Forked Thread: What is the difference between New Fantasy and Old Fantasy?

[Doug McCrae]

They're the subject of considerable serious academic study. They're not mostly crap. They're shelved under classics, not fantasy. They're mostly poetry, not prose. To us they are works of speculative fiction, in the sense that they are concerned with things that are not, but to the people of the time it's highly questionable they would even count as fiction.

 

[Corjay]

The most obvious point being an awareness by both the author and the audience in modern fiction that it is purely fantasy, while Homer, Virgil, the Beowulf poet, etc. actually believed the stuff they wrote was possible. When they were writing, they were writing heroic action fiction sorta like James Bond for their audience, not fantasy.

But that's more of an external than an internal difference, and so probably insufficient.

Then again, all modern fantasy authors, even Tolkien who was a dyed in the wool idealist and romantic, write fantasy with a modern point of view, and modern values, characters, plot structures, etc. suffuse modern fantasy and make it stand out from older "fantastic literature."

For all their similarities, Aragorn is no King Arthur or Odysseus or Beowulf, nor is he intended to be (for that matter, those same characters in more modern fantasy novels fare very differently than they have in the past) and characters like Frodo, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or even Driz'zt are completely without precedent in "pre-fantasy" literature.

Both Homer and Virgil did not believe what they wrote. They were not redactors or historians. They were poets and storytellers. Much of what they wrote was original to their own text, and some borrowed from other fanciful tales. It wasn't until long after their deaths that their stories were canonized. Both wrote in what is known as "heroic prose," meaning that it was fanciful, and virgil wrote in allegorical terms in what was affecting his own life. And since we don't know who the Beowulf poet is, we can't say what they believed, but we can be certain that he was not redacting or recording historical events, and is itself written in "heroic prose," suggesting that that author, too, didn't likely believe what he wrote.

I beg to differ concerning Aragorn, but that discussion would send us into minutia.

"Modern point of view" does not separate the two forms more than experience differentiates one person's writing from another.

 

[Baduin]

Atlantis is a myth, invented by Plato and probably based on some actual historical events - the similarity between Atlantis and ancient Crete is obvious. Since Plato was a great mythmaker, his myth survives even today.

"Myth" means an explanation of some permanent element of reality by a story, usually of its origin. Mythic kind of thinking is quite different from philosophic thinking, and Plato knew how to used the older way when the new rationalist thinking would not work.

Plato has invented many other myths, eg the Ring of Gyges, which is the basis of the Lord of the Rings and "Invisible Man" of Wells.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges

Modern science fiction is not mythic, since the mythic way of thinking is quite rare and disparaged today. If it happens, it is a shameful secret, not a conscious art.

For people who use mythic thinking, the difference between fact and fiction are not the same as for us.

The older fantasy replaced myth after the end of the mythic thinking. Even a comparison of Eneid to Iliad shows the difference between the rationalised gods of Virgil and mythical gods of Homer. The gods of Virgil are the fundamental forces of the universe, and their human features are more a matter of tradition and artistic presentation.

However, the fantastic elements never constituted a separate genre. They appeared in different genres, as knightly romance, fairy tale, gothic novel, lost-world story etc. All those genres were different from modern fantasy since they never created separate fantasy world, never cut off themselves from traditional folklore, and never created separate fantastical "rules" of the world.

Early authors of modern fantasy, like lord Dunsay, are nearer that model. On the other hand, William Morris and Tolkien, and to lesser extent R.E.Howard, gave rise to the modern fantasy genre. This genre has actually fairly strict rules, and is much less fantastic than old fantasy, where you could find wonder without the need for tiresome explanation.

 

[Corjay]

Actually, a myth, while it may be used to EXPLAIN a historical event, only has the necessity of being canonized as a religious belief. That is the ONLY requirement. It need have no more historical significance than telling a teacher a dog ate your homework.

 

[Corjay]

What I'm finding here is people thinking that the myth relates and is created by the religion, but in fact the religion usually adopts the pre-existing story as a myth to express values and beliefs. Make no mistake, the writers knew that what they wrote was shear fantasy. And again, what their audience believes has absolutely no bearing on that.

 

[Desdichado]

James Bond is fantasy. It's just not presumed to be supernatural fantasy.

So are letters to Penthouse.

Again; I'm not talking about little f fantasy, I'm talking about Fantasy as a distinct literary genre. You're back to little f fantasy again.

Both Homer and Virgil did not believe what they wrote. They were not redactors or historians.

And I didn't say that they did. I said that they believed that they could be true. They knew quite well (I presume) that they were actually making up the stories that they were composing.

"Modern point of view" does not separate the two forms more than experience differentiates one person's writing from another.

That's your claim. You asked me to explain what difference I saw between them. Then I told you. Then you told me that that's not really a difference.

