Thread 24783338

Why has fantasy never had a literary masterpiece?

>>24783338 (OP)
because it deliberately cuts itself off from the general culture. that's the price of entry, so to speak. you're entering the grotto of illusions, and whatever interesting or beautiful things happen, they happen within the grotto.

>>24783338 (OP)
It has.

>>24783338 (OP)
What about The Lord of the Rings?

>>24783506
Mid.

>>24783354
Hmm. I think I like this. I will respond in four hours when I have sufficiently mulled it over.

>>24783506
The Silmarillion is the great work. I would say it has literary merit and is a work of literature.

>>24783338 (OP)
Because genre literature has always been ignored. The few works that steered it are just that, exceptions.

>>24783338 (OP)
Iliad
Odyssey
Metamorphoses
Aeneid
Paradise Lost (if you say the above are not fantasy, you literally CANNOT deny that PL is fantasy, you FAGGOT)
Le Morte d'Arthur
Alice in Wonderland

>>24783566
>>24783506
>>24783527
When I talk about masterpieces, I mean actual masterpieces, not hollywood blockbuster popularity.

>>24783570
>answer this question for me, no right answers though!

>>24783570
Care to name some masterpieces from other genres?

>>24783566
>Alice in Wonderland
Only this is fantasy.
>>24783338 (OP)
Gormenghast

>>24783566
Fantasy is a literary movement that started in the late 1800s.

>>24783338 (OP)
Fantasy authors usually aren't writing about topics that the elite tastemakers consider literature-worthy eg. the virgin Struggle Against Evil vs the chad Adultery in the Midwest. And fantasy fans themselves have irreparably damaged the standards of prose in fantasy, so there is some very understandable prejudice. I mean, even now there are people who praise Sword of Shannara.
But all that is immaterial. What matters is that fantasy does not require approval from Big Lit Daddy. It is doing its own thing, with its own fans, and with its own famous masterpieces within that world. That is already as legitimate as anything can get.

>>24784715
Came here to post this.
Mervyn Peake's prose is a consistent delight iirc.

>>24783527
>I would say it has literary merit and is a work of literature.
So is The Lord of the Rings, retard. Even The Hobbit as a children’s tale has a lot of artistic merit.

>>24783566
Iliad and Odyssey are not fantasy, Metamorphoses arguably could be considered one, Aeneid was written to be the foundational history of Rome so not really fantasy either even if most Romans wouldn’t have believed this events to have been literal truth. Paradise Lost is fantasy though the author believed the events to have happened. Le Morte d’Arthur arguably could be fantasy like Metamorphoses.
But doesn’t matter because none of them are fantasy as in fantasy as a literary genre. It’s like those retards that say “Orlando Furioso is actually sci fi because he traveled to the moon” ignoring the whole context.

>>24783338 (OP)
Just read the first page of this, prose is maximalist kino

>>24785819
It's a good series, but for some reason everyone says to stop reading right when the main character stops being a whiny little shit. It would have been great all the way through if Sanderson had a better understanding of the subtext.

>>24783506
The fictional languages of the story are well thought out, but that's the only thing really going for it. Compared to the titans of the Western Canon, the book is a non-entity.

>>24783338 (OP)
The Bible

>>24783338 (OP)
Mabinogion
The King of Elfland's Daughter
The Worm Ouroboros
Le Morte d'Arthur
The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlin
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
The Last Unicorn
The Neverending Story

>Don Quixote wasn't fantasy
>Shakespeare never wrote any fantasy
>Homer isn't fantasy

>>24785819
>Eye of the World prologue chapter
>AAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE I KILLED MY WIFE AND CHILDREN I'M GOING INSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE
>immediately teleports away
>kills himself, and in the process he makes an island that looks like a vagina (Tar Valon) right next to a mountain that looks like a penis (Dragonmount)

What did Robert Jordan mean by this...?

