(urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

[David Stockhoff]

And Dunsany and Wilde.

On 12/16/2011 12:21 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> Yes, and there is plenty of "high" fantasy that precedes JRRT also --
> notably William Morris.
>
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Larry Miller<decanus1284 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Dont forget that sword and sorcery also has roots in the planetary
>> romances of burroughs who we know Wolfe was aware of.  There was also
>> the Jirel of Joiry  and the Zothique stories that are the earliest
>> sword and sorcery tales.  Or the Worm Ouroborous.  They all predate
>> Tolkien.  And Conan being a cheap comic book derivative? Come on!
>>
>> On 12/16/11, Lee Berman<severiansola at hotmail.com>  wrote:
>>>> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: You are absolutely correct, I meant "religious
>>>> morality" and should
>>>> have said so explicitly.
>>> Ah, well, not really. I understood but I'll confess that I just wanted an
>>> excuse to
>>> further discuss Tolkien with someone who knows more than I do about the
>>> subject. :- )
>>>
>>>> Antonio Pedro Marques: The discussion was about what it looked like on the
>>>> _surface_. If
>>>> you only find out at the end of the story that a character seems to fit a
>>>> fairy tale,
>>>> then the fairytaleness isn't really part of the scenery, is it?
>>> Scenery! That's an interesting point. For me, it was fairly early in BotNS
>>> that the S&  S/
>>> fairy tale aspects hit me. What came later (much later) was the recognition
>>> of real religious
>>> content in the story, albeit with an intensely gnostic flavor.
>>>
>>> For years I had wondered why Wolfe put "gnostic symbols" in the Witches
>>> Tower. The problem
>>> was my own limited knowledge of gnosticism. The impact of Alexander's brief
>>> but mighty
>>> empire on all levels of Western culture can't be ignored, including
>>> religion. Our legends of
>>> witches, vampires, manbeasts shapeshifting gods, monsters etc. can be traced
>>> back to that time
>>> period, in that part of the world.
>>>
>>> But anyway, does the fact that my realization of the religious aspect of
>>> BotNS came later mean
>>> it is not a religious story? Or even that religious trappings are not part
>>> of the scenery?
>>>
>>>> Maybe for me s&s is a more restricted thing than for others. I think of
>>>> Conan the Barbarian
>>>> rather than LotR as the prototype. I'm not even sure I find LotR all that
>>>> s&s, given the serious
>>>> 'historical' feeling I get from it, nor the Hobbit, given its (deceivingly)
>>>> children's-tale style.
>>> Great observation and recognition Antonio. Perhaps I am not alone in having
>>> assumed that LotR was
>>> more of a prototype or archetype of S&  S while Conan is more of a cheap
>>> comic book derivative.
>>> A cultural bias? Conan (like Tarzan) is a European character created by an
>>> American, while LotR seems
>>> somehow more authentic and refined- high brow British characters created by
>>> an Englishman.
>>>
>>> But, a check online about Robert Howard, the creator of Conan (and who
>>> pre-dates Tolkien), produces
>>> this blurb:
>>>
>>>> With Conan and his other heroes, Howard created the genre now known as
>>>> sword and sorcery, spawning
>>>> a wide swath of imitators and giving him an influence in the fantasy field
>>>> rivaled only by J. R. R.
>>>> Tolkien and Tolkien's similarly inspired creation of high fantasy.
>>>
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