[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] Welcome back once again, everyone, for, uh, last but certainly not least of our sessions, um, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Doctor Katie Harling Lee, whose career has had a remarkably interesting trajectory, one I'm very fond of hearing about. Um, she began in my field as an Old Norse scholar.
So. And is currently a British Academy postdoctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh, researching a fascinating project at the School of Divinity on silence. I'm correct. And she is also speaking today on what I consider one of the most underrated and unspoken of authors when it comes to the fantasy genre. McDonald. Uh, I love McDonald, and I think more people should speak about him. So thrilled to hear what you got to say. You can thank you very much for the introduction.
Um, so good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for still being here today, so late in the day. Um, so I'm just getting all my time isn't thing set up here. So, um, essentially today my talk is titled 19th Century Fantasy the influences of Morris and McDonald. Um, and there is a dual meaning behind this title that I've got here. So I'm going to refer to some of the earlier texts and cultural traditions which influenced William Morris and George MacDonald.
But I'm also going to be looking forward to the 20th century as well. And fantasy authors who were themselves influenced by these two foundational authors in the world of fantasy fiction. Hence these kind of two meanings of influence we've got going on here, moving between past and future. And just in this, um, introduction, it was mentioned my kind of intriguing trajectory here. So I started off north. I went into contemporary fiction looking at music in contemporary fiction.
Then I've been covering, um, the reason I'm here is I was covering a class on the making of modern fantasy. So with that, I'm bringing my Old Norse interest to look at Morris. And then I've recently started a new project at the School of Divinity in Edinburgh. So which is in religion and literature. And so that kind of bringing up to MacDonalds. So I hope you enjoy my kind of slightly. Um, lots of little different pieces we're going to look at today.
If you understand the world of 19th century fiction. So, um, here we go. So first of all, trajectory for today. Um, the idea is this is very much a bridging talk. I'm trying much more to bring you, um, to finish the day today, as you've been hearing a lot of the history, all these legacies. And then as we move tomorrow into kind of Lewis and Tolkien and beyond. Um, so just going to have kind of a whistle stop tour today that we're going to take, but this is where we're going.
So first of all, we'll have just a brief overview of the context of the 19th century. This is to help place us in a context often dominated by Victorian realist novels. Um, but it was also a foundational moment for modern fantasy literature. I will then briefly introduce you to William Morris and George MacDonald, who are the two authors I will focus on today.
Um, though I will be making reference to other well-known fantasy authors as and when relevant, the talk proper will then begin as I focus first on William Morris and his use of Old Norse heroics, and one of his novels, The Glittering Plane, which was first published in 1891. And as Morris had many interests, I will also cover some of these briefly, just to give you an idea of his very polymath tendencies.
Um, for Morris, we then turn to George MacDonald and he wrote two informative essays on the imagination, which I'm going to refer to alongside, uh, quite a wild and wacky 1895 novel. Lilith is my example. I, I'm also going to refer to MacDonald's Christian religious perspective, which is central to his fantasy fiction, which makes him as a precursor and in fact a key inspiration for C.S. Lewis and his, for example, more religious fantasy series lion, the witch and the wardrobe.
Um, and then I'm going to finish what I'm calling my concluding remarks as I draw together some of the key points of interest in my talk today, bearing in mind the work of Morris and McDonald as we look forward to the burgeoning fantasy literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. Now, amidst this trajectory, um, we're also going to briefly. So I've also interspersed my discussion of Morris and McDonald with a number of moments I've titled Looking Forwards.
So these sections will allow us to briefly glimpse how the popular fantasy texts that we might know today can be traced back to these early 19th century authors, who were at the forefront of a period that's often considered to be the birth of modern fantasy. Even if some of you may not have actually come across that work. So, first of all, 19th century context. So when we first in the 19th century in literary studies, it's often in reference to what is known as the Victorian period.
So this in turn, we likely encourage you to think of the realist works of famous Victorian authors like Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell. But in contrast to this kind of dominant literary tradition of realist novels in an age which valued scientific and logical approaches, the Victorian period is also the time of significant development in the genre of fantasy literature as we understand it today.
So many identify the 19th century as a key, foundational moment for the making of modern fantasy, even as scholars may also note that the broader concept of the fantastic has existed in world literature and myths centuries before that time, as we've been hearing about today. So it's therefore the fantasy genre that was kind of being formed, which itself stemmed from three popular literary traditions of the time. So we have going on in the 19th century, we have fictional private histories.
So, for example, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Uh, we then have gothic romances as well. So thinking about the Brontes. And then there's also, as we've been hearing, a renewed interest in folk and fairy tales. So thinking of the Brothers Grimm, for example. However, this Victorian period, while it was witnessed like this to these development of genres, it was also witness to the counter development of fantastical literature, in contrast to the dominant realist fiction of the day.
And this fantastical literature, however, was often sidelined, and then a further tension developed. So we have this question where for when fantasy literature was considered successful at the time, it was often asserted children's literature. So we have Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Charles Kingsley's Water Babies. Um, and often if it's successful, it's for children. And so attention arises is it for children?
Is it for adults? Can it be for both? So in response to this marginalising of adult fantasy literature, I present to you today two authors who passionately argued for the value of adult fantasy alongside children's fantasy. William Morris and George MacDonald. So let me introduce you to them. Now, we've had a little bit of William Morris Day already, but here we have William Morris on the left. He was a remarkable polymath. So you may be more familiar with his wallpaper designs.
