—so much as it is about a land called Færie. Secondary world creation for Tolkien requires rendering the Færie-realm with the inner consistency of reality, a skill that requires imagination and art on the part of the author. Fairy tales also strive to create secondary worlds of fictional wonder, but represent an earlier stage in the historical development of fantasy. Because of this historical connection, we must, to understand fantasy, examine how the development of the “fairy way of writing” in the 17th century was a direct response to an Enlightenment society that sought to purge literature of all superstitious elements. In short, the Enlightenment waged intellectual war against the fairies, knights, and wizards of romance and folklore.

The fairy way of writing is much older than the timeline in Figure 3.1, but by the end of the 18th century this way of writing had come under so much scrutiny that Joseph Addison felt compelled to write a defense of the fairy way. In the 17th century, Enlightenment thinkers excoriated tales of these types, most notably the influential philosopher John Locke (see Figure 3.2). As you can see to the right, he had strong feelings about fairy tales, especially as they pertained to children. Children should, following Locke, learn to distinguish between fantasy and reality so that they would become adults who did not hold to superstitions. Prior to the Enlightenment influence, it would not make sense to speak about the fairy way of writing because there was just “writing”—folklore, romance, poems, and ballads. During this period, the intellect was quarantined from such fantasies and realistic thinking was encouraged.

This made some people uneasy, especially from the upper classes. It was one thing to separate out the elements of fairies and folklore; they reasoned those elements were, after all, the superstitious beliefs of the lower classes. Yet with this demotion of the popular tales of wonder, religious and mythic wonder was also demoted. Both types of wonder became the realm of fantasy. Writers had to admit that the symbolism and allegory of epic and myth were pure works of the imagination in the same way that fairies and griffins were.

Perhaps no writer of this period was as conscious of this demotion in stature than John Dryden, England’s first Poet Laureate. Dryden’s 1691 play King Arthur blended high and low in a way that his contemporary audience found immoral and profane, a view plainly apparent in A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage by Jeremy Collier.^[1] This section will end with Collier’s word’s quoted in full, because those words should well serve to show the novelty of the fairy way of writing and its disregard for the old unities of myth and folklore. Collier writes:

And why are Truth and Fiction, Heathenism and Christianity, the most Serious and the most Trifling Things blended together, and thrown into one Form of Diversion? Why is all this done unless it be to ridicule the whole, and make one as incredible as the other? His Airy and Earthy Spirits discourse of the first state of Devils, of their Chief of their Revolt, their Punishment, and Impostures. This Mr. Dryden very Religiously calls a Fairy way of Writing, which depends only on the Force of Imagination. What then is the Fall of the Angels a Romance? Has it no basis of Truth, nothing to support it, but strength of Fancy and Poetic Invention?^[2]

Virtual Realms

Modern fantasy shares similarities with science fiction when it comes to the imaginative creation of alternative realities. With both genres, we might do well to remember the maxim that landscape is character, a maxim which can be read as a statement about how the environment shapes people, but also a statement about the ability of a place to take on a life of its own. With this sort of worldbuilding, much SF/F operates in a virtual mode, creating virtual realities (a literal land of the imagination in the case of fantasy).^[3]

We can trace the historical development of these sorts of fiction back to fairy tales, which sought to create secondary worlds of wonder, but the fairy tale model is insufficient to explain fantasy worldbuilding. While many writers before Tolkien had named Fairyland as a place, none had yet sought to construct that place with the sort of worldbuilding rigor that has historically been saved for utopias and contemporarily for science fiction. Fairyland is, itself, the space of the imagination, and fantasy literature is the record of that place. There live all the characters ever imagined, high and low, sacred and profane, and there they enact sagas only limited by the author’s fancy and imagination. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), the creation of Fairyland as a distinct place apart from Earth correlates to the expansion of the British Empire around the globe, a physical closing of space that left no room for fairies, knights, and wizards in reality.

