Tolkien is to fantasy what Doom is to first person shooters. Didn't invent it, wasn't technically the first, but was such a monumentous milestone and had such a profound effect everything afterwards owes some debt to it.
I see what you're saying but I think the comparison is a bit weak... imagine doom was made 40 years earlier than it was but still today when gamers buy an FPS they expect fire imps and cacodemons😂
@@sylvan429 I don't quite understand your point here. Very little (if anything) used by Tolkien was actually invented by him (perhaps the languages, but even that is debatable), though he did pull it all together quite nicely. @MrPyroCrab certainly has a point that The Lord of the Rings (and related literature) was a kind of milestone, as there is definitely a distinction between fantasy "before and after Tolkien." The same goes for something like Star Wars-being "the first" (at least in the minds of the general audience) gives you a lot of extra weight and respect that might not be entirely merited based on the actual substance.
The vein of american magazines where Howard splashed (Weird Tales, etc) did get a mention though, check 07:30 . There's even a Howard story on the front cover... :)
@@Anyone00TZI mean, Homer's Odyssey is arguably the earliest example of the "Returner" Isekai that's being popping up a bunch lately. Guy gets transported to a warzone where gods are literally appearing on the battlefield to lead troops and slay heroes, he himself is an important general and hero who leads his men to victory through the use of his knowledge, cunning and superhuman ability (literally no-one else can use his bow with even a fraction of the accuracy he seems to innately possess). After winning and going to see his one true love, he is transported (by a vehicle for carrying bulk goods/people) to a strange world filled with monsters and where he feels lost and he can't use his powers (he doesn't use a bow for the full 20 years), and he must deal with all manner of trials, including a bunch of women trying to get him into their beds, before eventually returning to the world he wants to be in and using his superhuman abilities to win back his waifu and his crown. If that's not a modern isekai, I don't know what is.
The way stories are communicated may differ greatly, but hell, you can't really say the structures of the stories itself change. lol @@theapexsurvivor9538
I feel like immediately writing off children's fantasy is completely counterproductive to what you were trying to achieve, what with you mentioning the Hobbit being a children's book leading up to a bigger fantasy world. Just because a story is meant for children doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed by adults -- it can have little details that adults can appreciate that kids would ABSOLUTELY not care about that make a read through when they're older even more fulfilling.
There has been plenty of debate about this but I think one had to keep in mind that experience and comprehension definitely plays a role in what people can read at any age. I used to not be a super advanced reader and put down several books because I found them too difficult. A story mostly concerned with subtext and not a lot of exciting things happening (say The Great Gatsby) is unlikely to excite a kid. I did read LotR as a kid, but that's not a universal experience and I do see there being a distinct separation in books written for different age audiences.
Especially works like Narnia, which is meant for children but can also be deeply appreciated by adults. The foreword to The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe even explicitly mentions this fact, hoping that the girl it was written for will read it either now, or when she is old and able to appreciate fairy stories again.
I was looking at some german and czech authors, since those are my languages. Categorization as strictly modern style fantasy seems is a bit elusive. German speaking authors mostly fall under literary romanticism and/or fairy tales. Some were almost completely taking place in magical wolds connected to the real one. Though most were written for adults, they tend to be shorter and perceived today as children's tales only. There are lots like that at the end of 19th century. Then for example czech author Jan Weiss's House of a thousand floors (1929) is considered surrealist fantasy, but takes place in a somewhat modern magical world, with bits of almost horror-like dreamy elements and heavy social commentary and allegory. There is lots of stuff like this that almost fits the bill, arguments could be made in favour of it being early fantasy, but putting it alongside Tolkien just doesn't feel right in the end.
There is great German language author, Leo Perutz (a Jew from Prague) writing from the 1910s-50s. I highly recommend Perutz but his books are not at all like anglo-fantasy, more like the fantastic realism of later Latinamerican authors but often mixed with historical settings.
From your description, Cabell's writing reminds me of the hole that "adult" animation often falls into, where it feels so self conscious about being seen as "for kids" that it goes out of its way to be as vulgar and inappropriate as possible, as if trying to deliberately distance itself from the "kids stuff"
@@tubebobwil i didn’t really get that vibe from vox machina if im being honest, other than maybe the opening scene, but i would say that it was important for setting the vibe, like robins scene in the boys but with less plot relevance
@@graysonfrost6774 I still haven't gotten past the first 20 minutes of episode one, so maybe my comment is dead wrong ... But that first 20 minutes was full of so much juvenile, just plain crude profanity (and I love context-appropriate profanity), I just am turned off by the entire series.
@@tubebobwilits based on a dnd campaign the voice actors actually played and recorded. Becuase it looks like a cartoon you fel like its too much? Did you also think invincible was "too much"? Grow up and just say you didnt like it. Not act high and mighty becuase its "childish" in your eyes.
I know this is technically children’s fantasy, but George MacDonald wrote another book the fits way more into the categories you’re describing. The Princess and the Goblin. It’s a really good read, and is quite magical and mysterious.
I loved his stories when I was younger!!! Especially The Princess and the Goblin, The Light Princess, The Princess and the Curdie, At the Back of the North Wind.
George MacDonald was an influence on Tolkien as well. I tried reading The Princess and Curdie once, didn't really click with me, not only because of the childlike story (don't mind that in itself) but because it's a sequel. Didn't realise that when I bought it.
@@Vingul I literally had the same experience with Princess and Curdie!🤣 I got it from a pile of free books at school and didn’t realize it was a sequel at first so I was so confused. I finally read the first book on audible and loved it so much and went back and read book 2 again. It’s not as good as Princess and the Goblin but it’s still fun.
@@elijahbuswell You *listened* on audible, you read with your eyes ;) sorry, this is a major pet peeve of mine, I always feel like I'm being lied to, lol. Anyway, funny coincidence, I wonder if we read the same edition. I don't think it was obvious from the cover that it was a sequel ^^
George MacDonald was unfairly excluded from the discussion. His inclusion of weird, neo-platonic/hermetic philosophy into his world seemed to presage the Silmarillion, pretty sure that came off the same series
I would like to make the argument that one can do hard world building but present it like soft worldbuilding, and that you shouldnt judge the world of a book just how a book presents it. I would actually argue that if a book presented its world fully detailed to the reader it is actually doing a degree of a disservice to its reader by presenting knowledge that the characters themselves may not know. I think its a shame how some think of giving the reader only as much knowledge as they need as a bad thing!
that's what i love about brandon sanderson!! the stormlight archives especially showcase this perfectly; his world is SO incredibly intricate and rife with detailed history, but at the beginning of the first book, we know absolutely nothing. everything we learn about the world is from the characters, and the only way we get dramatic irony and learn more about the world than the main characters know is by having chapters here and there from the perspective of OTHER characters. point is, we only ever know how much the characters know. there's no general narrator who explains what's happening, we only get thoughts and descriptions from the perspective of the character that the chapter is focused on. at the beginning of the first book, we know nothing about the world except for the stuff the characters find ordinary. we learn basic things like the political structure and the different nations, the way the weather and world are, etc. then sanderson puts us through a landslide of discovery, continuously putting the reader through the same intoxicating cycle of showing us just a little more than we know, letting us become invested and anxious and intrigued by the vagueness of a concept, and then slowly unravelling that concept until it all suddenly clicks in our head. every single book this repeats multiple times, pulling us further and further into the throes of how the magic works, making you gawk at the absolute scale of this universe and the depth it brings. each book you enter thinking you know SO much, and you leave understanding that you know SO little. and, even better, you're excited to know MORE!! i think it's something very important. obfuscation is a powerful tool that, if wielded correctly, can keep readers invested for thousands of pages.
@@buttersticks7877 It's definitely a strong point of his and is one of the reasons I'm glad he was the one to finish Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan's passing, as it was also something that was common to Jordan's writing.
@@LordVader1094The Council of Elrond is actually a great chapter too. I actually love parts of the story where a bunch of characters get together to collaborate all their different information and form a plan.
The Night Land is one of the most interesting books I've ever read, and also one of the worst. Its premise and worldbuilding puts a lot of modern SF/F to shame and it was written the same year the Titanic sank. Yet there is no describing the horror I felt when the narrator and Naani were reunited and I realized the book was only half way done.
100% agree. William Hope Hodgson has to be one of the weirdest people who ever existed. How did a pioneer of bodybuilding and stunt-performers who fled his home at age 13 to join the merchant marines write this stuff? Let alone imagine it?
@@linguine4149 This is just me speculating. But I would guess the two big inspirations for Hodgson's imagination were: The first would just be "all the weird shit you see as a 19th-century sailor". Though this isn't as evident in The Night Land as it is in his other novels. But the second would put him very close to Lovecraft. Hodgson was ferverently anti-religious (his father was a Vicar who abused his children so much all the boys ran away from home). Because of this, like Lovecraft, Hodgson became sort of an autodidact when it came to contemporary sciences. A lot of the Worldbuilding in his novels relies on outdated scientific theories (like the Sun dying in Night Lands. Or the "Central Suns" in House on the Borderlands). This basically led him to the same conclusions Lovecraft did. That the Universe is an inherently nihilistic place inimical (and even malevolent) to human existence -- unfathomable in its age and vastness. Lovecraft conceptualized these ideas as Cthulu. While Hodgson conceptualized these ideas as The Watchers, etc. Besides astrophysics, there's also a lot of evolutionary race science in both mens works. The thought that mankind has "primitive, degenerate, brutish" ancestory that lurks within our DNA like some sort of evil. Hodgson's ideas about the Abhumans seems influenced by early theories about Neanderthals, for instance. The big difference between Lovecraft and Hodgson would be that... Lovecraft's monsters feel more like Aliens. While Hodgson's monsters feels more like Demons or Spectres. Hodgsons still embodied very Victorian "fighting man" values. There's big "Knight in shining armor" vibes to many of his stories (though this decreases the longer he lived). While in Lovecraft people more readily embrace nihilistic madness (and then promptly faint). Lastly, and maybe most importantly, both Lovecraft and Hodgson give the impression of being thoroughly lonely and very, very, very introverted people.
@DesignatedMember you seem to be quite studied on both of these famous authors. Thanks for taking the time to enlighten me. I find it quite fascinating that both men were able to construct such intricate worlds of make believe in a time where I presume there was very little media available on the subjects of dark fantasy and science fiction.
I feel like medieval romances are the first western fantasy. Orlando Furioso, The Faerie Queen, and Arthurian stories. You could go back as far as Gilgamesh and Beowulf, but as you said, those were considered "historical accounts" when they were written, while Medieval romances were meant to be fiction. ( After Geoffrey of Mammoth at least) I think Don Quixote is generally considered to be the first novel and while it doesn't have any fantastical elements, it is a spoof of medieval romances. I would also argue that some Shakespeare plays such as The Tempest and A Winter's Tale helped shape the tradition that Tolkien was writing from. People have pretty much always been telling fantastical stories the genre was just much less specific before Tolkien.