I got some people more aware of that. Yeah. So it's the same William Morris. Um, he did lots of things. He was also a poet, an author, a translator of Old Norse literature, an active socialist, and just to name kind of a few of his many colleagues. Um, then so that's really Morris on the right. We have George MacDonald. So he was a Scottish, also a poet and a Congregational minister. And this an important detail which influences fantasy. What to fancy work, as we'll see later in today's talk.
Now, despite some differences in style and also a more kind of atheist theist philosophies and ethics, both authors did share a core belief in the value of fantasy or fairy stories, as they called them, for adults as well as children. So, as MacDonald wrote, there's a quote at the top here. I do not write for children, but the child, like whether a five or 50 or 75. This idea was later echoed by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.
So we come here first to my first looking forward moment to see how these ideas are beginning with Morris and MacDonald. But then we can see this in the 20th century. So, um, I've included quotation from each author here, um, both in the Essays on Stories or fairy fairy stories. This is first from C.S. Lewis who wrote. It is usual to speak in a playfully apologetic tone about one's adult enjoyment or what other what are called children's books. I think the convention, the silly one.
No book is really worth reading at the age of ten, which is not equally and often far more worth reading at the age of 50. So that's C.S. Lewis opinion there. And then we have J.R.R. Tolkien, in my opinion. Fairy stories should not be especially associated with children. Fairy stories offer fantasy, recovery, escape, consolation, all things which children have, as a rule, less need than older people.
So these quotations are demonstrating kind of a shared theme here that originate in the 19th century, concerning the value of fantasy literature, a topic which is still debated today. Today, we can probably agree. Now, these quotations also bring me to another point. Just to be aware of. We've heard a bit of this in Rose's talk just now, but the use of fairy stories rather than fantasy here. So the authors I'm speaking about were at the forefront of modern fantasy.
The term fantasy was not pervasive, and the authors in their essays often refer to fairy stories as well. So for simplicity's sake, I'm referring to the Texas fantasy. Today, just in my attempt to show you briefly how these foundational works can be read as forming the foundation of what we consider today modern fantasy literature. But it is useful to be aware of the shifting terminology in the fantasy genre and its history. So I turn now to my first auto focus.
William Morris. So as I was just mentioning the debate about whether fantasy stories were for children or adults or both was growing in the 19th century. And Maurice is one of those who argued for the value of adult fantasy fiction. He did this in one way by writing his own fantasy works. And the one I'm speaking about today is still called The Story of the Glittering Plane. So the cover is just up here. Morris, befitting his polymath tendencies, was interested in the entire object of the book.
So it's not just writing the text, but also designing and crafting the physical object which contained his text, including illustration. And this led to a number of editions in Glittering Plain, which was also the first book to be published by the Kelmscott Press, which Morris co-founded. So I'm going to be talking about that a little bit more a bit later as well.
But I just wanted to flag that up, because you can see this very intricate design coming up on the drawings here to kind of demonstrate the art of bookmaking. So first, though, I'm going to focus on the heroic plot of the novel. So has anyone here read The Glittering Plan? I'm expecting view of model two. Okay, great. So, um. Essentially his the in brief for those who haven't read it, which is most of us here.
So the story of The Glittering Plain tells the heroic tale of Hall Blythe, of the House of the Raven, who travels to the Isle of Ransom, and the Acre of Undying, also known as the Glittering Plain, to save his kidnapped fiancee, who is known simply as The Hostage. Um. So the tale is chiefly concerned with a tension between human mortality and then the common desire for immortality. Hence the glittering plane, this acre of the undying.
Maurice approaches this through a heroic ethic, which is both a seed for our contemporary understanding of heroic deeds and fantasy literature, as well as being directly inspired by medieval sources. Most importantly, heroic deeds became more powerful in Morris's work precisely because of one's mortality.
It is through a sense of peril that heroic actions can be taken, and then one's immortality can actually be achieved, not physically, but through the heroic stories of myth and legend which can be passed down the generations. So I mentioned in my introduction, the fancy literature of the 19th century draws from three popular literary traditions, often merging them, and one of these included this revived interest in folk and fairy stories.
But for Morris, this also included the heroic literature of from Old Norse traditions um also in Old Icelandic and the broader genomic Germanic Norse as well. So Morris developed his interest in older literature by translating it himself, although with the help and guidance of an Icelandic scholar, Erica magnusson, and almost literature generally consists of two key genres we can say about prose sagas, and then we can talk about who are we call mythic poetry.
Morris was fascinated with both of these, but it is the sagas that I will introduce you to today. As we can see, the impact of his translation work on The Glittering Plain. And for example, as an example, I'm going to compare the first lines of the glittering plain with those from a selection of Old Norse sagas. So to begin, here's the opening of the glittering Plain. It has been told that there was once a young man of three kindred, and whose name was Hogarth.
He was fair, strong, and not untried in battle. He was as a house of the raven of old time. So note here, as I've underlined, the clear statements immediately are told the hero's name. We're told that he's fair and strong and battle experience. And we have the family ties to the House of the Raven. We've also been set in a context of old stories. It has been told. So in comparison, here are now some examples from some old Norse sagas. So this is now saga written around the 13th century.