>>24787540
why is the map a vagina

>>24787544
Because Robert Jordan's work is fundamentally about the differences between men and women. Women rule the world (Aes Sedai are powerful mages, but they only allow women into their order, because men always go insane if they try to use magic) and everything goes to shit while women are in charge. Aes Sedai live on that vagina island.

>>24787553
>Aes Sedai live on that vagina island.

so uh... are they on zillow

>>24783338 (OP)
Avalon le fae

>>24783566
This
>>24783338 (OP)
Stop reading modern YA

>>24787553
You forgot the part where the men only go insane because women are pathologically averse to doing their fucking job and directly caused the corruption of male magic, and as a result the destruction of the entire world and the eventual escape of the devil.

Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Tempest

>>24786117
and which might those be?
i sincerely cant think of any work written as beautifully as The Lord of the Rings
Illiad and Odyssey don't really have good prose, Illiad is all rythm and battle but the description of the shield and armor is very beautiful as well as the comparisons of battle to the life of the greek shepards, but doesn't really reach tolkien. the odyssey is all story and its merits aren t in its descriptions.
faust perhapse? the image painted by faust while talking with wagner at sunset is verry beautiful, except for faust i can t think of many other german works of literature which may compete with tolkien s in this category, since the germans were more fond of drama and poetry and not so much of prose
the french, i haven't read their dramas but dumas, balzac and verne are pulp. hugo is a bad philospher who tries to communicate his erroneous ideas trough beautiful stories
the english are known for the soap operas of the brontes, austen and dickens but also for the poems of byron, shelley and milton
i genuinely haven't read of heard of a work as beautiful as The Lord of the Rings, i heard here that miller has beautiful purple prose and that faulkner and mccarthy aren't far off, but are their stories as beautiful as that of tolkien and fit so well with the word choices? reading tolkien is like going out on a beatiful day of june and taking a deep breath filled with the rays of the sun, the clean mountain air, the lushnes of the forests, the perfume of the meadows and the warmth of the wheat fields
i guess moby dick since you guys love it so much, but i haven't read it yet

>>24784715
Based

>>24783566
even biblefags must admit that Paradise Lost is fantasy as it contains tons of made up shit that absolutely doesn't exist in trve christian dogma>>24783566
>if you say the above are not fantasy, you literally CANNOT deny that PL is fantasy, you FAGGOT
it's fanfiction THOUGH. separate genre

>>24783338 (OP)
Because it doesn't talk about the real world and the human condition. It's shallow empty void escapism.

>>24786058
>but for some reason everyone says to stop reading right when the main character stops being a whiny little shit
Are you referring to the slog? You should just read parts of it, because most of it doesn't matter.
>if Sanderson had a better understanding of the subtext
Funnily enough I still think its his best work.

>>24783506
Boomerslop

>>24784715
/thread

>>24783354
I like this answer

>>24783338 (OP)
The Gormenghast trilogy is in Bloom's Western Canon, it's the closest thing to literary fantasy that you'll get.

>>24784715
Someone beat me to it.

>>24788344
I'm referring to most people recommending stopping around book 4.

>Funnily enough I still think its his best work.
That might be true, but Sanderson doesn't truly understand the source material he's working from. The most glaring and hotly debated example is the way he reads Egwene's viewpoint chapters, colored by her conviction of her own superiority above practically all others, and interprets that as actual evidence of her superiority. So you've got this character whose career has been failing straight to the top in record time, who then magically becomes everyone's favorite person and an inspiration to everyone that meets her over the course of half a book.

>>24788445
>most people recommending stopping around book 4.
They must be trolling 5 and 6 are excellent.
>Sanderson doesn't truly understand the source material he's working from.
100% agree. Wheel of Time is incredibly complex, even a turbo fanboy like Sanderson couldn't do a perfect job.

