/lit/ - Literature

>>22227902
Dumas probably when it comes to romanticism.

>>22227902
Last I checked Tolkien was not canon

>>22227902
It wasn't even a genre at the time. His imitators became the genre.

>>22227902
Are there any other authors that has this many Wikipedia articles?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien's_influences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien's_artwork
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien's_Middle-earth_family_trees
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraldry_of_Middle-earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien's_maps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_in_The_Lord_of_the_Rings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_pairing_in_The_Lord_of_the_Rings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien's_frame_stories
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impression_of_depth_in_The_Lord_of_the_Rings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlacing_in_The_Lord_of_the_Rings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_structure_of_The_Lord_of_the_Rings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien's_prose_style
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_and_Middle-earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_and_the_Celtic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_and_the_classical_world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien's_modern_sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_and_the_Norse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare's_influence_on_Tolkien
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction_to_power_in_The_Lord_of_the_Rings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestry_as_guide_to_character_in_Tolkien's_legendarium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Hobbit_characters
etc. There's a lot more.

>>22227950
I didn't notice the LoTR tab was hidden in my pic.

>>22227933
He basically is, LotRs shadow hangs over so much of modern literature.

>>22227902
He was a singular autist who spent most of his life inventing that world, I don't know of any author who has a more built up world, and he also has a very respectable personal philosophy, so he knows what stories are for. I'd recommend his essay "On Fairy Stories" to anyone, even if you didn't like the books. It's very sweet at the end, he basically admits he doesn't know what happens after death, but he really hopes that somehow God will let us partake in new creations/the further creation of our world. A very common Catholic vision of heaven is basically just us being so amazed by God we don't do anything, we're just happy. But I think Tolkien really wants to build things and literally be with elves.

>>22227933
>>22227968
Yup. LotR is widely considered a classic piece of literature despite its fantasy setting, and this fact alone makes post-modernist trannies seethe and froth at the mouth in an impotent rage.

>>22227902
>>22227933
>>22227934
>>22227950
>>22227960
>>22227968
>>22227995
>>22228045
>Writers like Tolkien take you to the edge of the Abyss and point out the excellent tea-garden at the bottom, showing you the steps carved into the cliff and reminding you to be a bit careful because the hand-rails are a trifle shaky as you go down; they haven’t got the approval yet to put a new one in.
>The great epics dignified death, but they did not ignore it, and it is one of the reasons why they are superior to the artificial romances, of which Lord of the Rings is merely one of the most recent.
>The sort of prose most often identified with “high” fantasy is the prose of the nursery-room. It is a lullaby; it is meant to soothe and console. It is mouth-music. It is frequently enjoyed not for its tensions but for its lack of tensions. It coddles; it makes friends with you; it tells you comforting lies. It is soft
>Moderation was the rule and it is moderation which ruins Tolkien’s fantasy and causes it to fail as a genuine romance. The little hills and woods of that Surrey of the mind, the Shire, are “safe”, but the wild landscapes everywhere beyond the Shire are “dangerous”. Experience of life itself is dangerous. The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious con- firmation of the values of a morally bankrupt middle class. Their cowardly, Home Counties habits are primarily responsible for the problems England now faces. The Lord of the Rings is much more deep-rooted in its infantilism than a good many of the more obviously juvenile books it influenced. It is Winnie-the-Pooh posing as an epic. If the Shire is a suburban garden, Sauron and his henchmen are that old bourgeois bugaboo, the Mob — mindless football supporters throwing their beer-bottles over the fence — the worst aspects of modern urban society represented as the whole by a fearful, backward-yearning class for whom “good taste” is synonymous with “re- straint” (pastel colours, murmured protest) and “civilized” behaviour means “conventional be- haviour in all circumstances”. This is not to deny that courageous characters are found in The Lord of the Rings, or a willingness to fight Evil — but somehow those courageous characters take on the aspect of retired colonels at last driven to write a letter to The Times and we are not sure — because Tolkien cannot really bring himself to get close to his proles and their satanic leaders — if Sauron and Co. are quite as evil as we’re told. After all, anyone who hates hobbits can’t be all bad.
Tolkienbros...not like this

>>22228127
Moorcock was a commie faggot who was completely out of his depth in his reading of Tolkien.
His critique is that of a recent graduate from a red-brick university who is bucking for a staff job at The Guardian.