There was a man who. There was a man named Maud whose nickname was Gaea. He was a son of sig, about the Red, and he lived in the rank of the district. He was a powerful chieftain and strong in pressing lawsuits. So again, we have immediately entered the pass through. There was here. We're told, the names of a man and his family, and we know that he was powerful. And side note now, saga is fascinating in terms of its engagement with lawsuits. But here's another example, this one from Ale Saga.
There was a man named Ulf, the son of P.l.c., and a half there. Oh, he was so big and strong that no man was a match for him. And he was still only a youth when he became a Viking and went raiding. So again, we have a there was construction. We are introduced to often his family line and we know that he was big, a big, strong Viking with fighting prowess.
Here's one more example, quite brief from the saga to the Boltons, which Morris himself was also quite fascinated with and translated and retold. Here we begin by telling of a man who was named Siggy, and he said that he was the son of Odin. So once again, we're entering the past kind of here we begin. We have a name, and we have a sense of greatness here through connection with Odin. Now, I'm hoping that these brief examples will help you see the patterns here.
But to remind you, let's have the glittering plain opening line again. Um, let's say that should be here. It has been told that was a young man and so on. So Odin sagas have a distinct narrative structure, one which makes them very compelling. And I have quite an interest for them. And Maurice is clearly drawing on these older texts, using the older styles as inspiration for his newer fantasy genre, which, however new, yearns towards a concept of the past.
However, despite these similarities, Morris is also making it new with his fantasy literature because there is a difference between his first line and those of the sagas I've just shown you. Now, all the sagas I've given you begin by naming characters who are not what maybe we might call the main characters. Instead, they are the fathers or grandfathers or great great grandfathers of the titular characters.
So in an Old Norse saga, we often do not meet the main character until many pages into the book. Morris, however, cuts to the chase and introduces Hall as the hero of his tale immediately. So this is where we have a sense that Morris is drawing from this older tradition, but he's also experimenting with it, making something new from drawing from these older traditions. Now. There is Mortimer Morris's medieval borrowing. He also drew from these tales and ethics of brotherhood and the heroic.
For example, what I'm actually going to show you two scenes, um, side by side, that demonstrate how Morris has actually lifted an Old Norse brotherhood ritual and inserted it into the narrative of the glittering plane. So first his from the glittering plane. He had loosened the strip of turf all save the two ends, and it propped it up with two ancient dwarf wart spears. So amid most there was a lintel to go under. They went under the earth yoke, one after the other.
Thereafter they stood together, and each let blood in his arm, so that the blood of all three mingled together, fell down on the grass of the ancient earth, and they swore friendship and brotherhood. Now I know I have some old Norse scholars here. Does anyone guess what saga this is left from? And you can tell, um. So grizzly surfs and saga has this. So I've kind of underlined and put in colour here to show you the similarities.
I will still be differences across translations, but this gives us a sense. So they scored out a long strip of turf, making sure that both ends were still attached to the ground. Then they propped up the arch of Ray's turf with a Damascene spear. So long shafted, the man could stretch out his arm and touch the rivets. All four of them had to go under it. They then. Then they drew blood and let it drip down on the soil beneath this turf strip, and stirred it together.
The soil and the blood. Then they all swore an oath that each would avenge the other, as if they were brothers. So you can see this with the colour match phrases. But for example, we've got the strip of turf, the spears that went under letting blood swore an oath and so on. And, um, it's kind of a ritual that we don't know too much about. But Morris is lifting this from here, and it's example from using the Old Norse texts and really putting them into his texts.
Um, structurally, however, there are differences between these examples, even though he's lifting a lot of it, and that comes with the wider narrative context. So the example in Gazi saga is actually near the beginning of the narrative, and it's a brotherhood ritual that is interrupted and used to establish a saga drama to come. As brotherhood ties have broken and a lot of vengeance is taken. There's a lot of one killing another killing another.
Um. In contrast, Morris inserts his Brotherhood vision near the end of his tale. He's cementing relationships which have been formed over the course of the narrative. By then they form this brotherhood ritual. So again, Morris is drawing on an older tradition, but he's also using them to communicate his own concept of a heroic narrative here.
Now, on this topic of the heroic, Morris also establishes a clear heroic impulse in his tale, a familiar theme of modern fantasy literature, yet also another one which we can trace back to these medieval texts. So the first lines I read out earlier were from the sagas and from the glittering plain already established. To be heroic is to be strong, to be fierce in battle. This warrior impulse and its interaction with mortality and immortality comes through once again.
In some lines I'm about to read from the glittering plain. So for context, Hall Blythe here has entered into the glittering plain, the land of the undying. And he's speaking to a man, um, a chieftain known as the Sea Eagle, who was old and dying and has now been returned to usefulness after entering the glittering plain, which is an immortal land. He says to him, O eagle of the sea, thou hast thy youth again.
What then wilt thou do with it? What art thou, O warrior, in the land of the alien and the king, who shall heat thee, or tell the tale of thy glory? Here stand I, who light of the raven, and I am coming into an alien land, beset with marvels to seek mine own. So see how whole earth is speaking, and how he's concerned with deeds of glory here to be achieved in useful heroics, and then retold in tales passed down to generations. He seeks to have his the tale of his glory told.
So this example here, which you can trace to medieval texts. Um, but I'm actually going to use it now to go to another look forwards moment, because we can find a similar heroic impulse and desire for tales of glory in the works of Tolkien and Le Gwyn. So, for example, in Lord of the rings, Sam says to Frodo, I wonder if we will ever be put into songs or tales. We're in one, of course, but I mean put into words, you know, told by the fireside or read out of a great big book.
