[BIFlight]

Yeah, Painbrush does amazing work, to be sure.

Getting back to the original topic...

I actually had a lengthy discussion on another thread on this subject recently. I disputed the claim that REH inveted the S&S genre. He heavily influenced it, and certainly bears a rank of his own in its history, but he did not originate it.

Moreover, I don't know that I would say Lord Dunsany created Sword and Sorcery, either, as great as he was. Again, though, he certainly influenced it very heavily, and was a tremendous influence on many of the writers to come afterward who dabbled in the genres he made such art with.

[korak]

The problem with your theory is the simple fact that the term Sword-and-Sorcery was coined by Fritz Leiber to specifically describe the Robert E. Howard school of fantasy. It did not exist as a term until that time. So you can use the term in a general generic sense if you wish, but be aware that knowledgeable fantasy fans will assume that you are referring to the Howard type of fantasy, a fairly narrow category that includes that tradition only, such as Fafrd and the Grey Mouser, Elric, Brak, Thongor, etc.

In other words, the term was coined to define the Howardian tradition of fantasy. Therefore Howard is in fact the founder of it. The Shadow Kingdom with King Kull was the first one. Not even other Howard stories like Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn can fit the category, because they are not set in an imaginary world.

[BIFlight]

korak_the_killer, on Nov 16 2005, 02:28 AM, said:

In other words, the term was coined to define the Howardian tradition of fantasy. Therefore Howard is in fact the founder of it.

The coining of a term to describe something, as presented by an individual or group, does not mean that individual or group created it.

The Chinese invented "gunpowder," but the name was an English invention. This does not make the English the inventors of gunpowder.

The term "Sword and Sorcery" was created in an attempt to label the sort of story Howard and others were already producing. The fact that it was done in reference to Howard's work does not make him its originator.

This post has been edited by BIFlight: 16 November 2005 - 05:40 PM

[Kortoso]

I'm a little late coming to this thread. However the definitions for the terms "Fairy Tale", "Sword and Sorcery" and "Heroic Fiction" remain up in the air.

Here's what WIkipedia (for what it's worth) has to say about Fairy Tales:

Quote

A fairy tale is a story featuring folkloric characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants, and others. The fairy tale is a sub-class of the folktale. These stories often involve princes and princesses, and modern versions usually have a happy ending. In cultures where demons and witches are perceived as real, fairy tales may merge into legendary narratives, where the context is perceived by teller and hearers as having historical actuality. However unlike legends and epics they usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and actual places, persons and events.

I think that a fairy tale, properly speaking, is a folk-tale; that is, it comes out of a folk culture (most of the Grimm tales come from rural Germany), and has no known author. Modern authors can write fiction in the style of fairy tales, and I would put Harry Potter in that class. Although fairy tales sometimes deal with brutal subjects, the audience is mostly children, and the language usually reflects this.

I haven't read enough Dunsany to say one way or another, but he is certainly the earliest known creator of fantasy fiction.

Heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery, are both contemporary genres, but a case can be made for early myths being the first of that class. Many modern fantasy stories seem to follow the form of these ancient myths.

Question: Did Homer originate the genre of fantasy fiction?

[korak]

biflight writes- The Chinese invented "gunpowder," but the name was an English invention. This does not make the English the inventors of gunpowder.


No, but it does mean that while the Chinese invented noodles, they did not invent spagetti! The term you are looking for is "heroic Fantasy." Calling Sword and Sorcery synonymous with that is like saying American football is the same as soccer, or that Gladiator is a peplum, or that the Rolling Stones play Heavy Metal.

It was in the Howard fanzine AMRA of July 1961 that Fritz Leiber answered Michael Moorcock's call for a name for the genre created by REH, and Leiber coined Sword and Sorcery. This group of writers founded a guild called the Swordsmen and Sorceror's Guild of America, and one of their number, Lin Carter, who wrote the first full length book study about the genre of Heroic Fantasy (Imaginary Worlds, 1973), wrote in an early SAGA anthology, Flashing Swords #1, that

"We call a story Sword and Sorcery when it is an action tale, derived from the traditions of the pulp magazine adventure story, set in a land, age or world of the author's invention, a milieu in which magic actually works and the gods are real, a story, moreoever, that presents a stalwart warrior in direct conflict with the forces of supernatural evil."

