Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were an element of literature from its beginning, though the idea of a distinct genre, in the modern sense, is less than two centuries old.
TheEpic of Gilgamesh was written over generations following the supposed reign of King Gilgamesh, and is seen as a mythologized version of his life. This figure is sometimes an influence and, more rarely, a figure in modern fantasy.[1]
India has a long tradition of fantastical stories and characters, dating back toVedic mythology. Several modern fantasy works such asRG Veda draw on theRig-Veda as a source.Hindu mythology was an evolution of the earlier Vedic mythology and had many more fantastical stories and characters, particularly in theIndian epics, such as theMahabharata byVyasa, and theRamayana byValmiki, both of which were influential in Asia. ThePanchatantra (Fables of Bidpai) was influential in Europe and theMiddle East. It used various animalfables and magical tales to illustrate the central Indian principles ofpolitical science. Talking animals endowed with human qualities have now become a staple of modern fantasy.[2]
TheBaital Pachisi (Vikram and the Vampire) is a collection of various fantasy tales set within aframe story about an encounter between KingVikramāditya and aVetala, an early mythical creature resembling avampire. According toRichard Francis Burton andIsabel Burton, theBaital Pachisi "is the germ which culminated in theArabian Nights, and which inspired theGolden Ass ofApuleius,Boccacio'sDecamerone, thePentamerone, and all that class of facetious fictitious literature."[3]
Classical mythology is replete with fantastical stories and characters, the best known (and perhaps the most relevant to modern fantasy) being the works ofHomer (Greek) andVirgil (Roman).[4]
The contribution of the Greco-Roman world to fantasy is vast and includes:The hero's journey (also the figure of the chosen hero); magic gifts donated to win (including the ring of power as in theGyges story contained in the Republic of Plato), prophecies (the oracle ofDelphi), monsters and creatures (especiallyDragons), magicians and witches with the use of magic.[citation needed]
The philosophy ofPlato has had great influence on the fantasy genre. In the Christian Platonic tradition, the reality of other worlds, and an overarching structure of great metaphysical and moral importance, has lent substance to the fantasy worlds of modern works.[5] The world ofmagic is largely connected with the Roman Greek world.WithEmpedocles, theelements, they are often used in fantasy works as personifications of the forces of nature.[6] Concerns other than magic include the use of a mysterious tool endowed with special powers (thewand); the use of a rare magical herb; and a divine figure that reveals the secret of the magical act.[citation needed]
Myths especially important for fantasy include: The myth ofTitans; the Gods ofOlympus;Pan;Theseus, the hero who killed theMinotaur (with thelabyrinth);Perseus, the hero who killedMedusa ( with the gift of magic objects and weapons);Heracles is probably the best known Greek hero;Achilles; the riddlingSphinx;Odysseus;Ajax;Jason (of theArgonauts); Female sorcerers as wellCirce,Calypso and goddessHecate;Daedalus andIcarus.[citation needed]
The figures ofChinese dragons were influential on the modern fantasy use of thedragon, tempering the greedy, thoroughly evil, even diabolical Western dragon; many modern fantasy dragons are humane and wise.[citation needed]
Chinese traditions have been particularly influential in the vein of fantasy known asChinoiserie, including such writers asErnest Bramah andBarry Hughart.[7]
Taoist beliefs aboutneijin and its influence onmartial arts have been a major influence onwuxia, a subgenre of the martial arts film that is sometimes fantasy, when the practice ofwuxia is used fictitiously to achieve super-human feats, as inCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.[8]
The most well known fiction from theIslamic world wasThe Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), which was a compilation of many ancient and medieval folk tales. The epic took form in the tenth century and reached its final form by the fourteenth century; the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another.[9] All Arabian fairy tales were often called "Arabian Nights" when translated into English, regardless of whether they appeared inThe Book of One Thousand and One Nights, in any version, and a number of tales are known in Europe as "Arabian Nights" despite existing in no Arabic manuscript.[9]
This epic has been influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first byAntoine Galland.[10] Many imitations were written, especially in France.[11] Various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such asAladdin,Sinbad andAli Baba. Part of its popularity may have sprung from the increasing historical and geographical knowledge, so that places of which little was known and so marvels were plausible had to be set further "long ago" or farther "far away"; this is a process that continue, and finally culminate in thefantasy world having little connection, if any, to actual times and places.[citation needed]
A number of elements from Persian and Arabian mythology are now common in modern fantasy, such asgenies,bahamuts,magic carpets, magic lamps, etc.[11] WhenL. Frank Baum proposed writing a modern fairy tale that banished stereotypical elements, he included the genie as well as the dwarf and the fairy as stereotypes to go.[12]
TheShahnameh, the national epic ofIran, is a mythical and heroic retelling ofPersian history.Amir Arsalan was also a popular mythical Persian story.