I don't think Beowulf was ever thought of as an historical account. Yes, it starts with "Wait! Here are the stories of the princes your ancestors...", but in the context of when it was written this is not part of a chronicle or a religious text; meaning a monk, a monk that knew of latin literature and was even partly inspired by it in the same text, wrote it (or put it to paper) as a poem. Therefore the start should be seen more like we sometimes make "found footage" horror movies, or "rediscovered manuscript" historical fiction.
I think what qualifies as a fantasy are stories that break away from the mundane and can at times defy logic. Stories can follow the heroes journey or subvert it. The key is that fantasy is usually a form of fiction
Shakespeare inspired the Ents! But only cus Tolkien hated him. The British school system is and always has been VERY focused on Shakespeare. He particularly hated the prophecy in Macbeth that he "shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood rises high to Dunsinane Hill" which is interpreted as the trees walking up to Macbeths Castle, but instead the English soldiers cut down the birnam trees and hid behind them for cover. The Ents marching on Isengard is Shakespeare shade.
@@Carlos-bz5oo I think you could make a similar video just for the history of wuxia itself. But it would require a well read person who is fluent in Chinese and is familiar with the genre and culture, especially since it's not well known in the west. And I think Journey to the West would be more akin to something like Arthurian legend than to modern fantasy literature. It's the establishment and where a lot of ideas and tropes stem from, with Taoism, Buddhism, and folklore being the cultural origins. And then you have modern web novels, usually xianxia, that most people are familiar with these days. Those would be the "schlocky" stuff like an isekai light novel. And perhaps pre/post-Jin Yong would be the Tolkien marker in this case This would require an intense amount work, and I'm far from ever knowing Chinese.
I first read Lord of the Rings in 8th grade back in 1966. When I finished I looked around for what to read next. There was nothing. A few years later Lin Carter wrote A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings which had a chapter on pre-Tolkien fantasy. He mentioned all the authors you cover but at the time none were easily available. Eventually a paperback of Worm Ourob myoros appeared. I remember it as a slog. What you did hear, almost 60 years later is explain to me that all I missed was even sloghier slogs. Then Lancer books brought out the Conan books and I was off to the races. Those you will cover in part 2, I'm sure
Did you read Fritz Leiber at the time? The first collection of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories was published in '57 and then a bunch more were published between '68 and '70. That's what I read after I bounced off of LOTR as a 10-year-old, when D&D was blowing up and there was a lot more fantasy in print.
Paradoxically Tolkien was collecting dust for 10 to 15 years until hippies (due to the unlicensed paperback published by Ace in the states) discovered and popularized him. And the popularity basically came about because it rode the wave of fantasy books that popularized the genre in the years between. From Conan to Fafhrd and Cthulhu to Imric those were the works that made the market. Tolkien’s book just got lucky. So how it is with a plethora of work having been made, uninfluenced by Tolkien, you couldn’t find anything is a mystery.
I've needed a long-form analysis of this topic for a while. As a German, I might also do some diving into early German fantasy literature, since I am certain there will be at least something worthy of note to be found among the piles of long forgotten works. The intersection between early fantasy and science fiction writing has also often stood out to me as particular interesting, would love to hear more on that. Excellent video, I am looking forward to the second part.
Holy moly I didnt realize this is your first video! I fogured you must be somewhat established already. I watched LOTR the other night and asked out lout "I wonder what fantasy was before Tolkien" and then found your video just a little while later. This is great!
The reason that Tolkien represents a watershed moment in adult fantasy writing is easy to understand: He was the first author of ANY genre who applied a lifetime of scholarship and DEEP knowledge of disciplines such as linguistics, mythology and history, to an imaginary story, and the first author to spend an entire life thinking about, imagining and creating an entire world and it's characters and history. It was not just a matter of talent, it was a matter of intense effort and concentration too. I've read earlier works of Fantasy fiction that go back to the 19th century, and while those authors had admirable imagination and word-smithing skill, none of them were able to bring the time, knowledge and talent to bear that Tolkien did. That said, there are many enjoyable reads to be had.
1:46:41 Michael Ende. German, started writing around the same time as Tolkien was publishing The Lord of the Rings, wrote many works, but his most famous are Momo, The Story of Jim Button and Luke The Engine-Driver, The Neverending Story, and The Night of Wishes, all four of which are very, very fantastical, and very, very odd, being influenced by a strange mixture of western and eastern influences.
Ende's most clearly fantasy book, "The Neverending story" is from 1979, I think. So I certainly would not count him as pre-Tolkien but I agree that he is an original author, rather independent of the English language fantasy tradition before or after Tolkien. As I grew up with his stuff since before I was able to read, I cannot agree that he is very odd, though. ;)
Before I began rewriting my fantasy, I took a journey into researching works of fantasy that predated Tolkien, and have been intrigued and immersed into what I have found. With The King of Elflands Daughter becoming my favorite and should be mentioned here. Update: Im glad it was mentioned.
The King of Elfland's Daughter was talked about in the video. If I ever became insanely rich I'd love to fund and produce an artistic film adaptation of The King of Elfland's Daughter with rich visual details and the same sparse dialogue as the book. Something about this book just stuck in my mind in a very cinematic and visual way.
@@Strideo1I don't think I'll ever become a film maker, but I am studying and practicing animation, maybe i can create and produce my own interpreted animated adaptation of it someday, with your help.That or write my own translation if i can get the rights (i know its public domain by now, but i think you still need some sort of copyright)
I'm dying at William Morris being "moderately prominent". That's technically true, of course, especially in this context, but if you have any interest in textiles or interior decorating, he's well known by name even now in the 2020s. They still make wallpaper and fabric using his designs, and I see them turn up as inspiration for the backgrounds of book covers and things like that all the time.
@@patrickmack9462 Morris, the Rosetti siblings and other members of the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts & Crafts movements I think were all very prominent figures at the time. Morris was certainly well-known for his Earthly Paradise volumes, moreso than for his design and industrial activities. His position as a leader of the Victorian socialist movement probably brought him a lot of attention too, especially after his arrest in 1885 - quite shocking when it involved someone of Morris' social standing.
i opened this to play on the background while i clean my apartment just to end up taking notes. this is so good, i'll definitely check bibliography. keep it up man
There's a little national epic called Kalevala, which was Tolkien's biggest inspiration for his works, and extremely obviously so. He never tried to hide it, and even said that he was "greatly affected" by it. Turin is basically Kullervo, and several key elements of the stories and characters in Kalevala have a counterpart in Tolkien's legendarium. Also finnish mythology has always been big on elves, specifically the ones who could be mistaken for beutiful humans. We call those smaller 'santa's elves' and more gnome type elves something completely different.
he was "greatly affected" by all sorts of Northern European myth, not just Kalevala. Beowulf too had an equal, if not greater influence on his work. He studied anglo-saxon after all.
These stories and older authors are fascinating, the premise of The Night Land intrigued me especially. I find the amount of isekai-style stories where the main character is from the real world and goes to a new one being very common. as time goes it’s less common, and Tolkien solidified that you could trust audiences with to understand a story if the main character was not from the real world.
Almost every fantasy story before the 1970s has some sort of conceit to make their stories "plausible" in some way. Whether it's direct transportation, framing it as a myth, using a sci-fi conceit of many years in the past or future, nearly everybody (Tolkien included, though that was behind-the-scenes) framed their tales as having some relationship with the world of the reader. Earthsea may be the earliest thing that I've read which has absolutely zero pretense of relation to our present reality.
@play_history earthsea is hugely underrecognized for its influence on the modern version of the genre, and just for its quality in general. I think it especially had a lot of influence in Japan, where a mix of the spiritual sea / sky journey and with a Jules Verne-ian steampunk post-apocalypse seems to have resonated pretty hard thanks to Miyazaki's early films and their many derivatives. Although the actual Ghibli adaptation of Earthsea didnt end up going so well lmfao.
It's interesting that the bloated Iseki genre also seems to be moving to a more and more abreviated 'getting Isekied' and just geting right into the new world (sometimes its down to just an opening monolog), and were now seeing outright dropping of it and just strait fantasy worlds becoming more dominant and popular. After the sucess of things like Friren and Delicious in Dungeon were going to see more of that and less Isekai, at the least the stories that would have in the past felt some need to use thouse vestigial Isekai frames will drop it and only stories that actually use the premise in the whole story will keep it.
Its because of what iskai allows as a writing tool. When the view point character is new to the fantasy world, you get an easy excuse to carry exposition and plot to the reader who is also new, while also facilitating a "watch along" vibe in the characters monologs. Not needed as tropes and motifs get strengthened in subgenres of fantasy, but super useful tool regardless
I am thankful for all the quotes you gathered, of which some were new to me. It's good to have this video as a singular source to point to, when talking about this topic.
I can't recommend enough the Ballantine Fantasy version of The Night Land, which edited it into a much more manageable form, it makes all the difference in the world.
I was just thinking that it would be such a quick fix to edit that book into something less mundane, so I guess it's no surprise someone beat me to it lmao
I'm fairly early into the video so not sure if it's discussed at all, but I think it's interesting to note that Middle Earth was never meant to be a completely separate world- even though virtually every aspect of it is invented by Tolkien, he always intended it as a forgotten history of our own world set in the very distant past. In this way it's not all that different from other mythical, fantastical stories, like those of King Arthur, or in Greek mythology for example- a world where all these monsters and gods exist but it is still intended to be our world. The main thing that sets Tolkien apart from these is that rather than existing as part of an ever evolving mythology and folklore with hundreds of contributors adding or changing bits over the centuries, is that he created every detail of his mythology from scratch, and in meticulous detail on a scale that had never really been done before, with incredibly complex invented languages and lore. Most later writers inspired by Tolkien then go on to make no attempts to connect their invented world with our modern one because either they were not aware of Tolkiens intention or possibly deliberately disregarded it to allow more freedom to create increasingly bizarre or unusual worlds- A Song of Ice and Fire for example, cannot be rationalised to take place in some ancient part of Earth's past, due to it's geography, size, and the nature of it's unusual seasons, it has to take place on a different planet to Earth. Personally I like the idea of fantasy worlds taking place in the distant past or future of our own world- paradoxically for me I think it feels MORE fantastical, as opposed to the fantasy world sharing no relation to our own, I just imagine it as a different planet with different laws of physics, in which case I can't help but feel a creeping sense of sci-fi even if it's not otherwise implied or intended (it doesn't harm my enjoyment just makes me view it differently). That's only my personal feeling on it though and it's entirely subjective. But something about the idea that magic or magical creatures exist in our world and have been lost or forgotten, is appealing to me, and I like that Tolkien wrote this into his universe even if it's fairly subtly done.
Robert E Howard does this before Tolkien. Hyboria is our Earth 10k years in the past and Kull’s Thurian age is 100k years in our Earth’s past. If you like this sort of real world fused with fantasy i would highly recommend reading the story “Kings of the Night” by Robert E Howard.
