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Archive 1 |
We might also want to make some attempt to expand beyond Eurasian culture as a whole, though I'm not sure how significant the contributions of other cultures have really been (so far). After all, we don't want to include things that aren't very significant just for multiculturalism's sake, but it's something I think we should really look into, no matter what we end up deciding. -- Corvun 23:26, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
The chapter on Modern fantasy has been bugged, most of it is missing.
- - Prof. Dr. Aleksandar B. Nedelkovic, Beograd, Serbia
The manga etc is much too modern to have any influence on the formation of the fantasy genre, and this is the topic of the article in question. The fantasy, in the sense of supernatural happening which were not explicitly believed, is evident in all literary traditions. The fantasy genre as such, on the other hand, is a modern creation of Western civilisation, and any history of modern fantasy genre must necessarily concentrate on those literary traditions which influenced it.
Eg influence of the Arabian Night Tales on western fantasy is undoubtable. Such authors as Dunsany are unimaginable without them.
Baduin 16:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Do people have some problems with chronology? Gothic novel (XVIII century) is always pushed after Morris (end of XIX century) Baduin 17:54, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I broke off the "differences" section because it was not suitable for the lede -- the article being about the history and not the differences.
Goldfritha
15:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
The order of this article is not very useful. The Arabic section is talking about the decline of romances before the section that tells what they are. The Western section deals with the matter chronologically, but the added sections go after it regionally. It does not seem appropriate for an article on history. Goldfritha 00:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
This page does not discuss the history of fantasy. At best, it discusses what The Encyclopedia of Fantasy terms "taproot texts", sources for the genre, but it does so with no eye to the actual degree of influence that the works have had. Goldfritha 01:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I suggest reading works in question before making any changes. "True History" is pure fantasy, with slight elements of SF - as anyone who reads it would know. Golden Ass of Apuleius is fantasy also. It does have elements of horror. This, however, happens so often, that if elements of horror were to disqualify books from being fantasy there would remain a short list indeed.
Baduin
22:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't there be a more detailed reference to L. Frank Baum's Oz series? After all, it is basically a modern fantasy series of traveller's tales which could possibly be considered epic (consists of 14 original novels) in nature, pre-dates Tolkien by about 30-35 years, and re-introduces the concepts of elves, giants, dwarves, and gnomes, before Tolkien. Shadowhawk4735 ( talk) 17:24, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Is there any point to the current splitting up of romances into the medieval and the Renaissance? The development was continuous. Goldfritha 03:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I must say this article begins at last look like an encyclopedia article. And it has clear focus - modern fantasy genre and its development and history - as opposed to the laundry list of the fantastic literature throughout the ages.
I must say the old article was fun, but it belonged to quite a different topic.
Assuming this I would consider removing romances, fairy tales and gothic novels to the Sources of fantasy article. Those works may be near fantasy, but they belong to their own genres. If the ancient novel and utopias were removed, other genres should also go.
Baduin 13:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Since there seems to be a need to call the fantasy genre, "Modern Fantasy", doesn't that inherently imply that the fantasy genre as a whole, encompasses much more? Thus, the fantasy genre should include all works of fantasy, not just be defined by the last two hundred years of literary history. Shadowhawk4735 ( talk) 17:40, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
I think we've done a pretty good job so far of including "Eastern" fantasy fiction, particularly on the subgenre page, but this history page seems to be overwhelmingly Western. The influence of Eastern fairytales and fables on the fantasy genre has been immense, not only through the avenues of Japanese monster-movies, anime, manga, and videogame RPGs, but also through pen & paper RPGs, a general Western awareness of Eastern culture in the past few decades, and most importantly, the impact that Eastern fairytales, fables, and culture has had on contemporary fantasy fiction in the East.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sadads ( talk • contribs)
After starting editing Fantasy literature I realise that there was this parallel article which focusses also on literature. Can anyone explain why WP needs these two articles? See also Fantasy: "History" [1]. Perhaps History of fantasy should also be re-named "History of fantasy literature", as there is also the article Fantasy which deals with all media. This would reflect the contents of "History of fantasy" less ambiguously. Rwood128 ( talk) 13:06, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
Unless there are objections in the next week, the merge will be made. Rwood128 ( talk) 11:23, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
On further thought, perhaps, the very detailed discussion of more recent fantasy should be kept as a separate, new article. In my recent edits on Fantasy literature I have been severely cutting excess detail, taken from this article, in preparation for the merge. It might also be worth considering changing the title of Sources of fantasy to Beginnings of fantasy literature. The alternative would be to merge it with "Fantasy literature". Any advice? Rwood128 ( talk) 12:58, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
I've just skimmed this so far, but the sources look good and the bits I'm independently familiar with look accurate. But isn't there rather a lot of material that predates 1954 for an article on Tolkien? (Actually Tolkien's influence really picks up in the 1960s.) I can imagine that sources that focus solely on Tolkien might digress into substantial histories of the fantasy genre, but in an encyclopedia I think it would make more sense to put the bulk of the history into an article about the history of the fantasy genre. Some of that would certainly be needed here for background, but we don't reach Tolkien himself, and hence his influence on the genre, until more than halfway through the article as it stands. The article also has to cover the existing fantasy genre's influence on Tolkien, but at the moment all the article does is mention some influences, without going into much critical detail. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 15:17, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
I had a look at Tolkien's modern sources, which includes mention of Haggard, Crockett, MacDonald, Wyke-Smith, Barfield, Wells, Verne, and Morris. I think we could lose the paragraph here about Poe and Wilde since we're not claiming it influenced Tolkien. I think that probably means we need to lose one of the two double-page images, which is a pity.