Sometimes this virtual space of the imagination takes the form of pocket universes within the known space of Earth, pockets of space-time not subject to the normal rules of reality. In the example of the pocket universe, it straddles both the fantastic and virtual modes; it creates a reality, but since it is a reality within reality, the fantastic moment of hesitation and surprise also applies. The fantastic mode applies even less to portal fantasies, fantasies such as C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the With, and the Wardrobe (1950). In that series, children travel to Narnia by way of a wardrobe. Here, reality merely plays the role of framing the narrative, all of which unfolds in Narnia itself. In the virtual space of fantasy, and perhaps what makes it most distinct from the virtual spaces of science fiction, is that this virtual setting becomes the world where myth, legend, superstition, and religion all come to life, where King Arthur, Jesus, and Naruto are all just stuff to be reworked by the imagination.

For a long time Fairyland existed side-by-side with reality, part of it and integrated into it. Once reason and discovery confirmed no such place could be found on the confines of this globe, Fairyland was banished, but banished at a right-angle to reality. People continue to believe in fairies, sure, the old ways of knowing do not die, after all, but science does not accept fairies or gods. Existing necessarily outside reality (but within it), Fairyland is a virtual space, not in the sense that it’s some technological metaverse, but in the sense that it is an unlimited space with a reality all its own. Suspension of disbelief—the willful suspension of credulity that allows one to accept fictional facts that contradict reality—is not enough for Fairyland. No, you’ve got to believe, with full conviction and in believing, the secondary world becomes real. Consider Tinkerbell from Peter Pan, and how the audience’s convictions, the audience’s belief in her is necessary to her survival. At that moment, the play ceases to be a tolerated fancy and becomes conviction.

The history of the development of Fairyland as a distinct virtual space is complicated. This virtual character of fantasy perhaps helps explain why fantasy is more popular than ever, our world itself becoming more and more virtual in actuality. One complication arises from the overlap between the fantastic and fantasy literature, a relationship that deserves some attention (See Chapter 5). The fantastic presupposes a baseline reality that the reader shares in common with the characters. The starting point is then with the realistic text. The realistic text ends and begins in reality; the fantastic text, conversely, introduces an element that contradicts the known rules of reality. It creates a moment of hesitation, a gap. In the case of say a pocket universe, the plot might follow something like this. A young woman takes a walk in the woods. She finds a mysterious arch made from trees and passes through. Immediately, strange things begin to occur and she realizes she has entered a strange realm. It is not a dream. It is not a hallucination. She has entered another reality, one governed by the logic and laws of magic (see the subsection “How to Read Fantasy” for more about magic).

Such a text, were it to exist, would be an example of a story told in the fantastic mode in the fantasy genre. The virtual character of Fairyland breaks more sharply with reality, so sharply that the fantastic moment of hesitation at the violation of the rules of reality does not apply. From the very beginning of the story, the reader is not allowed their baseline comfort with known reality. Consider the first line of The Hobbit: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” For the reader unfamiliar with hobbits, this text opens with a hard right-angle turn away from reality. They might ask, what is this hobbit the narrator mentions? Is it some queer animal of which no one has heard? Where is this? Once we know we are squarely in Fairyland, that work is a work of fantasy, even if it employs forms and conventions from the genres of horror, detective novels, science fiction or reality television.

The timeline above shows some of the earliest fantasy novels that construct Fantasyland as a place of the imagination. Many of them begin in reality, such as Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland; we’d call these fantasy works in the fantastic mode. Though portals and other framework devices contribute to the sense of wonder, the main focus of the text is still on the creation and population of Fairyland, an exploration of the magical realm. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth represents the culmination of the development of Fairyland as a distinct place all its own, a place with its own histories, religions, races, and geography.

Even though Tolkien serves as a guiding model, not all Fairylands are neatly populated with fairies fashioned on the model of the English countryside and heroes drawn from Norse saga. In the timeline above, Flatland serves to mark an alternative tradition of fantasy literature. Subtitled “A Romance in Many Dimensions,” Flatland is an educational primer on the nature of dimensions but also a romance, a chivalric tale of heroic adventure. In these alternative versions of Fairyland, even scientific and philosophical discourses become narrative fodder for the fantasy mill. If those discourses describe our reality, what does their fantasization reveal about our perceptions of reality?