Wonderful meta moment and Lord of the rings. Um, uh, likewise in Ursula Green's The Earthsea cycle, which I love, everyone should read, um, it tells of how songs made 100 years ago, when news to those villages and they craved to hear of heroes. And within Le Guin's kind of worldbuilding, she also does an interesting thing where she takes a heroic impulse and develops it into an understanding of one's deeper self.
So, for example, the heroes, the ones who seek to be themselves, to be oneself is a rare thing and a great one. So as well as we've got Le Guin's development of a heroic ethic in relation to personal identity here, there is actually another difference between this example and Maurice's text. I'm wondering if you've spotted this difference. I'm going to put Maurice's quotation up again. Say. Here we go. It is Morris's use of R.K. isms. Note here that thou hast and thy the wilt thou do.
What are what are thou a warrior? These are examples of Morris's own use of his own archaic style, what some might consider affected and false, and others will enjoy. Um, but there is a recurring tendency in fantasy to use archaic or pseudo archaic phrases and structures to try and create a sense of a land long ago. Like the old medieval tales that Morris is drawing from. So it's this idea of using the archaic to say, look, we're really obviously in the old times here.
We've got a different language going on. So the quotations from Tolkien and Le Gwyn don't have those constructions there. In fact, the Gwyn even critics critiqued this archaic tendency of fantasy writers in one of her essays. So again, we're looking forward to, um, the green white, right? The archaic manner is a trap into it. Almost all very young fantasy writers walk. They know instinctively the what is wanted in fantasy is a distancing from the ordinary.
The archaic manor is indeed a perfect distance. But you have to do it perfectly. So the Gwyn is using his A term. Distance. And distance is precisely what Morris was aiming for in his writing drawing, as he was for medieval Old Norse tales. Amongst other traditions. Te Morris is harking back to an old age, and he wanted that to be understood in terms of his story content and his language, and even in the way he illustrated his book, which I will get onto briefly.
But Le Quinto suggests that okay isms don't have to be required of fantasy literature, and she writes, after all, okay, isms are not essential. You don't have to know how to use a subjunctive in order to be a wizard. You don't have to talk like Henry the Fifth to be a hero. So I'm showing this to you to kind of see how.
So you can that we can see how Morris, in his role as an early presenter of modern fantasy, valued okay isms in his writing, but also how this isn't necessarily remained a requirement for modern fantasy, even as it does recur. It's also used, for example, the process of making modern fantasy, how the genre is drawing on earlier traditions. But it's also gradually building confidence and experimentation in establishing its own contemporary outlook on what fantasy means to it.
So. I have one more aspect of Morris to discuss before moving to McDonald, and that is the object of a book as a work of art, which I mentioned briefly at the start of my introduction to Morris. So one of many Morris's many talents and interests included his work as part of the Arts and Crafts movement. He also trained as a painter and then as an architect, and all of his work and more led to his belief in the importance of useful tools also being beautiful aesthetically.
Thus, he proposed, the book should be beautiful to us. And in lecture he suggested that in fact, a book printed or written has a tendency to be a beautiful object, and that we of this age should generally produce ugly books shows. I fear something like malice, pretence. Now, importantly for Morris, amidst this idea of the beautiful book, there's the picture book.
So the picture book is not perhaps absolutely necessary to man's life, but it gives us such endless pleasure and is so intimately connected with the other absolutely necessary art of imaginative literature, that it must remain one of the very worthiest things towards the production of which reasonable men should strive. So Morris's picture book here brings us back to the importance of fantasy for adults as well as for children.
Morris is in acting and then in access belief in beautiful books for adults with the Kelmscott Press, where he published The Glaring Plain. Um, so as a further example of this, I've now got the opening pages of The Glittering Plain up here so you can see this intricacy, and you can access this book online on the Internet Archive. Wonderful website if you want to look through all the pages. So not just here. We've got intricate patterns of vines. We've got detailed drawings here.
This one detailed showing is the chapter heading heading. This is the beginning of the book, but each chapter has a detailed drawing that comes up, and even in between the sentences, you can see one of them here. There's a little leaf sometimes appears between the text. So it's very much the whole page is becoming beautiful and illustrated.
I think it's interesting to consider Morris's ideas about the ideal book, bearing in mind today's publishing trend for beautiful books, including special editions featuring sprayed edges and gold foil details. And it's also interesting with the fantasy genre, specifically because we consider the importance of illustrations to help conjure a secondary world, or through maps and as well, and images and fantastical creatures.
So I think that's just an interesting element. We might be able to link back or parallel with Morris then, but we can also look forward from Morris and his artistic interest to the fantasy work of Lord Anthony, an early 20th century fantasy author who wrote The King of Elephants Daughter, which was mentioned briefly today. Has anyone read The King of Elephants daughter? A couple okay, it's very beautifully poetic book.
Um, so in their visual art is actually central to the imagery of Duncan is worldbuilding, with some actually reading the magic of elephant as a manifestation of art. So this is Augusta Hardy, but there's another visual link between Dunson and Morris that I found, and that's the concept of the blue of distance.
Um, so if people haven't heard of that, the blue, um, With a distance was written about by Rebecca Solnit, who writes the colour blue is the colour that represents the spirit, the sky and water, the immaterial and the remote, so that however tactile and close off it is, it is always about distance and this embodiment.