In the 20th century section, there's not much correspondence with the article on Tolkien's modern sources. Is this section intended to summarize the state of fantasy at the time LotR came out? If so I think it could be compressed a bit. For example, what's the relevance of Carroll, Barrie, Nesbit and Stockton? Or the conventions of the Lost World genre? Or Blavatsky? On the other hand I can see it's hard to summarize the state of the genre in 1954 without mentioning the history of the genre over the last fifty years, and most of those are relevant to fantasy's development.
One minor note: if you decide to keep the date of coinage of the word "fantasy", you might use this. The website is run by Jesse Sheidlower, a professional lexicographer who was for a while the OED's American editor. However, I should also mention that I was for years one of the administrators of that database; I don't know if that counts as a conflict of interest.
After writing the above I had another read through the 20th century section and I now think that the problem for me is that I don't know what a summary of it would say. It seems a list of aspects of fantasy but there's nothing summative at the end; nothing that says "and here's what the state of fantasy was when Tolkien came along". I think that's what's needed; perhaps some of what I queried above is in fact useful, but I can't tell till I know what summary points it's in service of. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 23:06, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Some thoughts from a quick skim:
More tonight, I hope. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Starting a separate section for convenience. These comments are a bit random, since I'm generating them partly as I read through and partly as I wander about the house thinking about the article, so I may be contradicting myself, and I am sure only some of these will be useful.
The changes you've made in response to my comments above look good, so I won't respond individually. Now that you've changed the title I want to ask about scope again. I jotted down a few questions based on another read through, but on reflection I think there's not much point in them until I understand your intention for the article. Where would this article differ from a History of fantasy literature article? Would a good summary statement be "The history of fantasy that is relevant to Tolkien's work -- his influences, and the strand of fantasy that descends from him"? If so, I think I prefer the earlier title, since we already have an article on his influences and a single articles talking about his impact on the genre makes sense. But this title talks about fantasy both before and after Tolkien, so how should it differ from the sum of an articles on his influences and an article on his impact? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:51, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
The review is closed, so rather than posting there I'm posting on the talk page. (I said I'd step away but now a review's been done I feel I can comment again.) I can see why Chiswick Chap argues it's not OR, but I also see Buidhe's point. With a title of "Tolkien and the history of fantasy" one could argue that a source discussing either one in isolation is relevant, but that's part of my problem with the topic/title -- it's too broad and inchoate. What prevents this article from mentioning Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber, a very important novel in the history of fantasy but one that had nothing to do with Tolkien's influence or influencers? Only that it is not connected to Tolkien by any source. But if that's a good reason not to mention it, Buidhe is right that we need scholarly sources that connect the two topics to mention any work of fantasy. And then we're back to needing a more specific title again. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 18:51, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
I’ve edited the History of fantasy article back to its state on 5 July. The edits since then have completely changed the article. Looking at the diff between the pre-move and current articles [3], I think every word has been replaced. As for Tolkien, the last diff before the move [4] includes 28 results on ctrl+f "Tolkien"; but in the latest revision [5], ctrl+f "Tolkien" returns 146 matches. I don’t think there is any text in common between them.
Also, the edit summary for the move reads "match article contents, which are organized around the author", which is inaccurate. The "Modern Fantasy" section is organized around Tolkien, but that's only about half the article at most.
1. @ Chiswick Chap: Why did you replace the old article rather than starting a new one? There have been over 380 edits since the move and you did all but a handful.
2. What is the purpose of this article? It's not a history of fantasy, it's not Tolkien's influences, and it's not directly about Tolkien's influence on fantasy (there was an article by that title, but I can't find old diffs, due to the page move I think). All three seem reasonable but this is a mishmash. It looks like "history of fantasy but Tolkien-centric", which is an OR/WEIGHT issue. Especially in the last section, there is little discussion of fantasy apart from Tolkien.