I'm kind of sceptical of that characterization of middle Earth, considering that all the lore that makes it part of Earths past is in the Silmarilian and not in LotR proper. A piece of suplemental material 'connecting' a fantasy world to our own is classic death-of-the-author territory.
@kennethferland5579 From an other perspective we have to establish that Tolkien deliberately put the LoTR into this world that he explicitly confirmed to be Earth some 30 years earlier in his writings. Of course you may consider these writings "secondary" but he himself saw them as the foundation of LoTR's geography, culture etc.
Phenomenal freshman video. I've been slowly reading some of these authors, mainly MacDonald and Morris, and am heartily impressed. As great as Tolkien is, we shouldn't let him completely overshadow his forebearers
I don't think calling Tolkien father of fantasy is really what he is called, he's more called father modern fantasy, due to how much of it existed before he published his works
He’s not even the father of modern fantasy. “Modern fantasy” tropes are mistaken for coming from Tolkien but are actually a lot of the times from D&D. D&D was primarily inspired by Fritz Lieber and Lankhmar not Tolkien. I’d argue Fritz Lieber or Robert E Howard are the progenitors of modern fantasy, they both were writing about 20 years before LotR was published. The Necromancer trope is a great example, that kind of thing doesn’t exist in middle earth. Where did it come from? Couldn’t be from Tolkien. It’s from Clark Ashton Smith I’d argue and again he’s about 20 or so years Tolkiens senior in terms of publication (for LotR). Tolkien is great but he gets far too much credit.
@@rachetmarvel931 I’m not sure who “bro” is or who is “triggered” in this context. If you’re referring to me, if it wasn’t apparent by my username I’m a big REH fan. I think it’s interesting to discuss the origins of fantasy tropes. I love LotR, it was my first exposure to fantasy as it is for many people, however I think he gets too much credit for founding all of the tropes and other talented authors’ works are left in relative obscurity.
@@Hyborian_Slayer You are aware that D&D, particular their races was heavily inspire by tolkein. the only reason that the halfling were not call hobbits was due to copyright reason.
@@Marveryn ok sure. Where did barbarians, monks and necromancers come from? Even the D&D thief is more in line with mouser or conan. It’s not called the “burglar” class.
to anyone who's reading this... i highly recommend cabell's works. one of my fav writers. great video &great intro to pre-tolkien fantasy. i'd recommend figures of earth as a good intro to cabell
i'm not sure if i would agree with the fantasy elements are just "jokes" though... i think they work in making the world feel sufficiently alien at points and aren't strictly comedic. and also tolkien was wrong - dont think cabell is boring at all
53:00 William Hope Hodgson is such a bad prosaist that even Lovecraft called him "painfully wooden". The Night Land is still my favorite fantasy book. The imagination is simply that vivid, strong, and unique. An author by the name of James Stoddard actually rewrote the entire novel just to fix its readability issues, naming it: The Night Land, A Story Retold. That's what I would recommend to those curious.
Honestly I'm glad a conversation has come up. I really do hope we get some non-englisb speakers here with other examples, I'd love to discover some non-eurocentric early fantasy!
As a native English speaker it can be tricky, but I think that historical and cultural circumstances were different for different places. China's "century of humiliation" was still in full swing during the times of these UK authors but China has a long history with the Journey to the West and it's influence on fantasy. Since you mentioned Miyazaki we would be remiss to forget that, like many of the other authors here, he too was influenced by world war in a very culturally and historically Japanese way that permeantes his take on fantasy. And the Soviet Union must certainly have had a variety of different takes on the genre of fantasy. Looking forward to your next video!
Yeah well fantasy may have been in short supply in English or maybe even just romantic languages in general, the same cannot be said for the rest of the world. And I'm sure the romantic languages had a lot of them in the past but it probably predated people writing things down effectively. I would look at Asia for some old examples because they were writing stuff down way earlier. Journey to the West alone should probably be mentioned even if it isn't in a completely Independent alternative world. But like if you take a moment to look at some of the other ones there's a lot. I know sometimes this gets thrown into mythology but there's a lot of these stories that I don't think people were mistaking with reality, at least not originally when they were made.
Around this time, novelists in China were popping up and creating serialized stories about wondering heroes with amazing physical and spiritual abilities, inspired by martial arts and the old classics. By 1911 or so you already had the first wuxia film of someone flying in the sky and throwing blasts of chi. Chinese literature and fantasy has a massive influence on even Japanese media that I think cannot be overlooked, even if through just general east Asia cultural osmosis. To see if the USSR had its own share of fantasy would be interesting too. Tolkien was banned, unbanned, banned, and adapted there. It's funny how fantasy is argued to be a inherently "reactionary" genre by some, and yet one of the first examples here is by a British socialist writing his take on medieval romances. Magic realism is probably Latin America's closest example to fantasy. But I think it's more related to surrealism, dictator novels/political satire, a name slapped unto many different authors with many different influences from ghost stories, mythology, or French avant garde. I don't agree with Terry Prachet's quote on it.
Great content, keep up the good work. I am translating the Worm Ouroboros into Portuguese right now, and it is great seeing Eddison, this gem of an author, receiving more attention, which he deserves. And yeah, Tolkien is more like the great accomplisher of a long process than the initiator, or the father of a genre, he perfected what previous masters had done and was particularly successful in sales, which popularized this vibe, that is all. By overfocusing on him as a sort of founder, we warp history and end up missing a lot
@@caiomaida3630 We are thinking second half of 2025, both in English, since most physical editions are a bit old, and in Portuguese. It is very likely to be through Kickstarter (English) and Catarse (Portuguese). If you want a peak, I published a Master's Dissertation April last year that details the translation decisions made, and the first 2 chapters as examples of how the text will read, the title is "Descrição, análise e tradução da obra: The Worm Ouroboros, de Eric Rücker Eddison", I am super hyped for this project :)
I think removing childrens tales from the discussion, although helps with simplifying things, takes a lot out. Some of the books he was most inspired by when writing were fairy tales.
Okay after finally finishing this video, i gotta say I'm hyped for part 2. Can't wait for Jack Vance to get a mention because he needs one, as well as the whole of Appendix N. I'm assuming the algorithm put this in front of me because I'm such a DnD nerd, so I'm glad you pointed out that Tolkien wasn't the only inspiration DnD had. :) Also taht map of Night Land makes me want to run a campaign in it 😭 I have too many campaign ideas already.
If you haven't yet, it's worth listening to the Appendix N Book Club podcast and their interview with Tim Kask. One of the interesting things Kask (who was co-compiler of Appendix N) said was that they were concerned with availability of the books at the time they were assembling it. Certainly the Ballatine Adult Fantasy series that reprinted many of the authors in this and the next video, but some authors were omitted because it wasn't easy to find their work. There's also a slew of influences from Dave Arneson's side which were not included.
Impressive! I've read a lot of these works and have them in my library. I think you did an excellent job of structural and thematic analysis. Now I want to give you something adjacent to think about, a definition of science fiction that indirectly illuminates some things about fantasy and perhaps partially explains Tolkien's success. The eminent SF author Greg Bear, in 1994, defined SF like this (sense exact but I could have the wording trivially wrong): "Science fiction is the branch of fantastic literature which affirms the rational knowability of the universe, and has as its characteristic emotional experience the "sense of wonder", the feeling of having suddenlty understood the universe in a new and larger way." We can fruitfully add that the tactic to go with these aims is what you called "hard worldbuilding". When you vary the terms in this definition you get adjacent branches of literature. You noticed that fantasy , especially pre-Tolkien fantasy, tilts towards soft worldbuilding. This is because fantasy is, in general, unconcerned with "rational knowability"; rather, it aims towards the emotional vividness of mythology and dreams. It is "fantastic literature" in the sense of taking place in a counterfactual secondary world. (I thought the strongest thread in your video was your analysis of how Victorian and Edwardian fantasists gradually worked their way towards fully autonomous secondary worlds.) Part of the reason Tolkien was able to remake the genre was that he imported the SFnal technique of hard worldbuilding. And yes, I do mean "imported"; in his younger days Tolkien enjoyed SF, expressing admiration for H.G. Wells among others. It is unclear how much contact he had with SF after the Campbellian revolution of 1938-1940 that created the modern SF genre, but there were earlier precedents for what we would now call "Campbellian" or "hard" SF, like Rudyard Kipling's "With The Night Mail", that he was almost certainly familiar with. After LOTR came out it is noted that Tolkien did not object when it was described as science-fictional. If you'd like to continue this conversation, I am esr@thyrsus.com or @esrtweet on X.
It's too bad that The Night Land sounds so terrible to read as the premise and world-setting sounded pretty cool (the idea of a knight wielding a telekinetic buzzsaw is just as cool as a medieval knight riding a motorcycle wielding both a beam-katana and an AK-47...which is just as cool as how the mechas from The Visions of Escaflowne are powered by dragon hearts, a tangent I know but high-tech-low-tech fusion is something else man)
There is an entire re-write of The Night Land called "The Night Land: A Story Retold" by James Stoddard whose main purpose is just making the novel more readable.
Thanks for the book ideas. I've already read most of William Morris and Lord Dunsany, so I never thought that Tolkien invented fantasy. Of course there are fantasy precursors going back to ancient mythology.
Oh yes I don't think anyone is foolish enough to think he invented it more that he popularized it in an age where it had been almost completely lost and was the first to write novel fantasy stories into actual books. It's easy to forget how modern books are.
Ill watch the whole video in a bit, but have to say William Morris is one of my favourite people of all time. He's such an interesting character and his art and designs are so beautiful.
Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet. Nemedian Chronicles, Robert E Howard, 1920.
Robert E. Howard preceded Tolkien by years. And I love both. Howard's writing is truly one of a kind. His world-building it’s incredibly effective. He has the ability to evoke the essence of an entire world in a story of barely pages. It's astounding!
This is a subject I have long been interested in, but I am a slow reader having learned to read late compared to many. Howerver I am a big fan of Tolkien even as far as reading his "history of middle earth" 12 volume series, and I also love arthurian literature especially the earliest form of the texts, but when I want to discover more before Tolkien all I hear about is Dunsany. Thank you for opening my eyes. Subscribed and looking forward to your future work.
Dunsany and Eddison, those two are gems. I strongly recommend The Worm Ouroboros (Eddison), King of Elfland's Daughter, Time and the Gods and Welleran's Sword (all Dunsany)
For me it will always be Dunsany. I do prefer the soft world building/low fantasy, e.g. Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Phillip Jose Farmer. I know these are post-Tolkien, but whad'ya gonna do? I won't comment on Lovecraft/Howard (which is what passed for YA when I was a kid) since they will be in Part 2. Now, I would like to call for a standing ovation simply for all the research & effort put into this
I love both Dunsany and Tolkien. They are very different, but both are great. Dunsany's style is truely unique. His worldbuilding is very impressionistic and very effective at the same time. He can create the feel of an entire world in a story of barely 5 pages. Incredible.