So here I'm not going to include two examples, one from the glittering plain, one from land that demonstrate this use of blue of distance, um, as a visual representation of the remote, but described in the literary text to show that just out of reach world of fairy tale or fantasy worlds. So first from the glittering plane in the offing, looking landward were great mountains, some very great and snowcapped, some bare to the tops. And all that was far away. Save the snow was deep blue.
And then we have an Owl fund. At the evening he looked to see the Elfin Mountains, severe and changeless, until unlit by any light we know the pale of the colour of pale. Forget me nots. So here is just a little hint at this kind of how the visual in the world of art can also be important to the fantastical world building that we've got here.
This I'm showing this is another example of this blurring together traditions and interests and artistic styles that Morris was kind of bringing together in his very polymaths approach to his work. So in summary, Morris's work is influenced by a number of ideas, including the ancient world of medieval Old Norse sources, from which he drew ideas from including the love of heroic deeds which rely on one's physical mortality to achieve immortality through stories.
He also influenced later writers in terms of the book being a work of art, which itself likely stemmed from medieval manuscript traditions. And then we have his visual interest in visual. His interest in visual art, and the way that visuals come to play in the glittering plain that can be paralleled with the slightly later work of Dunsinane. So the series of influences demonstrates the polymath tendencies of Morris, but also the polymath tendencies of fantasy literature in the 19th century.
More generally, it was a genre that draws together multiple narrative traditions alongside history, art, and as we're now going to see in MacDonald's work, philosophy and religion as well. So here is the wonderful colour cover of Lilith that I have. Not the original one, but it's quite a wild one. Um, so has anyone here read Lilith? Okay. Couple. Is anyone heard of this? Okay if you okay.
So, first published in 1895. Louis. Um, for a bit of background, the novels title refers to the mythical and folkloric character of Lilith, who is generally understood as a demon from Jewish folklore, in which she actually precedes Eve in the Garden of Eden. So using Lilith to explore the concept of evil, MacDonald narrates a fantasy tale that is centred on his belief in the possibility of redemption for all,
stemming from his experience as a Christian minister. So, but before we get into the complexities of that, Lilith begins sorry with a in a rather familiar world with our protagonist, Mr. Vane, who has returned home. So I'm just going to read the opening lines to give you a sense of what we begin with. I had just finished my studies at Oxford and was taking a brief holiday from work before assuming definitely the management of the estate.
My father died when I was yet a child. My mother followed him within a year, and I was nearly as much alone in the world as a man might find himself. Now, from this rather familiar beginning, we might say we might think of a realist novel here of the Victorian period, um, things become stranger and stranger. So, um, this starts with Mr. Vines wandering through a mirror and finding himself in an open plain. This is our portal fantasy. Talking to a raven.
Um, so here I'm going to read a little of the passage, which takes place just in chapter three of the book. How did I get here? I said. You came to the door, replied an odd, rather harsh voice. I looked behind then all about me, but saw no human shape. The terror that madness might be at hand laid hold upon me the same instant I knew. It was the raven that had spoken, but he stood looking up at me with an air of waiting.
I beg my reader, to aid me in the endeavour to make myself intelligible, if here understanding be indeed possible between us. I was in a world, or call it a state of things, an economy of conditions, an idea of existence, so little correspondence with the ways and modes of this world.
So the phrasing that my uses here, Mr. Veins concerned with trying to describe the indescribable, is the beginning of many similar moments as he uses the fantasy genre to explore a world that may be beyond full human comprehension. And as the narrative progresses, Mr. Vain walks through mirrors and doorways which turn out to be portals into another world that gradually gets more and more blurred.
And then the fantasy world also gets stranger and stranger, and Mr. Vain even meets Adam and Eve, becoming entangled in a world aiming towards Christian redemption. And that includes the redemption of the novel's key evil figure, Lilith. And just before I move on, just note we've also got kind of the gothic sense here, the sense of all the horror of what have I seen. And then we've shifted. We've shifted into the fantasy here. So the central tension of Lilith is a classic.
It's good versus evil. Um, MacDonald attempts to understand this tension through a Christian perspective. Now, strikingly, the novel does advance a message that evil cannot be killed. Instead, evil must be redeemed. And Mr. Raven explains this to Mr. Vane, explaining how Lilith, who's evil by this point in the book, has manifested in a physical wound, might be saved. He says nothing will ever close that wound, he answered with a sigh.
It must eat into her heart. Annihilation itself is no death to evil, only good. What evil was is evil, dead and evil saying must live with its evil until it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil. Now, many of you here today might hear echoes of more modern fantasy texts and films here, which speak of the importance of good triumphing over evil, of how light can transform the dark.
But there's also echoes of biblical text here, particularly in the way that the quotation from Lilith evil is not slain by the traditional sword, but a metaphorical kind of weapon of goodness. And that is reminiscent of language in the New Testament, where swords are beaten into ploughshares.
And here I have a quote from Ephesians, where the disciple of Christ is commanded that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armour of God, so that when the day we will come, you may be able to stand your ground.
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, and the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God.
I note my bowl, the texture. So I've just used this to highlight the metaphorical armour of God here with which evil might be slain, but it's very much a reworking of the battle of language into something different. So to better understand McDonnell's integration of religious concepts with his fantasy literature, we need to consider two informative essays which he wrote about imagination and its relationship with religion.