CohenTheBohemian ( talk) 03:14, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
We might also want to make some attempt to expand beyond Eurasian culture as a whole, though I'm not sure how significant the contributions of other cultures have really been (so far). After all, we don't want to include things that aren't very significant just for multiculturalism's sake, but it's something I think we should really look into, no matter what we end up deciding. -- Corvun 23:26, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
The chapter on Modern fantasy has been bugged, most of it is missing.
- - Prof. Dr. Aleksandar B. Nedelkovic, Beograd, Serbia
The manga etc is much too modern to have any influence on the formation of the fantasy genre, and this is the topic of the article in question. The fantasy, in the sense of supernatural happening which were not explicitly believed, is evident in all literary traditions. The fantasy genre as such, on the other hand, is a modern creation of Western civilisation, and any history of modern fantasy genre must necessarily concentrate on those literary traditions which influenced it.
Eg influence of the Arabian Night Tales on western fantasy is undoubtable. Such authors as Dunsany are unimaginable without them.
Baduin 16:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Do people have some problems with chronology? Gothic novel (XVIII century) is always pushed after Morris (end of XIX century) Baduin 17:54, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I broke off the "differences" section because it was not suitable for the lede -- the article being about the history and not the differences.
Goldfritha
15:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
The order of this article is not very useful. The Arabic section is talking about the decline of romances before the section that tells what they are. The Western section deals with the matter chronologically, but the added sections go after it regionally. It does not seem appropriate for an article on history. Goldfritha 00:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
This page does not discuss the history of fantasy. At best, it discusses what The Encyclopedia of Fantasy terms "taproot texts", sources for the genre, but it does so with no eye to the actual degree of influence that the works have had. Goldfritha 01:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I suggest reading works in question before making any changes. "True History" is pure fantasy, with slight elements of SF - as anyone who reads it would know. Golden Ass of Apuleius is fantasy also. It does have elements of horror. This, however, happens so often, that if elements of horror were to disqualify books from being fantasy there would remain a short list indeed.
Baduin
22:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't there be a more detailed reference to L. Frank Baum's Oz series? After all, it is basically a modern fantasy series of traveller's tales which could possibly be considered epic (consists of 14 original novels) in nature, pre-dates Tolkien by about 30-35 years, and re-introduces the concepts of elves, giants, dwarves, and gnomes, before Tolkien. Shadowhawk4735 ( talk) 17:24, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Is there any point to the current splitting up of romances into the medieval and the Renaissance? The development was continuous. Goldfritha 03:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I must say this article begins at last look like an encyclopedia article. And it has clear focus - modern fantasy genre and its development and history - as opposed to the laundry list of the fantastic literature throughout the ages.
I must say the old article was fun, but it belonged to quite a different topic.
Assuming this I would consider removing romances, fairy tales and gothic novels to the Sources of fantasy article. Those works may be near fantasy, but they belong to their own genres. If the ancient novel and utopias were removed, other genres should also go.
Baduin 13:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Since there seems to be a need to call the fantasy genre, "Modern Fantasy", doesn't that inherently imply that the fantasy genre as a whole, encompasses much more? Thus, the fantasy genre should include all works of fantasy, not just be defined by the last two hundred years of literary history. Shadowhawk4735 ( talk) 17:40, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
I think we've done a pretty good job so far of including "Eastern" fantasy fiction, particularly on the subgenre page, but this history page seems to be overwhelmingly Western. The influence of Eastern fairytales and fables on the fantasy genre has been immense, not only through the avenues of Japanese monster-movies, anime, manga, and videogame RPGs, but also through pen & paper RPGs, a general Western awareness of Eastern culture in the past few decades, and most importantly, the impact that Eastern fairytales, fables, and culture has had on contemporary fantasy fiction in the East.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sadads ( talk • contribs)
After starting editing Fantasy literature I realise that there was this parallel article which focusses also on literature. Can anyone explain why WP needs these two articles? See also Fantasy: "History" [1]. Perhaps History of fantasy should also be re-named "History of fantasy literature", as there is also the article Fantasy which deals with all media. This would reflect the contents of "History of fantasy" less ambiguously. Rwood128 ( talk) 13:06, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
Unless there are objections in the next week, the merge will be made. Rwood128 ( talk) 11:23, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
On further thought, perhaps, the very detailed discussion of more recent fantasy should be kept as a separate, new article. In my recent edits on Fantasy literature I have been severely cutting excess detail, taken from this article, in preparation for the merge. It might also be worth considering changing the title of Sources of fantasy to Beginnings of fantasy literature. The alternative would be to merge it with "Fantasy literature". Any advice? Rwood128 ( talk) 12:58, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
I've just skimmed this so far, but the sources look good and the bits I'm independently familiar with look accurate. But isn't there rather a lot of material that predates 1954 for an article on Tolkien? (Actually Tolkien's influence really picks up in the 1960s.) I can imagine that sources that focus solely on Tolkien might digress into substantial histories of the fantasy genre, but in an encyclopedia I think it would make more sense to put the bulk of the history into an article about the history of the fantasy genre. Some of that would certainly be needed here for background, but we don't reach Tolkien himself, and hence his influence on the genre, until more than halfway through the article as it stands. The article also has to cover the existing fantasy genre's influence on Tolkien, but at the moment all the article does is mention some influences, without going into much critical detail. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 15:17, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
I had a look at Tolkien's modern sources, which includes mention of Haggard, Crockett, MacDonald, Wyke-Smith, Barfield, Wells, Verne, and Morris. I think we could lose the paragraph here about Poe and Wilde since we're not claiming it influenced Tolkien. I think that probably means we need to lose one of the two double-page images, which is a pity.