Nictzin Dyalhis wrote what I think is the first Tolkien template. His short story "The Sapphire Goddess" appeared in weird Tales magazine in 1934 Joe Average, forty-eight, at the end of his rope, bankrupt, and contemplating suicide, is greeted by an emissary from another world who informs him that he is their lost and misplaced king. He is required to go on a quest to retrieve the sapphire goddess sculpture. This one is just crying out to be expanded to epic length. It would make a great novel. As it is, it is too perfunctory to be savored. Our hero and his two companions need to go on an epic quest and cross hundreds of miles. Instead of a trek worthy of Tolkien they simply use magic to cross the distances! This is also quite sexy in parts the sapphire goddess, a sculpture of a beautiful woman, is actually our hero's wife under an enchantment. It also has a sexy and barely drssed sorceress and a corrupt trickster wizard but the sexiness is toned down we really don't get to consider the loveliness of the demoness or our hero's long-lost wife, which is a shame. If this had been a novel it would have been epic! Worthy of the Lord of the Rings with some sexy female presences thrown in. "
@@JamesELFERS I'm planning to go over Weird Tales in Part II, but I actually forgot to include The Sapphire Goddess in the script. Luckily I haven't gotten around to recording that part, so I'll have to add a mention
I was confused why you weren't talking about Edgar Rice Boroughs with Princess of Mars, but then I looked it up and it was originally released in pulp magazines! Excited to hear your thoughts in the next video. As a kid I really liked them but as an adult I think I would be weirded out about all the weird race stuff if I reread them
I loved the video, but I dissagree on one point: The main difference between Tolkien and the fairy tales, is not that one is for grown ups and the other for children. No, the difference is in the plot. In the lord of the rings the hero suddenly embarks on a quest to save the world. In the Hobbit, the hero suddenly embarks on a quest to kill a dragon. So, I think what makes Tolkien different from the fairy tales is that the hero is on a heroic quest that will in some way benefit his world.
This is really wonderfully presented, i love the voices for the sections you read! Ive been listening to it like a podcast the past few days, excited for pt 2
Edith Nesbit wrote a number of fantasies in the early 20th century: The Magic City, The Magic World, The Enchanted Castle, The House of Arden and The Book of Dragons. C.S. Lewis was inspired by Nesbit's work and mentions the Bastable children in The Magician's Nephew: "In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road." It might also be worth mentioning Rewards and Fairies by Kipling and perhaps A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, unless that is categorised as science fiction.
Got this video recommended to me by the algorithm. Great stuff! I went to see if there were any more videos of this type on your channel only to find out that this was the only video, so now I'm really looking forward to Part 2. 😊
The french author André Lichtenberger and his work : "the centaurs" published in 1904 could have been mentioned since his work is often considered, a posteriori, as the very first french fantasy book. The story takes place in a very ancient earth where many creatures inspired by roman and norse mythology (like centaurs, newts, mermaids, fauns,etc...) live in a paradise where murder of any animal living is prohibed and where humans, called Flayed, are banned. In the end, all the mythical creatures are decimated by the humans in a final battle and the centaurs are dompted like horses by the warriors. I think this book is one of the first to show many different living species alongside human, and telling the downfall of these ancient races like we witness in lotr or the witcher for instance.(sorry for my bad english)
Came back to your channel after watching this video yesterday hoping to find another interesting video. Can’t believe this is your only video, it’s so good. Can’t wait for more.
I like this type of channels they make a single video super well made,top quality and with a interesting topic and then they never uploaded anything else
Thank you so much for this wonderful series of videos. I have one very strange case to offer that falls slightly outside of the scope of this video - the work of Henry Darger 1892 - 1973. Darger wasn't published in his lifetime, his collection of work was discovered after his death. He wrote a 15,000 plus page uhhhh story? Novel? I don't know what to call it, but it certainly has some very bizarre fantasy themes combined with fantastical illustrations by Darger. Hyperallergic has a great summary of his writings
Concerning German Fantasy: One of the most important early authors coming to mind ETA Hoffman (1776-1823). His works being very influential for fantasy, horror, science fiction and even crime novels. But there aren't many stories by his that are second world fantasy ("The Nutcracker" takes place in a different realm for a short while, "Little Zaches called Cinnabar" takes place in a fairy world that could also be our world, "The Golden Pot" Takes place in our world with Atlantis being sort of its own world)
One might also add the pre-existing folklore which undoubtedly also inspired lots of fantastic literature such as Doktor Faustus and the Tales of the brothers Grimm.
The Worm Ouroborous - I remember Lessingham getting ONE brief mention late in the book, but it was something like "Similar to what Lessingham saw so long ago" or something like that.
What to me stands out in the Worm Ouroboros is that the villains are much more fleshed out and interesting than the meathead heros. I still love Lord Gro and his philosophizing and love of life more than war. While idolizing might- makes-rght, many of heros are surprising shallow or completely absent like stuck on a mountain out of view.
Everyone should read Gormenghast. Often, descriptive and beautiful writing is described as "painterly". Only with Gormenghast - and only in part due to the fact that Mervyn Peake was in fact a painter - have I ever found that description truly appropriate.
@@Illusionistofthecourt there are many books with "characters and their eccentric persona", most of the 19th century romantic literature which isn't fantasy.
Thank you for your hard work on this informative and thought-provoking video! Very well done. I was excited to see the artwork of Sidney Sime make an appearance, as his style is one of my favorites! Though it’s not pre-Tolkien, I’m curious what your thoughts are on Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. It’s right up there with LotR for me, and GRRM once said in an interview that the series inspired, directly or in part (can’t remember specifically) his own prolific series. It’s very underrated and slept on, in my opinion. Anyway, thanks again! Looking forward to seeing more of your stuff.
I am a literature student and I have studied the literature from 1500 to 1950's and one thing I found common in every single era is that Critics are fucking stupid, they hate innovation, they hate when someone tries something new even they hate themselves. I am so glad nowadays we dont give them the respect they used to get.
According to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Bibliography, a lot of these were inspirations for DnD-type fantasy to some degree, or at least Dunsany and Eddison were.
It is high cruelty that Phantasmion gets written off as a child's fairy tale, though I appreciate that it got the time that it did, it's so overlooked. Phantasmion is as medieval a romance as anything Morris wrote while cleaving closer our notions of fantasy than any of his work; it achieves a higher poetic and more Tolkien-esque vision of sword and sorcery than any pulp I've encountered; it is more complete and fulfilled than Dunsany, and at least as imaginative as his King of Elfland's Daughter; and, while not quite equal to Eddison's world-building, manages to build a believable and mappable world entirely its of its own with no reference to ours by culture, religion, or nation. And, it is all this 50-100 years before most other pre-Tolkien fantasy. This all ignoring how quickly George MacDonald was passed through as well, who really cant be ignored, even if world-building is your central conception of fantasy...
I see you are a man of culture.😎 I would include a barbarian with his own code of ethics, sometimes amoral, struggling to understand and survive in decadent civilizations.
Currently reading the first part of Elric after stumbeling across Elric comics while looking for r.a Salvatore books in my local comic store. 20 years old and a huge dnd,warhammer,game of thrones nerd. I was so shocked how a book that so greatly influenced all these and many more is completly unknown in my generation.
it is undeniable that Ashton Clarkton Smith was among the best (and unfortunately obscure) "pre-Tolkien" fantasy writers. in my opinion there is no fantasy literature that even comes close to Zothique. incredible, life-changing prose
Tolkien is to fantasy what Doom is to first person shooters. Didn't invent it, wasn't technically the first, but was such a monumentous milestone and had such a profound effect everything afterwards owes some debt to it.
Both made their respective genres blander
I see what you're saying but I think the comparison is a bit weak... imagine doom was made 40 years earlier than it was but still today when gamers buy an FPS they expect fire imps and cacodemons😂
“LotR clone”
@@ADavidJohnson "hobbit-likes"
@@sylvan429 I don't quite understand your point here. Very little (if anything) used by Tolkien was actually invented by him (perhaps the languages, but even that is debatable), though he did pull it all together quite nicely. @MrPyroCrab certainly has a point that The Lord of the Rings (and related literature) was a kind of milestone, as there is definitely a distinction between fantasy "before and after Tolkien." The same goes for something like Star Wars-being "the first" (at least in the minds of the general audience) gives you a lot of extra weight and respect that might not be entirely merited based on the actual substance.
-a brief......
-2 hours long.
-part 1.
what an exciting start to your channel man good luck with the next parts
Right?! He immediately earned my subscription, can't wait for part 2!!
@palemoonlight96 felt like they was being sarcastic....
Glorious isn't it? 😂
I like it too 💖
my thoughts exactly
2 hours is hardly enough to cover such a large topic
Only a lover of fantasy would call a 2 hour video a brief guide 🙂
It's just part 1 😂
Facts & I'm here for it😅🤩
Robert E Howard has to be mentioned when talking about pre tolkien fantasy
My thoughts exactly
And Burroughs
Huh I too was going to recommend Robert E Howard he made some great stuff
That will be explored in Part 2, if I had to guess
The vein of american magazines where Howard splashed (Weird Tales, etc) did get a mention though, check 07:30 . There's even a Howard story on the front cover... :)
Jurgen is a harem anime protagonist
Time's a flat circle
that and there are at least 3 Isekais in the first hour of this video
@@BigEasyH Mark Twain created the modern Isekai in 1889.
Jurgen is Rance or Konosuba but written in the old south. mega-cursed
@@Anyone00TZI mean, Homer's Odyssey is arguably the earliest example of the "Returner" Isekai that's being popping up a bunch lately. Guy gets transported to a warzone where gods are literally appearing on the battlefield to lead troops and slay heroes, he himself is an important general and hero who leads his men to victory through the use of his knowledge, cunning and superhuman ability (literally no-one else can use his bow with even a fraction of the accuracy he seems to innately possess).
After winning and going to see his one true love, he is transported (by a vehicle for carrying bulk goods/people) to a strange world filled with monsters and where he feels lost and he can't use his powers (he doesn't use a bow for the full 20 years), and he must deal with all manner of trials, including a bunch of women trying to get him into their beds, before eventually returning to the world he wants to be in and using his superhuman abilities to win back his waifu and his crown.
If that's not a modern isekai, I don't know what is.
The way stories are communicated may differ greatly, but hell, you can't really say the structures of the stories itself change. lol
@@theapexsurvivor9538
I feel like immediately writing off children's fantasy is completely counterproductive to what you were trying to achieve, what with you mentioning the Hobbit being a children's book leading up to a bigger fantasy world. Just because a story is meant for children doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed by adults -- it can have little details that adults can appreciate that kids would ABSOLUTELY not care about that make a read through when they're older even more fulfilling.
There has been plenty of debate about this but I think one had to keep in mind that experience and comprehension definitely plays a role in what people can read at any age. I used to not be a super advanced reader and put down several books because I found them too difficult. A story mostly concerned with subtext and not a lot of exciting things happening (say The Great Gatsby) is unlikely to excite a kid. I did read LotR as a kid, but that's not a universal experience and I do see there being a distinct separation in books written for different age audiences.