So these were titled The Fantastic Imagination and then the imagination, Its Function and Culture. So the title on the slide refers to which one I'm referring to, and they can both be read free online as well. So in one of them, you propose is that to inquire into what God has made is the main function of the imagination.
It is aroused by facts, is nourished by facts, seeks for higher and yet higher lows in those facts, but refuses to regard science as the sole interpreter of nature or the laws of science as the only region of discovery. So McDonald's is proposing here at the imagination, central to the fantasy genre, can help us come closer to understanding the incomprehensibility of God. And note to hear he's having a reaction against the more realist or scientific focuses and tendencies of the time here,
saying that it's not just the facts that can help us. So in this again, McDonald's echoing a famous visual from the Bible, from one Corinthians, for now, we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part. But then shall I know even as I am known. So this is this theme of trying to understand something beyond our comprehension and the theme of incomprehensibility on this. Think back to the lines I read earlier when Mr. Vane met the raven and enters a new world.
His entry into a world where he knows nothing. Is MacDonald's attempt to see into that glass of God's incomprehensibility. And a glass is another word for a mirror which made all the characters just watery. Now, importantly, tied with his imaginative concept attempts to understand God through fantasy literature. There's another important element of belief in imagination. So in Lilith, Mr. Raven advises us that the fact is, no man understands anything.
Neither I nor any man can help you to understand. But I may perhaps help you a little to believe. So these examples I've just given from Lilith demonstrate how McDonnell, by writing his fantasy fiction, becomes one of those who may help us a little to believe as he writes. Um, now, because we don't believe that imagination can help lead us toward divine revelation and an understanding and kind of relationship with God.
In turn, that means the McDonald was like Morris. Despite differences in religious approaches, a proponent for the importance of fairy tales for people writing a warning in his essays on the imagination, he says, kill that went spring the crude fantasies and wild daydreams of the young. And you will never lead them beyond dull facts, though, because their relations to each other and the one life that works in them all must remain undiscovered.
So in summary here with um, for McDonald, the inspiration of the Almighty shapes imaginative literature for MacDonald's view and in fact brings humanity close to a godlike quality of creation. So, as MacDonald writes, the fantasy author may, if he pleases, invents a little world of his own with his own laws. For there is in that in him which delights in calling up new forms, which is the nearest, perhaps he can come to creation.
So such an idea, linking the fantasy author to the role of creator brings a certain seriousness to fantasy literature and a sense of responsibility. And we can now look forwards from this, from MacDonald's intertwining of religion and fantasy literature to 20th century fantasy. So, for example, we have C.S. Lewis was heavily influenced by MacDonald's work. And we can see that in The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe. There's also a space trilogy.
Has anyone read Space Trilogy, which includes Fairyland, a fascinating set of books. Now, Tolkien to also connected his religious convictions with his fantasy writing and in his essay on Fairy stories, which we heard a bit from earlier today, um, and in which, like Morrison MacDonald, he argues for the value of fan stories. Fairy stories for both children and adults. Tolkien ends by coining a new term, u catastrophe, to explain the importance of a happy ending,
and this was hinted at on another earlier handout today. So I'm going to quote. Most important is the consolation of a happy ending in fairy tales. I would venture to assert that all complete fairy stories must have it. I would say that tragedy is the true form of drama, its highest function. But the opposite is true of fairy story. Since we do not appear to possess a word that expresses this opposite, I will call it you catastrophe.
The you could say trophic tail, which is always a tongue to a tire, is the true form of fairy tale and its highest function. So Tolkiens term here is deriving from the Greek for EU meaning good. And then there's an older understanding of catastrophe is just a sudden turn, or a denouement and denouement ending. Importantly for talking in this happy ending. This you catastrophe, um, that according to Tolkien, the message of Christ can be read. So he wrote a constellation of fairy stories.
The joy of the happy ending, or more correctly, the good catastrophe, the sudden, joyous turn. It's one of the things which fairy stories can produce supremely well and is not essentially escapist in its fairy tale otherworld setting. It is a sudden and miraculous grace. It is evangelism, giving a fleeting glimpse of joy, joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief. And for context here, evangelism means life and teaching of Christ.
Now talking even go so far as to claim that the Gospels contain a fairy story or a story of a larger kind, which embraces all the essence of fairy stories. The birth of Christ is the catastrophe of man's history. Therefore, Tolkien suggests that the Christian may dare to guess that in fantasy he might actually assist in the enrichment of creation.
I'm taking you through these kind of possibly more surprising sides to these authors just to show how, like MacDonald, Tolkien makes use of the imaginary world of the fairy tale a fantasy to share a Christian message as it is through fantasies, imaginative possibilities. We might catch a glimpse, if briefly, of the awe and wonder of God who is incomprehensible and beyond full human comprehension.
As Tolkien writes, the peculiar quality of the joy in successful fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth, which is the message of God. And this returns us to that vision of the glass, the mirror in MacDonald, and the attempt to glimpse the divine through fantasy literature. Looking forwards.
Um, I just want to note that while we have the Christian concepts of fantasy, literature can be seen in the work of Madeleine L'Engle, there's, um, for example, the series A Wrinkle in Time, if anyone has read that. Um, but it's not just Christianity that we can find in fantasy. For example, we can consider Le Guin's Earthsea cycle, um, where we introduce not to a Christian perspective, but actually what some people have identified as a philosophical Daoism.