Further evidenced by the fact that everyone from the Two Rivers Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene and Nynaeve were meant to meet up in RJ's notes, but Sanderson couldn't make it happen and axed it. I wish the slog never happened, so RJ could've finished it himself desu. Its so unfair he died before he could complete it.

>>24783338 (OP)
that poster looks familiar

Wheel of Time is a literary masterpiece

>>24783338 (OP)
>he hasn't read The Opposing Shore

>>24787540
>>24787544
it's just what river islands tend to look like

>>24783354
I, too, know what a “grotto” is and I definitely didn’t need to look that up on account of not knowing it because I absolutely understood what you’re saying and I’m not just writing that in order to seem “cool” or “with it” or like I belong here. I am going to go away now and read something from the Europeans, perhaps philosophy, maybe something from Kunt or Haggle.

>>24785750
>Iliad and Odyssey are not fantasy
When will this fucking cope die, Jesus Christ.

>>24787553
RJ is pretty based on the Women Question, ngl

>>24790948
they're partly history books depending how you read them

>>24783338 (OP)
It has but literary critics are not able to recognize it because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the significance of sub-creation echoed by posts such as:
>>24783354
>>24788217
>We differ entirely about the nature of the relation of sub-creation to Creation. I should have said that liberation 'from the channels the creator is known to have used already' is the fundamental function of 'sub-creation', a tribute to the infinity of His potential variety, one of the ways in which indeed it is exhibited, as indeed I said in the Essay. I am not a metaphysician; but I should have
thought it a curious metaphysic – there is not one but many, indeed potentially innumerable ones – that declared the channels known (in such a finite comer as we have any inkling of) to have been
used, are the only possible ones, or efficacious, or possibly acceptable to and by Him!
Tolkien Letter 153

>>24790999
>It has but literary critics are not able to recognize it because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the significance of sub-creation echoed by posts such as:

>>24783338 (OP)
I beg to differ, Book of the New Sun is kino of the highest order.

>>24791136
All that but unironically

>>24783354
Fantasy is more representative of the general culture than literary fiction. The likes of kafka or dostoevsky are just elaborate schizoposts that don't represent our nature at all.

>>24784715
Boring shit for retards who want to pretend to be cultured even though they're only reading fantasyslop

>>24788445
Egwene is superior though.

>>24790959
Iliad is a fictionalized narrative, like, even Herodotus conceded that Homer made adjustments for the sake of an entertaining story.

bc the fantasy genre is based on what masses perceive as entertaining, on the 50 it was lord of the rings and dune, on the 2000 it was wheel of time and song of ice and fire. now it is sanderson

Tolkien will outlive every other 20th century author except maybe Joyce

>>24783338 (OP)
becuase its written for kids and retards

>>24787532
Don Quixote isn’t fantasy; that’s the whole point. The fantastic elements exist only as delusions of Don Quixote, and his misinterpretation of everyday things and events and the consequences of his doing so drive the story, particularly in book 1.

>>24791836
>The likes of kafka or dostoevsky are just elaborate schizoposts that don't represent our nature at all.
Dostoevsky is not literature he was a fucking writer of serial fiction.

>>24783506
this

>>24787501
>The Worm Ouroboros
This work is so obscure but the prose is beautiful at points. I feel like the meandering plot and unsympathetic characters harm it though.
Gormenghast is similar quality

>>24789709
pic unrelated?

greatest book of all time is a fantasy novel

>>24791853
She was interesting until she went to Salidar, where she was murdered and a skinwalker with her appearance and a vastly less interesting personality that revolves entirely around muh white tower took her place.

>>24787540
I'm having trouble finding the north harbour

>>24785750
>Iliad and Oddyssey are not fantasy
Just stop

>>24787540

>The Penis represents order! The vagina, chaos! You need both in order to defeat the dark one! You can't have one without the other!
-Robert Jordan Peterson

>>24783338 (OP)
Because epic fantasy is slop for children, WoT especially

>>24795770
So was Tolstoy