@play_history I mean, lots of people think Gatsby is just straight up overrated, rather than just hard for kids to read.
Especially works like Narnia, which is meant for children but can also be deeply appreciated by adults. The foreword to The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe even explicitly mentions this fact, hoping that the girl it was written for will read it either now, or when she is old and able to appreciate fairy stories again.
You make a good point. The oversight could create for a fun opportunity to create a similar series to this, but focused on children's fantasy.
Childish mindset honestly. Media for kids is fundamentally different
I was looking at some german and czech authors, since those are my languages. Categorization as strictly modern style fantasy seems is a bit elusive.
German speaking authors mostly fall under literary romanticism and/or fairy tales. Some were almost completely taking place in magical wolds connected to the real one. Though most were written for adults, they tend to be shorter and perceived today as children's tales only. There are lots like that at the end of 19th century.
Then for example czech author Jan Weiss's House of a thousand floors (1929) is considered surrealist fantasy, but takes place in a somewhat modern magical world, with bits of almost horror-like dreamy elements and heavy social commentary and allegory.
There is lots of stuff like this that almost fits the bill, arguments could be made in favour of it being early fantasy, but putting it alongside Tolkien just doesn't feel right in the end.
There is great German language author, Leo Perutz (a Jew from Prague) writing from the 1910s-50s. I highly recommend Perutz but his books are not at all like anglo-fantasy, more like the fantastic realism of later Latinamerican authors but often mixed with historical settings.
From your description, Cabell's writing reminds me of the hole that "adult" animation often falls into, where it feels so self conscious about being seen as "for kids" that it goes out of its way to be as vulgar and inappropriate as possible, as if trying to deliberately distance itself from the "kids stuff"
We're looking at you, The Legend of Vox Machina.
american "adult" animation is ironically mostly watched by kids
@@tubebobwil i didn’t really get that vibe from vox machina if im being honest, other than maybe the opening scene, but i would say that it was important for setting the vibe, like robins scene in the boys but with less plot relevance
@@graysonfrost6774 I still haven't gotten past the first 20 minutes of episode one, so maybe my comment is dead wrong ... But that first 20 minutes was full of so much juvenile, just plain crude profanity (and I love context-appropriate profanity), I just am turned off by the entire series.
@@tubebobwilits based on a dnd campaign the voice actors actually played and recorded. Becuase it looks like a cartoon you fel like its too much? Did you also think invincible was "too much"? Grow up and just say you didnt like it. Not act high and mighty becuase its "childish" in your eyes.
I know this is technically children’s fantasy, but George MacDonald wrote another book the fits way more into the categories you’re describing. The Princess and the Goblin. It’s a really good read, and is quite magical and mysterious.
I loved his stories when I was younger!!! Especially The Princess and the Goblin, The Light Princess, The Princess and the Curdie, At the Back of the North Wind.
George MacDonald was an influence on Tolkien as well. I tried reading The Princess and Curdie once, didn't really click with me, not only because of the childlike story (don't mind that in itself) but because it's a sequel. Didn't realise that when I bought it.
@@Vingul I literally had the same experience with Princess and Curdie!🤣 I got it from a pile of free books at school and didn’t realize it was a sequel at first so I was so confused. I finally read the first book on audible and loved it so much and went back and read book 2 again. It’s not as good as Princess and the Goblin but it’s still fun.
@@elijahbuswell You *listened* on audible, you read with your eyes ;) sorry, this is a major pet peeve of mine, I always feel like I'm being lied to, lol. Anyway, funny coincidence, I wonder if we read the same edition. I don't think it was obvious from the cover that it was a sequel ^^
George MacDonald was unfairly excluded from the discussion. His inclusion of weird, neo-platonic/hermetic philosophy into his world seemed to presage the Silmarillion, pretty sure that came off the same series
I would like to make the argument that one can do hard world building but present it like soft worldbuilding, and that you shouldnt judge the world of a book just how a book presents it. I would actually argue that if a book presented its world fully detailed to the reader it is actually doing a degree of a disservice to its reader by presenting knowledge that the characters themselves may not know. I think its a shame how some think of giving the reader only as much knowledge as they need as a bad thing!
that's what i love about brandon sanderson!! the stormlight archives especially showcase this perfectly; his world is SO incredibly intricate and rife with detailed history, but at the beginning of the first book, we know absolutely nothing. everything we learn about the world is from the characters, and the only way we get dramatic irony and learn more about the world than the main characters know is by having chapters here and there from the perspective of OTHER characters. point is, we only ever know how much the characters know. there's no general narrator who explains what's happening, we only get thoughts and descriptions from the perspective of the character that the chapter is focused on. at the beginning of the first book, we know nothing about the world except for the stuff the characters find ordinary. we learn basic things like the political structure and the different nations, the way the weather and world are, etc. then sanderson puts us through a landslide of discovery, continuously putting the reader through the same intoxicating cycle of showing us just a little more than we know, letting us become invested and anxious and intrigued by the vagueness of a concept, and then slowly unravelling that concept until it all suddenly clicks in our head. every single book this repeats multiple times, pulling us further and further into the throes of how the magic works, making you gawk at the absolute scale of this universe and the depth it brings. each book you enter thinking you know SO much, and you leave understanding that you know SO little. and, even better, you're excited to know MORE!! i think it's something very important. obfuscation is a powerful tool that, if wielded correctly, can keep readers invested for thousands of pages.
I agree with that heavily. I found the lord of the rings to be a slog becuasee we are getting bombared with constant information and back story.
@@buttersticks7877 It's definitely a strong point of his and is one of the reasons I'm glad he was the one to finish Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan's passing, as it was also something that was common to Jordan's writing.
@@bluemobster0023You really aren't though. That only actually happens during the Council of Elrond chapter, and it's an in-universe lore dump
@@LordVader1094The Council of Elrond is actually a great chapter too. I actually love parts of the story where a bunch of characters get together to collaborate all their different information and form a plan.
The Night Land is one of the most interesting books I've ever read, and also one of the worst. Its premise and worldbuilding puts a lot of modern SF/F to shame and it was written the same year the Titanic sank. Yet there is no describing the horror I felt when the narrator and Naani were reunited and I realized the book was only half way done.
100% agree.
William Hope Hodgson has to be one of the weirdest people who ever existed. How did a pioneer of bodybuilding and stunt-performers who fled his home at age 13 to join the merchant marines write this stuff? Let alone imagine it?
@DesignatedMember I like to imagine he had really vivid dreams that fueled his imagination 😂 either that or substances
@@linguine4149 This is just me speculating. But I would guess the two big inspirations for Hodgson's imagination were:
The first would just be "all the weird shit you see as a 19th-century sailor". Though this isn't as evident in The Night Land as it is in his other novels.
But the second would put him very close to Lovecraft. Hodgson was ferverently anti-religious (his father was a Vicar who abused his children so much all the boys ran away from home). Because of this, like Lovecraft, Hodgson became sort of an autodidact when it came to contemporary sciences. A lot of the Worldbuilding in his novels relies on outdated scientific theories (like the Sun dying in Night Lands. Or the "Central Suns" in House on the Borderlands).
This basically led him to the same conclusions Lovecraft did. That the Universe is an inherently nihilistic place inimical (and even malevolent) to human existence -- unfathomable in its age and vastness. Lovecraft conceptualized these ideas as Cthulu. While Hodgson conceptualized these ideas as The Watchers, etc.
Besides astrophysics, there's also a lot of evolutionary race science in both mens works. The thought that mankind has "primitive, degenerate, brutish" ancestory that lurks within our DNA like some sort of evil. Hodgson's ideas about the Abhumans seems influenced by early theories about Neanderthals, for instance.
The big difference between Lovecraft and Hodgson would be that... Lovecraft's monsters feel more like Aliens. While Hodgson's monsters feels more like Demons or Spectres. Hodgsons still embodied very Victorian "fighting man" values. There's big "Knight in shining armor" vibes to many of his stories (though this decreases the longer he lived). While in Lovecraft people more readily embrace nihilistic madness (and then promptly faint).
Lastly, and maybe most importantly, both Lovecraft and Hodgson give the impression of being thoroughly lonely and very, very, very introverted people.
@DesignatedMember you seem to be quite studied on both of these famous authors. Thanks for taking the time to enlighten me. I find it quite fascinating that both men were able to construct such intricate worlds of make believe in a time where I presume there was very little media available on the subjects of dark fantasy and science fiction.
I’m so relieved that this brief guide is only 2 hours long. Something quick for me to watch when I’m next doing a poo. Thanks!
Things that people with GI issues say. (I mean this with compassion for people with chronic GI issues. My mother, for one.)
I feel like medieval romances are the first western fantasy. Orlando Furioso, The Faerie Queen, and Arthurian stories. You could go back as far as Gilgamesh and Beowulf, but as you said, those were considered "historical accounts" when they were written, while Medieval romances were meant to be fiction. ( After Geoffrey of Mammoth at least) I think Don Quixote is generally considered to be the first novel and while it doesn't have any fantastical elements, it is a spoof of medieval romances. I would also argue that some Shakespeare plays such as The Tempest and A Winter's Tale helped shape the tradition that Tolkien was writing from. People have pretty much always been telling fantastical stories the genre was just much less specific before Tolkien.
I don't think Beowulf was ever thought of as an historical account. Yes, it starts with "Wait! Here are the stories of the princes your ancestors...", but in the context of when it was written this is not part of a chronicle or a religious text; meaning a monk, a monk that knew of latin literature and was even partly inspired by it in the same text, wrote it (or put it to paper) as a poem. Therefore the start should be seen more like we sometimes make "found footage" horror movies, or "rediscovered manuscript" historical fiction.
Journey to the West is also fantasy. It's based on a real life event but the author clearly invented the supernatural aspects
I think what qualifies as a fantasy are stories that break away from the mundane and can at times defy logic. Stories can follow the heroes journey or subvert it. The key is that fantasy is usually a form of fiction
Shakespeare inspired the Ents! But only cus Tolkien hated him. The British school system is and always has been VERY focused on Shakespeare.
He particularly hated the prophecy in Macbeth that he "shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood rises high to Dunsinane Hill" which is interpreted as the trees walking up to Macbeths Castle, but instead the English soldiers cut down the birnam trees and hid behind them for cover.
The Ents marching on Isengard is Shakespeare shade.
@@Carlos-bz5oo I think you could make a similar video just for the history of wuxia itself. But it would require a well read person who is fluent in Chinese and is familiar with the genre and culture, especially since it's not well known in the west. And I think Journey to the West would be more akin to something like Arthurian legend than to modern fantasy literature. It's the establishment and where a lot of ideas and tropes stem from, with Taoism, Buddhism, and folklore being the cultural origins. And then you have modern web novels, usually xianxia, that most people are familiar with these days. Those would be the "schlocky" stuff like an isekai light novel. And perhaps pre/post-Jin Yong would be the Tolkien marker in this case
This would require an intense amount work, and I'm far from ever knowing Chinese.
