(no subject)

[tigerfort]

There's a moderately interesting article on fantasy fiction on the Torygraph's website, to which I was pointed by Neil Gaiman's blog. While the author doesn't have anything to say that will stun anyone who actually reads modern fantasy novels, it makes a very pleasing change from the sort of article that normally gets published on the subject.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting that.

[overconvergent.livejournal.com]

That was a very interesting article; I am not sure I would have chosen William Morris as the first modern fantasy writer (right now, Swift is writing rude verse in Heaven at the thought!) but it's not an unreasonable view, and as you say it is a nice change from the usual.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

It depends on how you define "modern", IMHO. And before a certain point, it's arguable that they didn't think of it as "fantasy" in a separate way from "realistic".

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

I think the argument is that Swift will have thought of himself as writing satire (which happened to have a fantastic setting), while Morris deliberately sat down and wrote something that was intended to be fantasy (in the modern sense, although he probably wouldn't have used the word that way).