And then you kind of note this, that Daoism is central to the concept of creation in Earthsea, as shown in this quotation. So in the creation of AA, which is the oldest song, it is said only in silence the word only in dark, the light, only in dying life.
So I just want to give that little hint there that while I focus on kind of this Christian view from these authors, particularly something from the 19th century, there's some interesting things to be done in terms of exploring lots of different religions here with fantasy, um, something kind of an area I'm still exploring. So this religious turn brings me now to my concluding remarks for this talk today, as I end with a meditation on the concept of a moral imagination in fantasy literature.
So, um, at the beginning of today, Mendelsohn's pioneering rhetoric of fantasy was mentioned, and in that she writes that fantasy, unlike science fiction, relies on a moral universe. It is less an argument with the universe than a sermon on the way things should be, a belief that the universe should yield to moral precepts. And moreover, she suggests that fantasy seeks to make the universe understandable in moral terms.
Now we can find this moral universe in MacDonald's work quite clearly, through his explicit use of a fantasy story to explore the concept complex Christian concept of redemption, including by featuring the characters of Adam and Eve as he imagines them. And so in doing so, McDonald forwards his belief in the value of a wise imagination, which he describes in an imagination essay.
In very truth, a wise imagination, which is the presence of the Spirit of God, is the best guide that man or woman can have, for it is not the things we see the most clearly that influence us. The most powerfully undefined, yet vivid visions of something beyond have far more influence than any logical sequences, whereby the same things can be demonstrated to the intellect.
Now, if we then return to the glittering plain religion, there is quite absent its form, fitting Morris's more atheist outlook. Instead, in Morris's work, we could read a moral universe that combines a medieval heroic ethic with his 19th century socialist concerns as well, alongside his belief in the importance of both meaningful and beautiful objects and work.
So we can see this in the glittering plain when he lies, when he stuck in the glittering plain which is the ark of the undying, decides, figures out that the way you can escape is to build a boat. And so to do that, he has to spend many days building a boat by hand, which Morris narrates, and when he is questioned by the immortal people living around him, the moral outlook of Morris. His book becomes clearer as he emphasises importance of finding meaning in one's work and also one's mortality.
And this they ask what shall all thy toil win thee? They ask, and he spake whole blithe. Maybe a merry heart, or maybe death. So this is kind of a more, um, earthly focus there.
And, Morris, just to show you how you can get these different moral imaginations appearing in these texts, that although their moral outlooks may differ between the atheist and the theist, both MacDonald and Morris believed in the power of a fairy tale, a fantasy literature as we know it today to create other worlds which might in turn impact the earthly world in which we exist. For these authors, fantasy was not simply an escape, but an imaginative opportunity for revisioning the world.
It was the same for C.S. Lewis, who wrote the whole fantasy story, paradoxically enough, strengthens our relish for real life. This excursion into the preposterous sends us back with renewed pleasure to the actual. And then again with the Gwyn fantasy is a game played for the game sake and a game played for very high stakes. It is a different approach to reality, an alternative technique for apprehending and coping with existence. It is not realistic, but so realistic. Super realistic.
A heightening of reality. I went with a further comment from the Gwynn um, which ties together some of the themes of my talk today focussed on the role of the fantasy author, an act of creation. So La Grande writes in fantasy there is nothing but the writer's vision of the world.
There is only a construct built in a void, with every joint and seam and nail exposed to create what Tolkien calls a secondary universe is to make a new world, a world where no voice is ever spoken before, where the act of speech is the act of creation. The only voice that speaks there is the creator's voice, and every word counts. So the Gwynn's words may remind us of a Christian story of creation, both in Genesis when God said, let there be light, and there was light.
And John one which begins in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The fantasy author's voice then is contained in the written word or world, and therefore becomes an act of creation. As such, a sense of seriousness and responsibility is attributed to the role of the fantasy author. A seriousness that we can trace back to that early writing of William Morris and George MacDonald.
These two authors, who argued in the essays and demonstrated in their fiction for the importance of fairy tale or fantasy stories in the lives of both adults and children. So that brings me to the end of my talk. Thank you for listening to me. I hope this has brought a little light to the development of fantasy literature in 19th century, which really did just cross disciplines and concepts and so on. So I hope that was a little taster for you. Thank you. Thank you very, very much.
That was a wonderful talk. We'll dive straight into questions. Do we have any from the floor? First hand up was over here. Thank you so much. That was a wonderful presentation. Um, given that there's been a sort of effort to take fantasy more seriously, um, for adults since the 19th century. Do you have any thoughts on why? Maybe even in the present day, fantasy seems sort of like a marginal thing, or still get towards younger people, or unserious in a way?
Yeah, I mean, that's why I kind of wanted to flag those, those comments up because it is it's an issue today that we still have. We're fun to get sidelined. And I would say it's interesting now with the development of romanticism in a way, is answering the fact that the people who grew up with Y.A. don't have the kind of literature for adults now, so we're getting romances almost an answer. Generally, it comes down to this question of kind of, um, highbrow, middlebrow, lowbrow.
You get issues of what's high culture, low culture. And even when we say that we're mixing everything, there's still that sense of, oh, it's for children. It's about fairy tales. It's not the real world. So I think it's kind of an ongoing debate we're having, and I think we can also link that to that history of kind of the scientific realist logical side and then the fantastical.