During the 20th century, many fantasists held a decidedly “anti-Tolkien” vision. If you regard the timeline below, you will see a few fantasy lands that break with the model of Middle-Earth. Some incorporate scientific elements (Vance), some sympathize with evil and chaos (Moorock), and others hold fast to the notion that might does not make right (Le Guin). A few of these artists are vocally anti-Tolkien^[4], the others not at all, but we don’t intend this designation to be polemical. What we mean by “Anti-Tolkien” is that they construct tragic imaginary worlds not limited by the popular imagination of Europe and that they de-emphasize recovery and consolation as guiding aesthetic principles, principles whereby fantasy worlds recover a lost magic that consoles us for the sorry state of reality. If the fairy of writing is to create worlds where the imagination is free to create, then the “anti-Tolkienists” are arguably more free than any writer stuck in the world of dwarves, elves, and fairies.

Another way fantasy writers mark themselves as “anti-Tolkien” is by drawing on non-European stories and mythologies. This trend, if any, has defined fantasy during the twentieth century as writers around the globe begin to find their own versions of Fairyland. Contemporary authors such as Samit Basu, Rebecca Roanhorse, Nnedi Okorafor, all draw from their respective cultures (Indian, Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo^[5], Nigerian), and in so doing re-fashion and re-make “Fairyland” entirely. Take Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone (2018). Where Tolkien relies upon Christian mythologies, Adeyemi relies upon Yoruban mythologies, the Yoruba being one of the primary ethnic groups of Nigeria. Accordingly, magical power in her world is derived from Orishas, aspects of the Yoruban divine creator made manifest in earthly form. Fantasy literature might not yet be a world literature, due largely to its English and American bias, but it is clear that as desires to hear new stories from different people grow, so too will Fairyland change proportionally in form and appearance.

Virtual Realms and Video Games

Given the virtual nature of fantasy literature, it makes sense that it would find its apotheosis in gaming. From tabletop games to console games, MUDs (Multi-user dungeons), and MMORPGs (Massive multiplayer online role-playing games), the fantasy worlds of gaming are designed for full immersion. Embodied in the virtual world through their avatar, the player becomes the hero in the story, offering a fuller engagement than your average novel.

Fantasy gaming first entered the popular consciousness in 1974 when Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson released Dungeons & Dragons, a game that did more to popularize fantasy in the U.S. than Middle-Earth^[6]. Before the Peter Jackson films, the average person would not have a passing knowledge of the stories and characters of Middle-Earth. Before the films were released, if someone knew about Middle-Earth, it could be neatly assumed they had played Dungeons & Dragons. At the very least they were avid fans of role-playing games (RPGs), most of which are forms of fantasy.

Neither video games or table games are literature, but they do employ narrative structures. A tabletop game might turn into a sprawling adventure, especially if the players do not wish to pursue the plotline developed by the Dungeon Master, the title usually reserved for the person that runs the game. In such games, players can also choose to be good or evil, lawful or chaotic, a complex system of ethical orientation that comes directly from Michael Moorcock’s Elric, a hero torn between law and chaos, evil and good. In this way, such games resemble choose-your-own-adventure stories, a genre of story-telling that allows the reader to choose alternate routes. Online gaming maintains this aspect of choice, allowing the player a variety of tasks, adventures, and story lines.

Games also center the world-building aspects of fantasy, often beginning with maps and other geographic details, including towns and dungeons. These maps are then populated with human societies, but also a whole lot of other societies: elf, dwarf, drow, troll, orc, and so on. But perhaps the most interesting aspect of fantasy games is how they transform the position of the consumer from passive reader to active participant. The player rolls dice, makes decisions, and contemplates choices that have a direct effect on the outcome of the game.

If fantasy is about creating a world that breaks sharply from reality to enter the reader/player into a virtual world populated by story, then that process is stymied by the fact the passive reader knows they are an individual existing in actual reality. Belief in the secondary world might be enough for most readers to be transported in their minds to that world, but that experience is qualitatively enhanced by active participation, by becoming a character in the fantasy world, supplanting the old real self with a new fantasy avatar. Dungeons & Dragons set the stage for hundreds of subsequent table-top games, but nowhere was fantasy more pronounced than in the proliferation of video games following the advent of personal gaming systems. Dragon Warrior, Ultima, Crystalis, Final Fantasy—the fantasy theme is obvious. If you want to escape into a fantasy world and engage in a swashbuckling adventure of wizardry and romance, doing battle with all sorts of wraiths, ghouls, and dragons, then any of those previously mentioned games will suffice.