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In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, modern fantasy began to take shape. The history of modern fantasy literature begins with George MacDonald, the Scottish author of such novels as The Princess and the Goblin and Phantastes; the latter can be considered to be the first fantasy novel written for adults. [31]
Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fantasy literature may be directed at both children and adults.
The orc was a sort of "hell-devil" in Old English literature, and the orc-né (pl. orc-néas, "demon-corpses") was a race of corrupted beings and descendants of Cain, alongside the elf, according to the poem Beowulf. Tolkien adopted the term orc from these old attestations, which he professed was a choice made purely for "phonetic suitability ...
Indeed, the literary fairy tale developed so smoothly into fantasy that many later works (such as Max Beerbohm's The Happy Hypocrite and George MacDonald's Phantastes) that would now be called fantasies were called fairy tales at the time they written. [33] J. R. R. Tolkien's seminal essay on fantasy writing was titled "On Fairy Stories."
In the 1960s and afterwards, elves similar to those in Tolkien's novels became staple, non-human characters, in high fantasy works and in fantasy role-playing games. Tolkien's elves were followed by Poul Anderson 's grim Norse-style elves of human size, in his 1954 fantasy The Broken Sword .
Cozy fantasy is all about fantasizing the mundane. That may be why so many stories incorporate food elements, like “A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic” by J. Penner or “Can’t Spell Treason ...
The opposition between good and evil characteristic of fantasy also exists in sword and sorcery literature, but it is less absolute and the events often take place in a morally gray area. These features are especially emphasized in newer works of the genre. The stories are fast-paced and action-oriented, with lots of violent fight scenes.
Mesoamerican literature was typically recorded on codices, though most surviving codices of pre-Columbian literature were written in the Latin alphabet to preserve oral tradition after colonization. Nahuatl literature was divided into cuícatl , which included song and poetry, and tlahtolli , which included prose works of history and discourses.