>>22227902
this guy wrote sci-fi so convincingly people still mistake it for reality

>The little hills and woods of that Surrey of the mind, the Shire, are “safe”, but the wild landscapes everywhere beyond the Shire are “dangerous”. Experience of life itself is dangerous. The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious con- firmation of the values of a morally bankrupt middle class. Their cowardly, Home Counties habits are primarily responsible for the problems England now faces. The Lord of the Rings is much more deep-rooted in its infantilism than a good many of the more obviously juvenile books it influenced. It is Winnie-the-Pooh posing as an epic. If the Shire is a suburban garden, Sauron and his henchmen are that old bourgeois bugaboo, the Mob — mindless football supporters throwing their beer-bottles over the fence — the worst aspects of modern urban society represented as the whole by a fearful, backward-yearning class for whom “good taste” is synonymous with “re- straint” (pastel colours, murmured protest) and “civilized” behaviour means “conventional be- haviour in all circumstances”.

>>22228229
The Shire is literally subjugated by Saruman. Did Moorcock even read LotR?

>>22228226
That's not St Paul.

>>22228163
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Moor-Cock can criticize Tolkien all he wants, using whatever two-dollar language or shitty analogies he can conjure, but when you boil it down, he’s exactly the sort of fantasy ‘juvenile’ which he claims Tolkien has inspired. Honestly, all you need to do is compare his work on Elric, a shallow pulp fantasy with a mildly interesting aesthetic, to LotR which is a seminal literary masterpiece that will be remembered for hundreds of years.

He’s jealously coping. Hard.

>>22228250
He said he's not sure if Sauron is as evil as we are told so I'm gonna say no, he didn't even read it.

There are plenty of fantasy authors who write better books, but they aren’t as famous because they didn’t have a storied academic career beforehand and because they didn’t have the best movie trilogy of all time as an adaptation of their work.
The only one remotely as famous is GRRM and that’s only because the tv adaptation was very popular and pretty good for the first four seasons.
A genre like fantasy doesn’t lend itself to huge names because it requires so much more time investment, almost everything is a multi-novel series.

>>22227902
Was very close to being forgotten—dismal sells and reviews in Britain—was it not for an unauthorised publishing of the series by an American company, where is quickly become popular amongst hippie leftist college students in the 70s who started clubs and societies about the series. Tolkien said he *disliked* the popularity of the books because he enjoyed replying to letters sent by his small fan base back home. He also denied ripping off Wagner. What a twat. Never forget Tolkien sisters

>>22227968
>>22228045
It's been almost 70 years since the first volume Fellowship of the Ring was first published, and if anything the novel in its entirety is more beloved than ever. I'd say it has passed the required filter of time.

I once had a graduate school professor who said that The Lord Of The Rings was the only major work that was going to survive the 20th Century. He didn't think the other things we laud as great from the 20th Century would make it: not Joyce, not Faulkner, not Hemingway, not Kafka, not Pound, only Tolkien would survive. He said that Lord of the Rings was the only work that was "big enough" to survive for centuries to come.
I thought that was an incredibly stupid thing to say, but years later looking back on it, I have a feeling that he might have been right. The novel might not be the greatest thing of the 20th century, but it resonates with people the most.

>>22228504
>almost everything is a multi-novel series
... in imitation of Tolkien.
The notion that fantasy novels have to be millions of words long is a testament to the derivative nature of the genre.

What a circlejerk thread this one is.

>>22227902
There is one, and his name is Vox Day.

what would he say about modern britain?

>>22229322
Seethe in private and hide his anger.

>>22227923
Who are Goethe, Walter Scott...?

>>22229260
Might agree, but i think that some science fiction will be relevant too.

Novels with more traditional contemporary settings will survive, but not be so well known. I think Hemingway or Murakami here.

>>22228127
>Man is losing touch with nature? Pff, whatever old man. I can literally see a valley when I look out my window.
>Anyways, you guys wanna read some real fantasy for adults? It's about this badass dude who slays gods, and he's got white hair, red eyes, white skin, has an evil sword that...

>>22229400
>there's no plot or anything because fuck that LOL but BADASS SWORDS DUDE !!!!!

>>22228127
Impotent ramblings by a communist.

>>22229386
They're writers, anon.