 

[Corjay]

That's your claim. You asked me to explain what difference I saw between them. Then I told you. Then you told me that that's not really a difference.

Oops. Sorry. I thought this was a "discussion" thread. I didn't realize it defaults to a "post your opinion but don't dispute ideas" thread if I don't make it clear.

Come on man. If someone disagrees, you don't have to argue it if you don't want to, but don't try making them look like a fool for countering your point.

 

[Desdichado]

Oops. Sorry. I thought this was a "discussion" thread. I didn't realize it defaults to a "post your opinion but don't dispute ideas" thread if I don't make it clear.

Come on man. If someone disagrees, you don't have to argue it if you don't want to, but don't try making them look like a fool for countering your point.

No, I wasn't trying to do that; you simply stated your opinion and that was that.

I guess if you don't think that the modern point of view is relevent, I thought you'd hazard a comment or two on why not, since clearly a few of us besides myself think that that's a significant difference. I can't engage you in a discussion if I open with my first point and your response is little more than "Nuh-uh!"

As for whether or not the ancient authors actually believed what they wrote; I never claimed that that was a difference I saw, merely that they believed that it wasn't fantasy so much as merely fiction.

To me that's a pretty significant distinction. There's no point in creating literary genres as labels to help categorize things if we make them so broad that they encompass too many things to be useful.

As for Tolkien etc. having a modern view on plots, characterizations and values; if you don't think that's significant, I find it unlikely that we can even agree on what the definition of a literary genre is. As far as I'm concerned, that's the meat and potatoes of separating one genre from another.

 

[Corjay]

Providing facts isn't just "nuh-uh". Providing facts is "nuh-uh, and here's why...". It wasn't a wasted post as you seem to be implying. But instead of arguing with you about the semantics of an argument, I'll let this stew until we get some new ideas and new approaches in the thread.

I addressed your post and avoided a discussion about exactly comparing one character in fantasy to another or searching out comparisons. Until someone comes up with a proof, a trope, that is common in modern fantasy that cannot be found in classical literature and which exceeds or is clearly distinct from anything in classical literature, then the argument is going to go nowhere. It would be meaningless for me to point out all the places where they overlap, because we all know there are plenty of places where they overlap.

You mentioned that there is no precedent for the Aragorn, Grey Mouser, Frodo, Conan, Fafhrd, and Driz'zt. But you're going to have to get more specific about what part of the character you're referring to as precedent, even if it's just a sample. Even still, that would only show originality on the individual author's part, unless the characters you mentioned all share a trope that isn't found in classical works.

 

[Desdichado]

Providing facts isn't just "nuh-uh". Providing facts is "nuh-uh, and here's why...". It wasn't a wasted post as you seem to be implying. But instead of arguing with you about the semantics of an argument, I'll let this stew until we get some new ideas and new approaches in the thread.

What facts did you provide? The only really factual argument you rebutted was the one I didn't make.

You mentioned that there is no precedent for the Aragorn, Grey Mouser, Frodo, Conan, Fafhrd, and Driz'zt. But you're going to have to get more specific about what part of the character you're referring to as precedent, even if it's just a sample.

The characterization. "Pre-fantasy" characters were not, as a rule, fully fleshed out individuals, they were heroic ideals writ larger than life.

Granted, some fantasy characters are like that too, but most works of any consequence are not. Frodo or Bilbo, for example, were clearly Edwardian country gentlemen who desired to avoid adventure, and had very real concerns and personalities that modern audiences could relate to. No pre-fantasy hero was ever like that. Conan too, for other reasons; he was a realistic, flawed individual; larger than life and at times absurdly superhuman, but at the same time reveling in cheap and tawdry thrills, and possessed of little ambition other than to party at the end of every caper. He related to modern audiences because he was written completely differently than any other prefantasy character had ever been written.

In any case, I'd like to see some of your facts. By and large, you're ignoring most of my posts, needling out one little line or phrase that you don't like, and then dismissing the rest of the post entirely. If you want to have a discusssion, it would certainly help foster the discussion if you addressed:

• Differing authorial goals
• Why a modern point of view suffusing the story is irrelevent
• characterizations that never existed in pre-fantasy
• plot structures that never existed in prefantasy
• Story telling modes and techniques that never existed in prefantasy (and indeed, barely could have done so, since the novel is itself a relatively recent invention)

And rather than trying to unload all the burden of proof on me to explain how all the characters I listed are unlike prefantastic characters, how about you provide some specifics on why you think they're not. That's where you're just saying "Nuh-uh" and offering absolutely no evidence or support for your claim. Well, that and your claim that a modern point of view is irrelevent. You seem to think that merely you claiming that it is so is sufficient.

All of those specific points have been brought up and rather studiously ignored by you. So if you're going to try and claim that you're "winning" on a technicallity here, you're off base. You haven't yet even attempted to make even a cursory argument yet.