The unique combination that Howard created was to combine the grisly, gory horror story with the fantasy tale such as Morris and Dunsany had been developing, and add on a pulp superhero.

In addition, the bottom line may well be the style--- whereas Morris and Dunsany had written their fantasies in such a way as to be a pastiche of the style of the Medieval romances and ancient epics, Howard wrote with a straight forward pulp formula that was modern and pulse-pounding in its headlong drive.

On another post I quoted from the Oxford Companion to English Literature, and someone erroneously said that my quote backed up the opposite view-- that is incorrect, because the ONLY time that the term Sword and Sorcery is used in the entire lengthy article on the history of fantasy is that one time in the context of the Howard school of successors.

Hope this clarifies the issue-- I think you are talking about Heroic Fantasy, the correct term in my estimate for the entire revival of modern adult fantasy begun by Morris and Dunsany.

However, if you refuse to see the light on this, I am pretty sure that no one is going to sue...!

This post has been edited by korak_the_killer: 16 November 2005 - 08:25 PM

[korak]

And by the way-- as an afterthought-- most Conan fans do not seem to realize that the Conan stories are horror stories. They had to be to qualify for inclusion in Weird Tales, and Howard never skimped in the weird and grisly elements. The fact is that the Conan movies have been nothing like a real Conan movie should be. To fit the genre of weird tales, there should be as much gore as a Lovecraft Re-Animator movie, just to "keep up with the Joneses." If you have seen any of the Combs' Lovecraft series of films, then you know that as a weird tales staple, Howard was not writing mere Heroic Fantasy! ha ha Almost all Conan stories have extremely grisly elements-- a Conan film should have guys trying to shove their intestines back into their guts after sword swipes, eyeballs rolling around on the ground, all that kind of thing in abundance, skeleton corpses clacking their hungry jaws-- total horror movie gross-out fun.

Just like Howard founded a new genre of literature, by the same token, so a real Conan movie should also found a new genre of movie. It should break new ground and be like no kind of sword and sandal movie made before. (although, at this late date, there have probably been some horror fantasy films made-- I can think of at least one that falls into that category off hand.)

[BIFlight]

korak_the_killer, on Nov 16 2005, 03:23 PM, said:

"We call a story Sword and Sorcery when it is an action tale, derived from the traditions of the pulp magazine adventure story, set in a land, age or world of the author's invention, a milieu in which magic actually works and the gods are real, a story, moreoever, that presents a stalwart warrior in direct conflict with the forces of supernatural evil."

...which is a description that flawlessly fits some of Dunsany's work, particularly the tale of the hero who had to aquire the sword-spine of the invincible dragon. Just because a group of editors at a magazine in the 60's declared Howard the progenitor of the genre does not make it "truth."

[korak]

Yeah, don't get me wrong, Biflight-- I am not trying to marginalize Dunsany by any means-- he is an acknowledged founding father of the modern adult fantasy. I have a beautiful set of paperbacks of his stories that Lin Carter edited for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, and I have read the story you mention.

But to me, what you are suggesting is about like saying that the Stones' Sympathy for the Devil is a Death Metal anthem-- you know, on second thought, I guess it could be seen as that, but it is not normally looked at in that way.

But when you get right down to it, there is no hard and fast lines to draw between sub-genres. Still, for me, The Shadow Kingdom by Howard will always sound like the opening strains of Purple Haze by Hendrix, and Phoenix on the Sword rings out like Zep's Dazed and Confused. Howard started a new style in fantasy, just like the heavy metal fathers founded a new kind of rock and roll.

[BIFlight]

Fair enough. Like I've been saying, it's not that REH didn't have his own style, or that he wasn't talented in his own right, or that he didn't make his own place in fantasy history--I just don't think he should be credited with the invention of the genre, is all.

[Mikey_C]

PAINBRUSH, on Nov 16 2005, 03:54 AM, said:

Any critiques ? -Should I try to resuscitate this 'artistic' endeavor , or throw it back in the flat-file? -Be honest , & brutal even if required hahaha .-Not that anybody here ever pulls any punches , that's why I like it here !!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A superb piece of work: should be resuscitated / reanimated! Couldn't you get hold of a scanner so we could see it more clearly?