Medieval European sources of fantasy occurred primarily inepic poetry and in theFornaldarsagas,Norse andIcelandicsagas, both of which are based on ancientoral tradition. The influence of these works on the German Romantics, as well asWilliam Morris, andJ. R. R. Tolkien means that their influence on later fantasy has been large.[13]
Beowulf is among the best known of the Nordic tales in the English speaking world, and has had deep influence on the fantasy genre; although it was unknown for centuries and so not developed in medieval legend and romance, several fantasy works have retold the tale, such asJohn Gardner'sGrendel.[14]
Norse mythology, as found in theElder Edda and theYounger Edda, includes such figures asOdin and his fellowAesir, anddwarves,elves,dragons, andgiants.[15] These elements have been directly imported into various fantasy works, and have deeply influenced others, both on their own and through their influence on Nordic sagas, Romanticism, and early fantasy writers.
TheFornaldarsagas, literallytales of times past, orLegendary sagas, occasionally drew upon these older myths for fantastic elements. Such works asGrettis saga carried on that tradition; the heroes often embark on dangerous quests where they fight the forces of evil, dragons, witchkings, barrow-wights, and rescue fair maidens.[16]
More historical sagas, such asVölsunga saga and theNibelungenlied, feature conflicts over thrones and dynasties that also reflect many motifs commonly found inepic fantasy.[13]
The starting point of the fornaldarsagas' influence on the creation of the Fantasy genre is the publication, in 1825, of the most famous Swedish literary workFrithjof's saga, which was based on theFriðþjófs saga ins frœkna, and it became an instant success inEngland andGermany. It is said to have been translated twenty-two times into English, twenty times into German, and once at least into every European language, including modern Icelandic in 1866. Their influence on authors, such asJ. R. R. Tolkien,William Morris andPoul Anderson and on the subsequent modern fantasy genre is considerable, and can perhaps not be overstated.[citation needed]
Celtic folklore and legend has been an inspiration for many fantasy works. The separate folklore of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland has sometimes been used indiscriminately for "Celtic" fantasy, sometimes with great effect; other writers have distinguished to use a single source.[17]
TheWelsh tradition has been particularly influential, owing to its connection to King Arthur and its collection in a single work, the epicMabinogion.[17] One influential retelling of this was the fantasy work ofEvangeline Walton:The Island of the Mighty,The Children of Llyr,The Song of Rhiannon, andPrince of Annwn. A notable amount of fiction has been written in the area of Celtic fantasy.[18]
The IrishUlster Cycle andFenian Cycle have also been plentifully mined for fantasy.[17]
Scottish tradition is less used, perhaps because of the spurious nature of theOssian cycle, a nineteenth-century fraud claiming to have much older sources.[17]
Its greatest influence was, however, indirect. Celtic folklore and mythology provided a major source for the Arthurian cycle ofchivalric romance: theMatter of Britain. Although the subject matter was heavily reworked by the authors, these romances developed marvels until they became independent of the original folklore and fictional, an important stage in the development of fantasy.[19]
TheFinnish epic, theKalevala, although not published until the 19th century, is compiled from oral tradition dating back to an earlier period.J. R. R. Tolkien cited it, with the Finnish language he learned from it, as a major inspiration behind theSilmarillion.[20]
During the Renaissance,Giovanni Francesco Straparola wrote and publishedThe Facetious Nights of Straparola, a collection of stories, many of which are literaryfairy talesGiambattista Basile wrote and published thePentamerone, a collection ofliterary fairy tales, the first collection of stories to contain solely the stories later to be known as fairy tales. Both of these works includes the oldest recorded form of many well-known (and more obscure) European fairy tales.[21] This was the beginning of a tradition that would both influence the fantasy genre and be incorporated in it, as many works offairytale fantasy appear to this day.[22]