I first read Lord of the Rings in 8th grade back in 1966. When I finished I looked around for what to read next. There was nothing. A few years later Lin Carter wrote A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings which had a chapter on pre-Tolkien fantasy. He mentioned all the authors you cover but at the time none were easily available. Eventually a paperback of Worm Ourob myoros appeared. I remember it as a slog.
What you did hear, almost 60 years later is explain to me that all I missed was even sloghier slogs.
Then Lancer books brought out the Conan books and I was off to the races. Those you will cover in part 2, I'm sure
Did you read Fritz Leiber at the time? The first collection of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories was published in '57 and then a bunch more were published between '68 and '70. That's what I read after I bounced off of LOTR as a 10-year-old, when D&D was blowing up and there was a lot more fantasy in print.
Paradoxically Tolkien was collecting dust for 10 to 15 years until hippies (due to the unlicensed paperback published by Ace in the states) discovered and popularized him. And the popularity basically came about because it rode the wave of fantasy books that popularized the genre in the years between. From Conan to Fafhrd and Cthulhu to Imric those were the works that made the market. Tolkien’s book just got lucky. So how it is with a plethora of work having been made, uninfluenced by Tolkien, you couldn’t find anything is a mystery.
I've needed a long-form analysis of this topic for a while. As a German, I might also do some diving into early German fantasy literature, since I am certain there will be at least something worthy of note to be found among the piles of long forgotten works. The intersection between early fantasy and science fiction writing has also often stood out to me as particular interesting, would love to hear more on that.
Excellent video, I am looking forward to the second part.
I saw "brief history", the two hour length, and "part 2"...I was sold immediately
Holy moly I didnt realize this is your first video! I fogured you must be somewhat established already.
I watched LOTR the other night and asked out lout "I wonder what fantasy was before Tolkien" and then found your video just a little while later. This is great!
The reason that Tolkien represents a watershed moment in adult fantasy writing is easy to understand:
He was the first author of ANY genre who applied a lifetime of scholarship and DEEP knowledge of disciplines such as linguistics, mythology and history, to an imaginary story, and the first author to spend an entire life thinking about, imagining and creating an entire world and it's characters and history. It was not just a matter of talent, it was a matter of intense effort and concentration too.
I've read earlier works of Fantasy fiction that go back to the 19th century, and while those authors had admirable imagination and word-smithing skill, none of them were able to bring the time, knowledge and talent to bear that Tolkien did.
That said, there are many enjoyable reads to be had.
1:46:41 Michael Ende. German, started writing around the same time as Tolkien was publishing The Lord of the Rings, wrote many works, but his most famous are Momo, The Story of Jim Button and Luke The Engine-Driver, The Neverending Story, and The Night of Wishes, all four of which are very, very fantastical, and very, very odd, being influenced by a strange mixture of western and eastern influences.
Ende's most clearly fantasy book, "The Neverending story" is from 1979, I think. So I certainly would not count him as pre-Tolkien but I agree that he is an original author, rather independent of the English language fantasy tradition before or after Tolkien. As I grew up with his stuff since before I was able to read, I cannot agree that he is very odd, though. ;)
@@bartolo498 fair, I suppose.
Before I began rewriting my fantasy, I took a journey into researching works of fantasy that predated Tolkien, and have been intrigued and immersed into what I have found. With The King of Elflands Daughter becoming my favorite and should be mentioned here.
Update: Im glad it was mentioned.
The King of Elfland's Daughter was talked about in the video.
If I ever became insanely rich I'd love to fund and produce an artistic film adaptation of The King of Elfland's Daughter with rich visual details and the same sparse dialogue as the book. Something about this book just stuck in my mind in a very cinematic and visual way.
@@Strideo1I don't think I'll ever become a film maker, but I am studying and practicing animation, maybe i can create and produce my own interpreted animated adaptation of it someday, with your help.That or write my own translation if i can get the rights (i know its public domain by now, but i think you still need some sort of copyright)
I'm dying at William Morris being "moderately prominent". That's technically true, of course, especially in this context, but if you have any interest in textiles or interior decorating, he's well known by name even now in the 2020s. They still make wallpaper and fabric using his designs, and I see them turn up as inspiration for the backgrounds of book covers and things like that all the time.
I think he meant in terms of Morris’ writings and general public knowledge of him instead of just interior decorating
Yeah. Morris is kinda a huge deal.
@@patrickmack9462 Morris, the Rosetti siblings and other members of the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts & Crafts movements I think were all very prominent figures at the time. Morris was certainly well-known for his Earthly Paradise volumes, moreso than for his design and industrial activities.
His position as a leader of the Victorian socialist movement probably brought him a lot of attention too, especially after his arrest in 1885 - quite shocking when it involved someone of Morris' social standing.
i opened this to play on the background while i clean my apartment just to end up taking notes. this is so good, i'll definitely check bibliography. keep it up man
There's a little national epic called Kalevala, which was Tolkien's biggest inspiration for his works, and extremely obviously so. He never tried to hide it, and even said that he was "greatly affected" by it.
Turin is basically Kullervo, and several key elements of the stories and characters in Kalevala have a counterpart in Tolkien's legendarium.
Also finnish mythology has always been big on elves, specifically the ones who could be mistaken for beutiful humans. We call those smaller 'santa's elves' and more gnome type elves something completely different.
he was "greatly affected" by all sorts of Northern European myth, not just Kalevala. Beowulf too had an equal, if not greater influence on his work. He studied anglo-saxon after all.
These stories and older authors are fascinating, the premise of The Night Land intrigued me especially. I find the amount of isekai-style stories where the main character is from the real world and goes to a new one being very common. as time goes it’s less common, and Tolkien solidified that you could trust audiences with to understand a story if the main character was not from the real world.
Almost every fantasy story before the 1970s has some sort of conceit to make their stories "plausible" in some way. Whether it's direct transportation, framing it as a myth, using a sci-fi conceit of many years in the past or future, nearly everybody (Tolkien included, though that was behind-the-scenes) framed their tales as having some relationship with the world of the reader. Earthsea may be the earliest thing that I've read which has absolutely zero pretense of relation to our present reality.
@play_history earthsea is hugely underrecognized for its influence on the modern version of the genre, and just for its quality in general. I think it especially had a lot of influence in Japan, where a mix of the spiritual sea / sky journey and with a Jules Verne-ian steampunk post-apocalypse seems to have resonated pretty hard thanks to Miyazaki's early films and their many derivatives. Although the actual Ghibli adaptation of Earthsea didnt end up going so well lmfao.
It's interesting that the bloated Iseki genre also seems to be moving to a more and more abreviated 'getting Isekied' and just geting right into the new world (sometimes its down to just an opening monolog), and were now seeing outright dropping of it and just strait fantasy worlds becoming more dominant and popular. After the sucess of things like Friren and Delicious in Dungeon were going to see more of that and less Isekai, at the least the stories that would have in the past felt some need to use thouse vestigial Isekai frames will drop it and only stories that actually use the premise in the whole story will keep it.
Its because of what iskai allows as a writing tool. When the view point character is new to the fantasy world, you get an easy excuse to carry exposition and plot to the reader who is also new, while also facilitating a "watch along" vibe in the characters monologs.
Not needed as tropes and motifs get strengthened in subgenres of fantasy, but super useful tool regardless
I am thankful for all the quotes you gathered, of which some were new to me. It's good to have this video as a singular source to point to, when talking about this topic.
I can't recommend enough the Ballantine Fantasy version of The Night Land, which edited it into a much more manageable form, it makes all the difference in the world.
I was just thinking that it would be such a quick fix to edit that book into something less mundane, so I guess it's no surprise someone beat me to it lmao
@@goddepersonno3782 Yeah haha, it's worth tracking down.
I'm fairly early into the video so not sure if it's discussed at all, but I think it's interesting to note that Middle Earth was never meant to be a completely separate world- even though virtually every aspect of it is invented by Tolkien, he always intended it as a forgotten history of our own world set in the very distant past. In this way it's not all that different from other mythical, fantastical stories, like those of King Arthur, or in Greek mythology for example- a world where all these monsters and gods exist but it is still intended to be our world.
The main thing that sets Tolkien apart from these is that rather than existing as part of an ever evolving mythology and folklore with hundreds of contributors adding or changing bits over the centuries, is that he created every detail of his mythology from scratch, and in meticulous detail on a scale that had never really been done before, with incredibly complex invented languages and lore.
Most later writers inspired by Tolkien then go on to make no attempts to connect their invented world with our modern one because either they were not aware of Tolkiens intention or possibly deliberately disregarded it to allow more freedom to create increasingly bizarre or unusual worlds- A Song of Ice and Fire for example, cannot be rationalised to take place in some ancient part of Earth's past, due to it's geography, size, and the nature of it's unusual seasons, it has to take place on a different planet to Earth.
Personally I like the idea of fantasy worlds taking place in the distant past or future of our own world- paradoxically for me I think it feels MORE fantastical, as opposed to the fantasy world sharing no relation to our own, I just imagine it as a different planet with different laws of physics, in which case I can't help but feel a creeping sense of sci-fi even if it's not otherwise implied or intended (it doesn't harm my enjoyment just makes me view it differently). That's only my personal feeling on it though and it's entirely subjective. But something about the idea that magic or magical creatures exist in our world and have been lost or forgotten, is appealing to me, and I like that Tolkien wrote this into his universe even if it's fairly subtly done.
Robert E Howard does this before Tolkien. Hyboria is our Earth 10k years in the past and Kull’s Thurian age is 100k years in our Earth’s past. If you like this sort of real world fused with fantasy i would highly recommend reading the story “Kings of the Night” by Robert E Howard.
@@Hyborian_Slayer sounds interesting- will definitely check it out!
I'm kind of sceptical of that characterization of middle Earth, considering that all the lore that makes it part of Earths past is in the Silmarilian and not in LotR proper. A piece of suplemental material 'connecting' a fantasy world to our own is classic death-of-the-author territory.
@kennethferland5579 From an other perspective we have to establish that Tolkien deliberately put the LoTR into this world that he explicitly confirmed to be Earth some 30 years earlier in his writings. Of course you may consider these writings "secondary" but he himself saw them as the foundation of LoTR's geography, culture etc.
@@kennethferland5579it’s also in the Hobbit though. It’s clear that is set in a mythical past
Phenomenal freshman video. I've been slowly reading some of these authors, mainly MacDonald and Morris, and am heartily impressed. As great as Tolkien is, we shouldn't let him completely overshadow his forebearers
Comment for the algorithm gods, praise be to the black box
Praise!
Praise be!