My view on Dunsany is that, much as I like it, his work is too fairy-tale-like to be considered as 'sword and sorcery', although it was high up on the list of ingredients that went into the S&S pot. I think that when REH added the hard-boiled 'anti-hero' that the brew was complete. Dunsany links back to classic fantasy writers such as William Morris, but was in a category of his own with "The Gods of Pegana" - like inventing his own mythology. The next closest thing to my mind would be 'The Silmarillion', but Dunsany put it all into bite-size chunks like liitle fables. A true original - I honestly don't think he fits into any genre.

[Kortoso]

Pulp - I hate that term!

The kind of paper that a story is printed on has nothing to do with the content. Geez, even Charles Dickens was a pulp author!

[korak]

I forgot whether Howard had read Dunsany, but I know that REH's penpal HP Lovecraft sure did like Dunsany. He was one of his main early influences-- Lovecraft first fell in love with Greek mythology, then Edgar Allan Poe, and finally Lord Dunsany, and a whole phase of HPL's writings fall into a category heavily influenced by him, such as Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (but bring your barf bag too-- it gets pretty gross! )

Another title that I think we could bestow upon Howard is that he was the father of AMERICAN Heroic Fantasy. Like Burroughs, who was the first major American science fiction writer, Howard was just about the first significant American fantasy writer (if you discount juveniles like Frank Baum, and freaks like James Branch Cabell.)

Robert E. Howard-- creator of Sword and Sorcery, and father of American Heroic Fantasy....

[korak]

kortoso writes- The kind of paper that a story is printed on has nothing to do with the content. Geez, even Charles Dickens was a pulp author!


Oh no-- you're not going to start claiming that Dickens created Sword and Sorcery are you???

[daknight]

How about who ever that guy was long ago who wrote down the story of Gilgamesh way back when? I don't think you can go back further than that. Myself, I never had a problem seeing Howard's writing as defining, and Leiber coining the phrase, Sword and Sorcery. Which of course is different from Sword and Sandal...

[korak]

daknight writes- How about who ever that guy was long ago who wrote down the story of Gilgamesh way back when? I don't think you can go back further than that.

Yeah, except that non-fiction historicals don't count, do they?

[Cormac]

While Gilgamesh may have been a real person, The Epic of Gilgamesh is considered fiction, I'd say. That is, unless the Bull of Heaven, the goddess Ishtar, and the demon Humbaba are historical figures!

(if they are that is awesome)

[Mikey_C]

korak_the_killer, on Nov 17 2005, 02:09 AM, said:

I forgot whether Howard had read Dunsany

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It looks like he did:

Quote

    REH to H.P. Lovecraft , ca. October 1930 [SL 1 #47]: "I have read...some of...Dunsany..."

    REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. December 1932: Dunsany is listed among a number of poets Howard likes.

    REH to H.P. Lovecraft , 6 March 1933: "As far as I'm concerned, your stories and poems are superior to anything of the sort ever written by Dunsany, Machen, Poe, or any of the others."

This is from a fascinating list of all the books and authors that it is known Howard read> The REH Bookshelf

[deuce]

Just wanted to say, PB, that yer "Gibbelins" was rockin'. Now I'm gonna hafta pull out my stuff and scan it, too. BTW, calling all Dunsany and fantasy art fans: google "The Sidney Sime Page" and check out the awesome galleries. Sime was to Dunsany what Frazetta was to REH. Wish he coulda done some CAS stuff, too.

[PainBrush]

Actually , Sime was more than just the Frazetta to R.E.H. - he was a full collaborater with Dunsany & the fire under his ass when he was getting to be a crotchetty old man ( Dunsany) . Sime would draw up some sketches & give them to Dunsany , Dunsany would refuse to let him say what was going on in in the drawings , & he would craft an entire story around the one or two drawings , THEN he would ask SIme if that was what he had drawn , the answer was almost always - yes , or " it's extremely probable" - that is the exact way he came up with the " Hoard of the Gibbelins " . An amazing bit of trivia - Dunsany NEVER - not ONCE re-wrote or re-drafted one single story of his - he refused to . Every story of his you read - it's exactly as he wrote it down the first time over a few snifters of brandy or cognac !! ( it's also why his poetry couldn't hold a candle to his tales - you simply have to work at & re-work rhyme & verse )

This post has been edited by PAINBRUSH: 22 October 2006 - 09:45 AM

[deuce]

Yeah, I knew all that stuff. I got Schweitzer's book on Dunsany a couple of yrs ago. I wanted to stop by Dunsany Castle when I was in Meath, but Newgrange and the Hill of Slane squeezed it out.