>>22227902
Shakespeare dunked on everyone so hard he killed playwriting, narrative poetry, and the sonnet.

Nietzsche retired philosophy.

>>22227902
>>Raised the bar in the genre so high no other author could ever hope to live up to him
Did you forget that Bakker already overcame him?

>>22229579
>enters john milton
you're right about nietzsche though

It’s something I’ve found a lot, and it’s been quite depressing. The large majority of remarkable figures, in literature, politics, history general, have details of their life add up to one great destiny and life’s work. It usually starts in childhood and young adulthood and you find it in the biography of almost every man that’s really great at anything from a historical perspective. Frankly, I can only think of a handful of exceptions, namely, Dante and Virgil but who knows when they first showed some talent for poetry.

>>22229579
Nietzsche was the last stage in the degeneration of philosophy, he "retired" it by pushing it down a flight of stairs.

Is it really that good?

>>22229820
Quite frankly, yes. I read it first last year with mixed expectations and I was surprised. It has ambitious and still did what it aimed to do perfectly. >>22229260 is correct. It will be the one English language book that people will remember from the 20th century.

>>22227902
my girlfriend and i do lotr roleplay, we take turns being gollum and smeagle, but now i literally can't coom without saying "my precious," so it's really weird when i'm cheating on her and stroking the bitch's face and hissing "my precious" just to bust a nut

>>22229820
The languages and backstory he created resulted the only fantasy story that actually creates the impression of a world with its own history and culture that genuinely sparks the desire to know more about it and experience more of it. You know, like a fantasy. It's the only fantasy novel that compares with RPGs in that regard. It stands head and shoulders above all its imitators, which try to do the same thing and fail because they can't come up with enough backstory or imaginary history. Even if they do, they either incorporate it too much or too little in to the novel (usually the former). And then you have a million hacks - who shall remain nameless - who think they can get away with gibberish languages and boring cities and peoples that are just historical ones or ones from previous fantasy works, disguised with a paper thin veneer pic unrelated.

>>22228226
Kek. Based

>>22230023
Tolkien also cleverly begins the story in a safe and familiar place, and moves it to progressively wilder and more exotic regions, allowing him to sketch in the historical and geographical details as he goes. In this way he ensures the reader isn't overwhelmed with details of world-building and largely avoids dry slabs of exposition.

>>22228504
Nobody who came after Tolkien was good because they were either imitating him or seething so hard their works were (attempted) refutations of Tolkien which meant he was still their biggest influence anyway. The only good non-Tolkien fantasy is from the authors who weren't influenced by him at all, i.e those who wrote their stories before him.

>>22230135
>The only good non-Tolkien fantasy is from the authors who weren't influenced by him at all, i.e those who wrote their stories before him.
Your logic makes no sense. They can't be good unless they aren't influenced by the best one?

>>22227934
>this is what Tolkienfags actually believe

>>22230364
It is what anti-genre critics say. Trashing Tolkien would be taking too bold, they simply say that "it wasn't genre this time" for contrived reasons, despite the fantasy genre being very well established by then.

>>22227902
Tolkien didn't establish the fantasy genre, he finished it. Everything since him comes off shallow and tryhard

>>22230380
The genre of 1,000-page multi-volume world-building fantasy is very much an imitation of Tolkien.
Before then, fantasy was mostly confined to magazine short stories or single-volume novels.

>>22230531
>>22230382
I once started reading the Sword of Shannara series by Terry Brooks and it was literally a wizard coming to tell a hobbit he's been chosen for a great quest

>>22228504
Tolkien understood medieval European mythology, language, and stories better than any other fantasy writer. That’s why his books remain unsurpassed.

Frank Herbert and Gene Wolfe are much better and shit all over this middle-brow medievalist romantic anglo, and I say this as someone who loves Tolkien. Their works are much more relevant to the present. Theologically, politically, artistically, futuristically.

>>22230712
Wolfe I could give a pass to although he won't be canonized in the same manner. Hebert is the midwit here. His works are literary deficient. Being relevant to the present is not a serious concern. The great works are not such for fitting such a vague criterium (that no two people will agree on).
The "magnum opus" of the second ends with an edgy little girl-power ninja teleporting behind the emperor and stabbing him in the back (nothing personal kiddo). Unfortunately Herbert is "relevant" and has been imitated, in this particular trope and a few others.