Praise be to the gods of the Algorithm
Astaghfirullah 😄
Praise the virtual Trinity: Algorithm, RNGesus, and [Redacted]
I don't think calling Tolkien father of fantasy is really what he is called, he's more called father modern fantasy, due to how much of it existed before he published his works
He’s not even the father of modern fantasy. “Modern fantasy” tropes are mistaken for coming from Tolkien but are actually a lot of the times from D&D. D&D was primarily inspired by Fritz Lieber and Lankhmar not Tolkien. I’d argue Fritz Lieber or Robert E Howard are the progenitors of modern fantasy, they both were writing about 20 years before LotR was published. The Necromancer trope is a great example, that kind of thing doesn’t exist in middle earth. Where did it come from? Couldn’t be from Tolkien. It’s from Clark Ashton Smith I’d argue and again he’s about 20 or so years Tolkiens senior in terms of publication (for LotR). Tolkien is great but he gets far too much credit.
@@Hyborian_SlayerBro really got triggered about Tolkien,I wonder why? 😂
@@rachetmarvel931 I’m not sure who “bro” is or who is “triggered” in this context. If you’re referring to me, if it wasn’t apparent by my username I’m a big REH fan. I think it’s interesting to discuss the origins of fantasy tropes. I love LotR, it was my first exposure to fantasy as it is for many people, however I think he gets too much credit for founding all of the tropes and other talented authors’ works are left in relative obscurity.
@@Hyborian_Slayer You are aware that D&D, particular their races was heavily inspire by tolkein. the only reason that the halfling were not call hobbits was due to copyright reason.
@@Marveryn ok sure. Where did barbarians, monks and necromancers come from? Even the D&D thief is more in line with mouser or conan. It’s not called the “burglar” class.
to anyone who's reading this... i highly recommend cabell's works. one of my fav writers. great video &great intro to pre-tolkien fantasy. i'd recommend figures of earth as a good intro to cabell
i'm not sure if i would agree with the fantasy elements are just "jokes" though... i think they work in making the world feel sufficiently alien at points and aren't strictly comedic. and also tolkien was wrong - dont think cabell is boring at all
Impeccably researched and strangely soothing to listen to while crafting. A video essayist to watch
53:00
William Hope Hodgson is such a bad prosaist that even Lovecraft called him "painfully wooden".
The Night Land is still my favorite fantasy book. The imagination is simply that vivid, strong, and unique.
An author by the name of James Stoddard actually rewrote the entire novel just to fix its readability issues, naming it: The Night Land, A Story Retold. That's what I would recommend to those curious.
Honestly I'm glad a conversation has come up. I really do hope we get some non-englisb speakers here with other examples, I'd love to discover some non-eurocentric early fantasy!
This is quite the interesting topic.
Never before have I seen a channel kick off with such an excellent start
Subscribed and absolutely in for more
As a native English speaker it can be tricky, but I think that historical and cultural circumstances were different for different places. China's "century of humiliation" was still in full swing during the times of these UK authors but China has a long history with the Journey to the West and it's influence on fantasy. Since you mentioned Miyazaki we would be remiss to forget that, like many of the other authors here, he too was influenced by world war in a very culturally and historically Japanese way that permeantes his take on fantasy. And the Soviet Union must certainly have had a variety of different takes on the genre of fantasy. Looking forward to your next video!
Yeah well fantasy may have been in short supply in English or maybe even just romantic languages in general, the same cannot be said for the rest of the world. And I'm sure the romantic languages had a lot of them in the past but it probably predated people writing things down effectively. I would look at Asia for some old examples because they were writing stuff down way earlier. Journey to the West alone should probably be mentioned even if it isn't in a completely Independent alternative world. But like if you take a moment to look at some of the other ones there's a lot. I know sometimes this gets thrown into mythology but there's a lot of these stories that I don't think people were mistaking with reality, at least not originally when they were made.
Around this time, novelists in China were popping up and creating serialized stories about wondering heroes with amazing physical and spiritual abilities, inspired by martial arts and the old classics. By 1911 or so you already had the first wuxia film of someone flying in the sky and throwing blasts of chi. Chinese literature and fantasy has a massive influence on even Japanese media that I think cannot be overlooked, even if through just general east Asia cultural osmosis.
To see if the USSR had its own share of fantasy would be interesting too. Tolkien was banned, unbanned, banned, and adapted there. It's funny how fantasy is argued to be a inherently "reactionary" genre by some, and yet one of the first examples here is by a British socialist writing his take on medieval romances.
Magic realism is probably Latin America's closest example to fantasy. But I think it's more related to surrealism, dictator novels/political satire, a name slapped unto many different authors with many different influences from ghost stories, mythology, or French avant garde. I don't agree with Terry Prachet's quote on it.
This is genuine scholarly work, bravo.
Eagerly waiting for the (often disregarded) pulp tradition of fantasy.
Great content, keep up the good work. I am translating the Worm Ouroboros into Portuguese right now, and it is great seeing Eddison, this gem of an author, receiving more attention, which he deserves. And yeah, Tolkien is more like the great accomplisher of a long process than the initiator, or the father of a genre, he perfected what previous masters had done and was particularly successful in sales, which popularized this vibe, that is all. By overfocusing on him as a sort of founder, we warp history and end up missing a lot
Hey! Are you translating it for fun or will it be published somewhere? (And, in the second case, where and when?)
@@caiomaida3630 We are thinking second half of 2025, both in English, since most physical editions are a bit old, and in Portuguese. It is very likely to be through Kickstarter (English) and Catarse (Portuguese). If you want a peak, I published a Master's Dissertation April last year that details the translation decisions made, and the first 2 chapters as examples of how the text will read, the title is "Descrição, análise e tradução da obra: The Worm Ouroboros, de Eric Rücker Eddison", I am super hyped for this project :)
I think removing childrens tales from the discussion, although helps with simplifying things, takes a lot out. Some of the books he was most inspired by when writing were fairy tales.
Okay after finally finishing this video, i gotta say I'm hyped for part 2. Can't wait for Jack Vance to get a mention because he needs one, as well as the whole of Appendix N. I'm assuming the algorithm put this in front of me because I'm such a DnD nerd, so I'm glad you pointed out that Tolkien wasn't the only inspiration DnD had. :)
Also taht map of Night Land makes me want to run a campaign in it 😭 I have too many campaign ideas already.
If you haven't yet, it's worth listening to the Appendix N Book Club podcast and their interview with Tim Kask. One of the interesting things Kask (who was co-compiler of Appendix N) said was that they were concerned with availability of the books at the time they were assembling it. Certainly the Ballatine Adult Fantasy series that reprinted many of the authors in this and the next video, but some authors were omitted because it wasn't easy to find their work. There's also a slew of influences from Dave Arneson's side which were not included.
Impressive! I've read a lot of these works and have them in my library. I think you did an excellent job of structural and thematic analysis. Now I want to give you something adjacent to think about, a definition of science fiction that indirectly illuminates some things about fantasy and perhaps partially explains Tolkien's success.
The eminent SF author Greg Bear, in 1994, defined SF like this (sense exact but I could have the wording trivially wrong): "Science fiction is the branch of fantastic literature which affirms the rational knowability of the universe, and has as its characteristic emotional experience the "sense of wonder", the feeling of having suddenlty understood the universe in a new and larger way." We can fruitfully add that the tactic to go with these aims is what you called "hard worldbuilding".
When you vary the terms in this definition you get adjacent branches of literature. You noticed that fantasy , especially pre-Tolkien fantasy, tilts towards soft worldbuilding. This is because fantasy is, in general, unconcerned with "rational knowability"; rather, it aims towards the emotional vividness of mythology and dreams. It is "fantastic literature" in the sense of taking place in a counterfactual secondary world. (I thought the strongest thread in your video was your analysis of how Victorian and Edwardian fantasists gradually worked their way towards fully autonomous secondary worlds.)
Part of the reason Tolkien was able to remake the genre was that he imported the SFnal technique of hard worldbuilding. And yes, I do mean "imported"; in his younger days Tolkien enjoyed SF, expressing admiration for H.G. Wells among others. It is unclear how much contact he had with SF after the Campbellian revolution of 1938-1940 that created the modern SF genre, but there were earlier precedents for what we would now call "Campbellian" or "hard" SF, like Rudyard Kipling's "With The Night Mail", that he was almost certainly familiar with. After LOTR came out it is noted that Tolkien did not object when it was described as science-fictional.
If you'd like to continue this conversation, I am esr@thyrsus.com or @esrtweet on X.
It's too bad that The Night Land sounds so terrible to read as the premise and world-setting sounded pretty cool (the idea of a knight wielding a telekinetic buzzsaw is just as cool as a medieval knight riding a motorcycle wielding both a beam-katana and an AK-47...which is just as cool as how the mechas from The Visions of Escaflowne are powered by dragon hearts, a tangent I know but high-tech-low-tech fusion is something else man)
The setting is awesome. There's a modern fantasy novel set in it by John C Wright called Awake in the Nightland.
There is an entire re-write of The Night Land called "The Night Land: A Story Retold" by James Stoddard whose main purpose is just making the novel more readable.
@@DesignatedMember That's rad!
I’m so excited to watch this! 😮 Thank you.
Thanks for the book ideas. I've already read most of William Morris and Lord Dunsany, so I never thought that Tolkien invented fantasy. Of course there are fantasy precursors going back to ancient mythology.
Oh yes I don't think anyone is foolish enough to think he invented it more that he popularized it in an age where it had been almost completely lost and was the first to write novel fantasy stories into actual books. It's easy to forget how modern books are.
Ill watch the whole video in a bit, but have to say William Morris is one of my favourite people of all time. He's such an interesting character and his art and designs are so beautiful.
Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west.
Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.
Nemedian Chronicles, Robert E Howard, 1920.
i think we all know that robert e howard will be mentioned in the next video ;-)
This video may as well have been custom-made for my interest. I'm so glad I found this, looking forward to part 2!
Will give a watch later. For now, fuel for the algorithm gods
I really hope you remember to come back and watch this cuz it is worth it.
@@darcieclements4880 I did, but thank you though
I had a great time building a Lego set while listening to this. Great way to enjoy multiple elements of fiction at once!
I hope you talk about Clark Ashton Smith in part 2, the best of the Weird Tales writers in my opinion.
Robert E. Howard preceded Tolkien by years. And I love both.
Howard's writing is truly one of a kind. His world-building it’s incredibly effective. He has the ability to evoke the essence of an entire world in a story of barely pages. It's astounding!
This is a subject I have long been interested in, but I am a slow reader having learned to read late compared to many. Howerver I am a big fan of Tolkien even as far as reading his "history of middle earth" 12 volume series, and I also love arthurian literature especially the earliest form of the texts, but when I want to discover more before Tolkien all I hear about is Dunsany. Thank you for opening my eyes. Subscribed and looking forward to your future work.
Dunsany and Eddison, those two are gems. I strongly recommend The Worm Ouroboros (Eddison), King of Elfland's Daughter, Time and the Gods and Welleran's Sword (all Dunsany)
This is an amazing first video from a brand new channel. I can’t wait to see what you do next! Keep up the great work!
