MODERN FANTASY

Catalog description

This course explores the birth of Fantasy as both a literary genre and a means of cultural influence. More than a simple flight of fancy, Fantasy is considered as a literary and rhetorical response to the materialism of modernity. Students begin with an overview of British Folk-Lore Studies in the nineteenth century, examining scholars who characterized myths and fairytales as products of primitive minds striving to understand the natural world. We then engage the works of pioneering British “fairytale” authors who challenged this view, championed the faculty of the imagination, and directly influenced J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the rest of the Inklings. Finally, we look at the creative and critical output of the Inklings themselves and consider how the roots of Fantasy continue to influence culture through other media like film and television. Throughout the course, we will attempt to construct a Philosophy of Fairyland and consider what light it might shed on and for our contemporary world. Cross-listed with COMM 325.