>>22230023
Where's Italy?

>>22230844
I'm a retard unfamiliar with Wolfe but in the comparison with Herbert I assume anon was referring to the similarity of their criticisms of modern society but the vast difference in how they say to deal with it:
>Just be good and have faith and do the right thing and things will work out because god and stuff also 19th century preindustrial(ps not actually preindustrial, the industry just hadn't spread to his neighborhood yet, he still liked things like clockwork and lived an upper middle class lifestyle which didn't exist before industry) life was universally better because it was better for me when I was a small child
vs
>cultivate physical and mental discipline and never give yourself over to heroes and causes because they're working for themselves not you and you never know when the uncaring universe will decide to take a shit on you
Herbert's view is cynical but far more helpful in the modern world, whatever you think of Dune as a book.

>>22230860
Well I know Valyria is the I can't believe it's not Rome of Martin's shitty pulp series so I'm guessing that's supposed to be Italy but it's a hand instead of a foot

>>22227902
>Repackages Wagner's Ring cycle for the pleb market
Yes, raised the bar indeed...

>>22230023
Martin's world has some strengths but it feels very much like a world that was constructed just for one story; it only has three hundred years of actual history.

>>22230844

Filtered, Dunes apocalyptic narrative and the central conflict of the hero's journey being contradictory is central to our present moment of modernity, thats what I mean by "present" compared to Tolkien's archaic morality tale wraped up in the epic form. Up until God emperor of Dune its a full realized symphony and saga, but in its form its much more reflexive. Wolfe does the same thing with his irony, epic narrative and dream like structure of a plot.

>>22230652
As much as his academic background adds to the work, I don't think that is the core that sets it so far apart. If I were making a fantasy world I'd honestly probably just make another Not England using whatever names I thought just sound cool; that's more than sufficient and I don't think spending a thousand hours to make a super detailed world is necessary since I'm not a fucking nerd, go read history if you want "lore." If you write a book that simply edifies, inspires, instills nostalgia and wanderlust, and stimulates the imagination then you've succeeded. Post-Tolkien fantasy became enamored with the superficial aesthetics without understanding that they were merely tools leading to something higher.

>>22230910
your not-england with not-english names isn't going to stimulate anything in anyone but eyerolling and book-closing.

>>22230919
Oh right I forgot to add the goblins who are actually steampunk Aztecs and the Baroque Dragonkin who use futuristic technology.

>>22230931

>>22227902
Edgar Allen Poe with the detective genre

>>22230135
Robert e Howard is another giant quite frankly. Conan the Barbarian, as corny as some people might think it, is pretty well written.

what did he mean by this

>>22231216
he meant globalism is a cancer, as has been obvious to everyone with a soul from the start

>>22231216
He just knew about the great Satan even long before the Ayatollahs.

>>22231216
He's right.

>>22229820
It can drag on a bit but yeah it's good.

>>22230382
honestly, harry potter strikes me as very authentic

>>22230910
I think it quite obviously is. I’m honestly shocked that you could even suggest it’s not.

>>22227902
don't know if unbeatable but these guys really set some standards
gibson for cyberpunk
vance for dying earth
lovecraft for lovecraftian horror
dante with depictions of hell
kafka for absurdism
joyce for stream of conciousness
rulfo for latin american magical realism

>>22233898
I think Harry Potter set the bar for low fantasy not unlike how Lord of the Rings set the bar for high fantasy. That's not to say that the two works are anywhere near the same quality, but the fact is that Harry Potter has not been surpassed within its genre and has influenced all attempts at low fantasy that have come after it.

Is the beginning hobbit history section relevent or should I just skip it

>>22227902
>Raised my cock so high no other nymph could ever hope to live up to him

>>22230531
>1,000-page multi-volume world-building fantasy
That's just some made-up bullshit category you just made to help your argument. Those are not requirements for something to be considered fantasy, and it existed before Tolkien regardless of where it was published.