For me it will always be Dunsany. I do prefer the soft world building/low fantasy, e.g. Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Phillip Jose Farmer. I know these are post-Tolkien, but whad'ya gonna do? I won't comment on Lovecraft/Howard (which is what passed for YA when I was a kid) since they will be in Part 2.
Now, I would like to call for a standing ovation simply for all the research & effort put into this
I love both Dunsany and Tolkien. They are very different, but both are great. Dunsany's style is truely unique. His worldbuilding is very impressionistic and very effective at the same time. He can create the feel of an entire world in a story of barely 5 pages. Incredible.
Put this on thinking I'd listen until it got repetitive/boring -- enjoyed the whole thing and subscribed. Can't wait for part 2.
Nictzin Dyalhis wrote what I think is the first Tolkien template. His short story "The Sapphire Goddess" appeared in weird Tales magazine in 1934 Joe Average, forty-eight, at the end of his rope, bankrupt, and contemplating suicide, is greeted by an emissary from another world who informs him that he is their lost and misplaced king. He is required to go on a quest to retrieve the sapphire goddess sculpture. This one is just crying out to be expanded to epic length. It would make a great novel. As it is, it is too perfunctory to be savored. Our hero and his two companions need to go on an epic quest and cross hundreds of miles. Instead of a trek worthy of Tolkien they simply use magic to cross the distances! This is also quite sexy in parts the sapphire goddess, a sculpture of a beautiful woman, is actually our hero's wife under an enchantment. It also has a sexy and barely drssed sorceress and a corrupt trickster wizard but the sexiness is toned down we really don't get to consider the loveliness of the demoness or our hero's long-lost wife, which is a shame. If this had been a novel it would have been epic! Worthy of the Lord of the Rings with some sexy female presences thrown in.
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@@JamesELFERS I'm planning to go over Weird Tales in Part II, but I actually forgot to include The Sapphire Goddess in the script. Luckily I haven't gotten around to recording that part, so I'll have to add a mention
I was confused why you weren't talking about Edgar Rice Boroughs with Princess of Mars, but then I looked it up and it was originally released in pulp magazines! Excited to hear your thoughts in the next video. As a kid I really liked them but as an adult I think I would be weirded out about all the weird race stuff if I reread them
I loved the video, but I dissagree on one point:
The main difference between Tolkien and the fairy tales, is not that one is for grown ups and the other for children. No, the difference is in the plot. In the lord of the rings the hero suddenly embarks on a quest to save the world. In the Hobbit, the hero suddenly embarks on a quest to kill a dragon. So, I think what makes Tolkien different from the fairy tales is that the hero is on a heroic quest that will in some way benefit his world.
The goal in The Hobbit is to steal stuff, not to kill the dragon.
What a cool video to stumble on. My dad grew up in the 50s and 60s and loved The King of Eldlands Daughter by Dunsany
36:20 So the story can be summarized as, "So you made a Half-elf kid, Now what?" That's definitely a mood.
This is really wonderfully presented, i love the voices for the sections you read! Ive been listening to it like a podcast the past few days, excited for pt 2
Edith Nesbit wrote a number of fantasies in the early 20th century: The Magic City, The Magic World, The Enchanted Castle, The House of Arden and The Book of Dragons. C.S. Lewis was inspired by Nesbit's work and mentions the Bastable children in The Magician's Nephew: "In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road."
It might also be worth mentioning Rewards and Fairies by Kipling and perhaps A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, unless that is categorised as science fiction.
I don't usually get recommendations for brand new channels but very glad this one came up in my feed!
Subscribed. You're a gentleman and a scholar.
Got this video recommended to me by the algorithm. Great stuff! I went to see if there were any more videos of this type on your channel only to find out that this was the only video, so now I'm really looking forward to Part 2. 😊
The french author André Lichtenberger and his work : "the centaurs" published in 1904 could have been mentioned since his work is often considered, a posteriori, as the very first french fantasy book. The story takes place in a very ancient earth where many creatures inspired by roman and norse mythology (like centaurs, newts, mermaids, fauns,etc...) live in a paradise where murder of any animal living is prohibed and where humans, called Flayed, are banned. In the end, all the mythical creatures are decimated by the humans in a final battle and the centaurs are dompted like horses by the warriors. I think this book is one of the first to show many different living species alongside human, and telling the downfall of these ancient races like we witness in lotr or the witcher for instance.(sorry for my bad english)
Came back to your channel after watching this video yesterday hoping to find another interesting video. Can’t believe this is your only video, it’s so good. Can’t wait for more.
I like this type of channels they make a single video super well made,top quality and with a interesting topic and then they never uploaded anything else
Thank you so much for this wonderful series of videos. I have one very strange case to offer that falls slightly outside of the scope of this video - the work of Henry Darger 1892 - 1973.
Darger wasn't published in his lifetime, his collection of work was discovered after his death. He wrote a 15,000 plus page uhhhh story? Novel? I don't know what to call it, but it certainly has some very bizarre fantasy themes combined with fantastical illustrations by Darger.
Hyperallergic has a great summary of his writings
Concerning German Fantasy: One of the most important early authors coming to mind ETA Hoffman (1776-1823). His works being very influential for fantasy, horror, science fiction and even crime novels. But there aren't many stories by his that are second world fantasy ("The Nutcracker" takes place in a different realm for a short while, "Little Zaches called Cinnabar" takes place in a fairy world that could also be our world, "The Golden Pot" Takes place in our world with Atlantis being sort of its own world)
One might also add the pre-existing folklore which undoubtedly also inspired lots of fantastic literature such as Doktor Faustus and the Tales of the brothers Grimm.
Nice to see Master E.R. Eddison gets a mention. He is my favorite author
Looking forward to this. I like the narration, and it’s not AI, so even better.
Wonderful, can't wait for part 2, and would love to hear your analysis of the rest of the fantasy genre and even sci-fi if you like it.
really enjoyed this, but wonder where Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E Howard fit into your schema?
Both of them will be covered in Part II, under Pulp Fantasy
My man shows up and drops and absolute monster as his first video
Respect
Holy CRAP sleeper find, fantasy channel + video essays but a newly fledged channel? SCORE
I’ve been waiting for something like this for so long.
The Worm Ouroborous - I remember Lessingham getting ONE brief mention late in the book, but it was something like "Similar to what Lessingham saw so long ago" or something like that.
Been consuming this video over the last few nights. It’s great, really looking forward to part 2.
What to me stands out in the Worm Ouroboros is that the villains are much more fleshed out and interesting than the meathead heros. I still love Lord Gro and his philosophizing and love of life more than war. While idolizing might- makes-rght, many of heros are surprising shallow or completely absent like stuck on a mountain out of view.
Lord Gro always struck me as an Odysseus type character thats looked to and looked down by his compatriots. Dragged reluctantly into others' war.
Thank you for giving me a way to spend my morning (plus however long it takes to read through the bibliography)
Everyone should read Gormenghast. Often, descriptive and beautiful writing is described as "painterly". Only with Gormenghast - and only in part due to the fact that Mervyn Peake was in fact a painter - have I ever found that description truly appropriate.
Is it fantasy so? As far as I remember there isn't any hint for it to be
@@sychuan3729it is a fantasy, a mannerpunk type of fantasy to be exact where characters and their eccentric persona drives the story.
@@Illusionistofthecourt there are many books with "characters and their eccentric persona", most of the 19th century romantic literature which isn't fantasy.
Thank you for your hard work on this informative and thought-provoking video! Very well done. I was excited to see the artwork of Sidney Sime make an appearance, as his style is one of my favorites!
Though it’s not pre-Tolkien, I’m curious what your thoughts are on Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. It’s right up there with LotR for me, and GRRM once said in an interview that the series inspired, directly or in part (can’t remember specifically) his own prolific series. It’s very underrated and slept on, in my opinion.
Anyway, thanks again! Looking forward to seeing more of your stuff.
“A brief guide” (video length is 2:1:27)
Though it was riveting.
I don't usually watch videos this long, but I found this fascinating.
I am a literature student and I have studied the literature from 1500 to 1950's and one thing I found common in every single era is that Critics are fucking stupid, they hate innovation, they hate when someone tries something new even they hate themselves. I am so glad nowadays we dont give them the respect they used to get.
This should already be have more recognition cuz this was a lot of work
I love Dunsany's short stories, but I must admit I found The King of Elfland's Daughter a little tedious.
I just recently read Lucians "A True Story" and are happy that you mentioned it!
According to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Bibliography, a lot of these were inspirations for DnD-type fantasy to some degree, or at least Dunsany and Eddison were.
Loved the thoroughness and delivery, great video, mate.
I won’t say you “got it wrong” but we disagree on one important point: The Night Land is a very good book.
All these incredible new channels UA-cam has been pushing really gives me motivation to do what ive been too lazy to do for years.
It is high cruelty that Phantasmion gets written off as a child's fairy tale, though I appreciate that it got the time that it did, it's so overlooked.
Phantasmion is as medieval a romance as anything Morris wrote while cleaving closer our notions of fantasy than any of his work; it achieves a higher poetic and more Tolkien-esque vision of sword and sorcery than any pulp I've encountered; it is more complete and fulfilled than Dunsany, and at least as imaginative as his King of Elfland's Daughter; and, while not quite equal to Eddison's world-building, manages to build a believable and mappable world entirely its of its own with no reference to ours by culture, religion, or nation. And, it is all this 50-100 years before most other pre-Tolkien fantasy.
This all ignoring how quickly George MacDonald was passed through as well, who really cant be ignored, even if world-building is your central conception of fantasy...
59:47 59:54 59:56 😊 1:00:01 😊😊😊😊😊 1:00:25 😊 1:00:38 😊 1:01:09
I'm honestly surprised how many of these I actually listened to during my peak audio book phase. Librevox really is a great asset.
It's a shame, because the Night Land looked like an interesting world and scenario. It also reminds me of themes from Final Fantasy XV and VII.
This video reminded me why i always keep coming back to youtube. Such a interesting video.
When I think of "fantasy" I DO NOT think of "elves & dwarves". I think of albino wizard kings with sentient black swords.
I see you are a man of culture.😎
I would include a barbarian with his own code of ethics, sometimes amoral, struggling to understand and survive in decadent civilizations.
Currently reading the first part of Elric after stumbeling across Elric comics while looking for r.a Salvatore books in my local comic store. 20 years old and a huge dnd,warhammer,game of thrones nerd.
I was so shocked how a book that so greatly influenced all these and many more is completly unknown in my generation.
@@annapluntke432 Also check Clark Ashton Smith & Fritz Liber for stuff in a similar vein. And pls listen to Blue Oyster Cult (BOC👍) song Black Blade.
@@annapluntke432 Also check out Clark Ashton Smith and Fritz Leiber for some stuff in a similar vein.
@@annapluntke432 I was going to recommend similar stuff to you but YT keeps removing my comments?
it is undeniable that Ashton Clarkton Smith was among the best (and unfortunately obscure) "pre-Tolkien" fantasy writers. in my opinion there is no fantasy literature that even comes close to Zothique. incredible, life-changing prose