And how do you fit those two, which I think are two elements of the human character that we we try and box it in one or the other. And I really think it's something we're constantly grappling with to work that out. So who answered your question? Hey. Thank you. Um, that might be like an obvious 19th century answer to this, but why? Lilith by John MacDonald. Why is it subtitled A romance? Is that like a 19th century thing? Um, that is a good question.
I am not a 19th century specialist, so I don't actually have a clear answer for that. I would suggest that at the time, there's often subtitles that are kind of added on to give these little extras. Um, the Glittering Plain also has a subtitle as well. So it's a sense of kind of advertising a bit more about what the text is. Um, but we could also link it to that tradition I mentioned about this idea of historic has these histories that are fictional.
So Daniel Defoe was writing, um, Robinson Crusoe or More Flanders and saying a true story of this, but it's not a true story. So there's that kind of playing with trying to advertise what the text is. At the same time, I hope that helps. Potentially someone else might have a better answer than me in the room. Yeah. Just wondering if you could, um, if you had any kind of examples in mind of a modern fantasy novel that sort of has that kind of moral seriousness,
um, sort of creative talent worked into it? Yes. Um, so, I mean, Le Guin's Earthsea cycle, maybe not modern in the contemporary like it's not 21st century is really fascinating, and I highly recommend those books because she really deals with this question of mortality, immortality, um, kind of forgiveness as well. They're all kind of coming, tying together in the Earthsea series in terms of 21st century, I mean.
So I don't think in terms of a religious outlook, I have yet to find one that's a truly religious one. But if someone would like to suggest some to me, that would be interesting. There are some interesting things being done with engaging with the moral outlook of religion from a more secular point of view, so we can think about the part of the orange tree which we'll hear about tomorrow. She really does some interesting things in terms of how myths and religions are developed.
And there's a similar idea that comes across in Rachel Hartman's books. Does anyone read Rachel Hartman Hartman's it's like Serafina, Tess of the road. There's really recommend those there. Um, if you like part of the Orange Tree, read Rachel Hartman and she again is playing with the concept of saints and also dragons. And there's some interesting moral outlooks about logic and, um, kind of creativity and music as well in those books, too.
So that gives a little hint. But I think basically most fantasy text you will find that sense of a moral, um, but the question of what the moral is. That's something that kind of working out. I'm sorry. Thank you. Katie. Um, a very practical question. Um, I love Maurice the man, but I can't stand Morris the writer, the poem, the poet. Um, maybe I was just unlucky. I tried several novels and didn't work. Is there a novel you would recommend for an absolute beginner?
Which does not sound as if ChatGPT is trying to imitate Thomas Malory. So this is essentially the struggle with the archaic structures of Morris, isn't it? Yeah. So. And the syntax, the meandering piece, um, and and. Yeah. So I'm not sure if I'd have a specific one. What I would say is I think of reading Morris a bit like reading Shakespeare in that you the first Shakespeare you read,
you're having to look up half the words and figure out what's going on. But if you spend your time immersing with it yourself in it, you will gradually find that one day you're suddenly laughing at a joke that you didn't think you'd ever get. So with Morris, I think I'd say it's more you need to give yourself like an hour to sit down and start going with it and see if it starts to make sense. If you pick up his rhythms and then it kind of comes comes to you a bit.
Um, I would say. Um, I'm not sure I would suggest the glitching plane is maybe the first one. Um, I'm trying to remember the name of the other one. Well, the World's End is also suggested. And then there's the word forgotten. The full title and some. The saying, but essentially I would say that what it is that you need to give yourself time. You can't expect yourself to be gripped in the first page. But if you give some set some time aside just to read it, give it a chance.
And if you really don't like it, that's fine. It's perfectly fine. You've given it a go. You understand a bit of that and then you can move on. Thank you. This is a really fascinating talk. I just I'm wondering, picking up on the on the sort of question about contemporary fiction or fantasy fiction, which is dealing with these sort of proto Christian or Christian themes.
What do you make of Susanna Clarke's sort of turn towards some of these things, especially with like Piranesi and that sort of thing? Do you have a thought on that? So that's interesting because I've, I've read Piranesi, but I'm trying to cite if I hadn't linked it with the, the Christian viewpoint. So do you have in mind a moment? Well, she starts the book opens with a quotation from The Magician's Nephew.
Right. And I think in a sense, it's a broader engagement with this, this whole conversation about enchantment, disenchantment re enchantment, Faber and Taylor. Um, and then in interviews, she's sort of said fairly explicitly that she's thinking of this through that more, I think, Christian metaphysic. Okay. And that she's thinking especially toward future works. Yeah. But it's all it's she's not talked a lot about it yet, but it's I wonder if there's some of that there.
Yeah. I think I'm only going to go back and reread Piranesi now. Um, I'm in the middle of Jonathan Strange. Um, the long one that I have in three volumes. Um, but yeah, I think that would be really interesting to go back and look.
And I think generally in the 21st century, what with what I find, what I'm always looking for with any fiction I'm reading, if it's fantasy, any kind of genre, as I'm always interested in something that's dealing with religious concepts, it doesn't have to be Christian in a complex way. So yes, it's important to bring that secular age of critique, questioning things and the idea of where does the history, the story come from?
But I'm also looking for something that's dealing with the complexity of a God that is incomprehensible. And how do we deal with that with one's personal faith and spirituality? So I will go and reread Piranesi now. Thank you. If there are no further questions, then I think I'll take pity and not ask a question myself. Save that for later. Thank you very much again, and thank you for coming to join us here for fantastic talk. Thank you.