>>22230023
>Even if they do, they either incorporate it too much or too little in to the novel (usually the former). And then you have a million hacks
Speaking of hacks and the first major Tolkien imitator, David Eddings' two fantasy series are a good example of both. The first series (Belgariad+Tamuli) has a fairly interesting and robust lore for the world. It's clear that Eddings had some passion for it, even if he's more or less openly a Tolkien-inspired hack. But the lore does become a bit oppressive, in the sense that almost everything about the world seems defined and constrained by the mythology. Redditors are quick to complain about how races are all blatant stereotypes. Much of what you see is driven by prophecies and mythological or metaphysical explanations. But there's still a long and reasonably coherent history of the world. You have countries with boundaries explained by a thousand years of political maneuvering and geography, there are many varied histories and relationships to discover in the story. But most of it does get stuffed into the stories.

Elenium and Tamuli are very different in this sense. Sparhawk's world feels much less "just so," driven less by prophecies and mythological conflicts between the gods. One of the most powerful gods in the world (intended to be analogous to the Catholic God) never plays any direct role at all. Unlike the Belgariad world, There's a sense that there's a lot more history and possibility that isn't directly part of the story. Unfortunately, there's also the strong sense that the reason for that is Eddings just didn't bother with it. Nobody thinks Eddings actually fleshed out plausible implications of the Styric "thousand god pantheon," much less defined more than a tiny handful of them. Styrics are just wizard jews with persecution complex.

>>22231216
>At any rate it out to cut down travel. There will be nowhere to go.
How did he predict the future bros?

>>22230712
I think Tolkien is way better than Herbert, but I agree about Wolfe. BotNS is far more interesting than LotR is just about every way, but also Tolkien walked so Wolfe could run.
But Wolfe will never be talked about in the same way because his work is a lot more difficult and basically unadaptable in any other type of media

>>22227902
Earthsea is better, IMO. Le Guin doesn't try to ape better previous works like Beowulf or the Nibelungenleid, and her books are better for it. Tolkien also suffers from poor pacing, and Le Guin is better able to write characters who feel like genuine people. Tolkien is still good, but I wouldn't say that no fantasy author could hope to live up to him.
>>22228163
Moorcock's essay is the epitome of "old man yells at cloud". I love it. He makes some good points about a lot of authors...but he NEVER makes any good points about Tolkien. It's conspicuous. He'll go "bam! bam! bam!" with good criticism of other authors, and then pathetically add "...and Tolkien is like that too" without any evidence or further elaboration.

Also, by far the biggest fanboy of Moorcock I ever met was my crotchety and conservative history teacher. Never got why people bring up Moorcock being left wing as if anyone should care.

>>22227902
It’s an artificial genre with a shaky foundation. If we judged all works with fantastical elements, Tolkien wouldn’t even be top 100. He can’t compete with Homer, Virgil, Dante, or Milton.

>>22228504
>didn’t have the best movie trilogy of all time as an adaptation of their work
Zoomer moment.
Lord of the Rings had been popular and famous for almost 50 years before Peter Jackson's trilogy (whether it's actually better than Lucas' Star Wars is open for debate).
>A genre like fantasy doesn’t lend itself to huge names because it requires so much more time investment,
Writing just doesn't lend itself to huge names in general. How many mainstream authors can you name from last 10 years without looking up some femblogger's list of must-reads (Stephanie Meyer, Delia Owens, etc)? Publishing has been taken over by women and fey manlets. There are no Robert Ludlums in mainstream publishing. Maybe some aging boomers-for-boomers like John Grisham hanging on for a bit but that's it.

>>22229305
Bullshit. Not every multi-novel series is imitating Tolkien-- only epic fantasy adventure, and even then there are exceptions (Harry Potter does not span multiple novels because of Tolkien).
>derivative nature of the genre.
If you want to write epic, heroic, romantic fantasy you are probably going to need a lot of words. You need to develop a lot of characters, factions, and conflicts, you need to explore a lot of locations and give the world a sense of scale and travel cost, and of course you need to build to a suitably high-stakes climax. Calling something derivative simply because it shares a scope and structure is stupid. It's very common for any kind of large creative work to be organized into larger components (Plays have Acts, Symphonies have Movements, and so on). Sometimes these structures are influenced by practicality-- the most obvious for literature being publication since you want to get material in front of paying readers sooner than later most of the time.

There are over 300,000 words of Conan stories, it's just not told as one big quest.

>>22234784
>If we judged all works with fantastical element
Well, "we" don't. If you can't figure out why I'd say the problem is you not them.

>>22235137
There is no reason to call Tolkien fantasy but not Homer and Virgil—let alone Dante or Milton.