Although witchcraft and wizardry were both more commonly believed to be actual at the time, such motifs as the fairies inWilliam Shakespeare'sA Midsummer Night's Dream, the Weird Sisters inMacbeth and Prospero inThe Tempest (or Doctor Faustus inChristopher Marlowe'splay) were deeply influential on later works of fantasy.[citation needed]
In a work onalchemy in the 16th century,Paracelsus identified four types of beings with the four elements of alchemy:gnomes, earth elementals;undines, water elementals;sylphs, air elementals; andsalamanders, fire elementals.[23] Most of these beings are found in folklore as well as alchemy; their names are often used interchangeably with similar beings from folklore.[24]
Literaryfairy tales, such as those ofCharles Perrault (1628 – 1703), andMadame d'Aulnoy (c.1650 – 1705), became popular early in theAge of Enlightenment. Many of Perrault's tales became fairy tale staples, and influenced latter fantasy as such. Indeed, when Madame d'Aulnoy termed her workscontes de fée (fairy tales), she invented the term that is now generally used for the genre, thus distinguishing such tales from those involving no marvels.[25] This would influence later writers, who took up the folk fairy tales in the same manner, in the Romantic era.[26]
Several fantasies aimed at an adult readership were published in 18th century France, includingVoltaire's"contes philosophique" "The Princess of Babylon" (1768) and "The White Bull" (1774), andJacques Cazotte'sFaustian novelThe Devil in Love.[27]
This era, however, was notably hostile to fantasy. Writers of the new types of fiction such asDefoe,Richardson, andFielding were realistic in style, and many early realistic works were critical of fantastical elements in fiction.[28] Aside from a few tales of witchcraft and ghost stories, very little fantasy was written during this time.[26] Even children's literature saw little fantasy; it aimed at edifying and deplored fairy tales as lies.[29]
Romanticism, a movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, was a dramatic reaction to Rationalism, challenging the priority of reason and promoting the importance of imagination and spirituality. Its success in rehabilitating imagination was of fundamental importance to the evolution of fantasy, and its interest in medievalromances providing many motifs to modern fantasy.[30]
In the later part of the Romantic tradition, in reaction to the spirit of the Enlightenment, folklorists collected folktales, epic poems, and ballads, and brought them out in printed form. TheBrothers Grimm were inspired in their collection,Grimm's Fairy Tales, by the movement ofGerman Romanticism. Many other collectors were inspired by the Grimms and the similar sentiments. Frequently their motives stemmed not merely from Romanticism, but fromRomantic nationalism, in that many were inspired to save their own country's folklore: sometimes, as in theKalevala, they compiled existing folklore into an epic to match other nation's; sometimes, as inOssian, they fabricated folklore that should have been there. These works, whether fairy tale, ballads, or folk epics, were a major source for later fantasy works.[31]
Despite the nationalistic elements confusing the collections, this movement not only preserved many instances of the folktales that involved magic and other fantastical elements, it provided a major source for later fantasy.[32] Indeed, the literary fairy tale developed so smoothly into fantasy that many later works (such asMax Beerbohm'sThe Happy Hypocrite andGeorge MacDonald'sPhantastes) that would now be called fantasies were called fairy tales at the time they written.[33]J. R. R. Tolkien's seminal essay on fantasy writing was titled "On Fairy Stories."
Ossian and the ballads also provided an influence to fantasy indirectly, through their influence onSir Walter Scott, who began the genre ofhistorical fiction.[34] Very few of his works contain fantastic elements; in most, the appearance of such is explained away,[35] but in its themes of adventure in a strange society, this led to the adventures set in foreign lands, byH. Rider Haggard andEdgar Rice Burroughs,[36] Although Burrough's works fall in the area ofscience fiction because of their (often thin) justifications for their marvels,[37] Haggard's included many fantastic elements.[38] The works ofAlexandre Dumas, père, romantic historical fiction, contained many fantasy tropes in their realistic settings.[39] All of these authors influenced fantasy for the plots, characters and landscapes used—particularly in thesword and sorcery genre, with such writers asRobert E. Howard.[40]