In the 20th century section, there's not much correspondence with the article on Tolkien's modern sources. Is this section intended to summarize the state of fantasy at the time LotR came out? If so I think it could be compressed a bit. For example, what's the relevance of Carroll, Barrie, Nesbit and Stockton? Or the conventions of the Lost World genre? Or Blavatsky? On the other hand I can see it's hard to summarize the state of the genre in 1954 without mentioning the history of the genre over the last fifty years, and most of those are relevant to fantasy's development.
One minor note: if you decide to keep the date of coinage of the word "fantasy", you might use this. The website is run by Jesse Sheidlower, a professional lexicographer who was for a while the OED's American editor. However, I should also mention that I was for years one of the administrators of that database; I don't know if that counts as a conflict of interest.
After writing the above I had another read through the 20th century section and I now think that the problem for me is that I don't know what a summary of it would say. It seems a list of aspects of fantasy but there's nothing summative at the end; nothing that says "and here's what the state of fantasy was when Tolkien came along". I think that's what's needed; perhaps some of what I queried above is in fact useful, but I can't tell till I know what summary points it's in service of. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 23:06, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Some thoughts from a quick skim:
More tonight, I hope. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Starting a separate section for convenience. These comments are a bit random, since I'm generating them partly as I read through and partly as I wander about the house thinking about the article, so I may be contradicting myself, and I am sure only some of these will be useful.
The changes you've made in response to my comments above look good, so I won't respond individually. Now that you've changed the title I want to ask about scope again. I jotted down a few questions based on another read through, but on reflection I think there's not much point in them until I understand your intention for the article. Where would this article differ from a History of fantasy literature article? Would a good summary statement be "The history of fantasy that is relevant to Tolkien's work -- his influences, and the strand of fantasy that descends from him"? If so, I think I prefer the earlier title, since we already have an article on his influences and a single articles talking about his impact on the genre makes sense. But this title talks about fantasy both before and after Tolkien, so how should it differ from the sum of an articles on his influences and an article on his impact? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:51, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
The review is closed, so rather than posting there I'm posting on the talk page. (I said I'd step away but now a review's been done I feel I can comment again.) I can see why Chiswick Chap argues it's not OR, but I also see Buidhe's point. With a title of "Tolkien and the history of fantasy" one could argue that a source discussing either one in isolation is relevant, but that's part of my problem with the topic/title -- it's too broad and inchoate. What prevents this article from mentioning Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber, a very important novel in the history of fantasy but one that had nothing to do with Tolkien's influence or influencers? Only that it is not connected to Tolkien by any source. But if that's a good reason not to mention it, Buidhe is right that we need scholarly sources that connect the two topics to mention any work of fantasy. And then we're back to needing a more specific title again. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 18:51, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
I’ve edited the History of fantasy article back to its state on 5 July. The edits since then have completely changed the article. Looking at the diff between the pre-move and current articles [3], I think every word has been replaced. As for Tolkien, the last diff before the move [4] includes 28 results on ctrl+f "Tolkien"; but in the latest revision [5], ctrl+f "Tolkien" returns 146 matches. I don’t think there is any text in common between them.
Also, the edit summary for the move reads "match article contents, which are organized around the author", which is inaccurate. The "Modern Fantasy" section is organized around Tolkien, but that's only about half the article at most.
1. @ Chiswick Chap: Why did you replace the old article rather than starting a new one? There have been over 380 edits since the move and you did all but a handful.
2. What is the purpose of this article? It's not a history of fantasy, it's not Tolkien's influences, and it's not directly about Tolkien's influence on fantasy (there was an article by that title, but I can't find old diffs, due to the page move I think). All three seem reasonable but this is a mishmash. It looks like "history of fantasy but Tolkien-centric", which is an OR/WEIGHT issue. Especially in the last section, there is little discussion of fantasy apart from Tolkien.
CohenTheBohemian ( talk) 03:14, 19 July 2023 (UTC)