Book List and Preliminary Syllabus only
(actual syllabus distributed first day of class)
English 38a
Fantasy Worlds: From Lilliput and Middle Earth to LARPs
Monday Wednesday Thursday 1:00—1:50 p.m.
Professor: John Plotz ()
Office hours: Rabb 264 Monday and Wednesday 1-2 and by appt.
Fantasy is as old as Gilgamesh, as new as Harry Potter; appealing to both young and old readers as few other genres do. We explore its historical roots in satires like Gulliver's Travels, its modern rebirth in Narnia , Middle Earth and Le Guin's Earthsea. Also explores recent participatory fantasy realms , inclding online gaming and live action role-playing.
The class begins by testing scholarly ideas about “subcreation,” “secondary worlds” and the theological/spiritual underpinnings of modern fantasy. It offers a genealogy that goes back to ancient times and takes a satirical turn with Jonathan Swift before landing in the recognizably modern form c. 1900, with the socialist utopias of William Morris and the after them the Christian allegories of CS Lewis and the meticulous slightly obsessive distinctly anti_Christian worldbuilding of JRR Tolkien. We explore better and lesser known 20th century prose fantasy before turning towards the fascinating range of virtual and live-action fantasy role-playing that has made fantasy less a genre than a way of life, and a subject of ethnography as well as literary analysis.
Book list
Please purchase this particular edition. Buy, do not rent, books: you will be expected to mark up your texts.
Unless listed below, all readings will appear on the Latte site or in a sourcebook available for purchase in the first week of class.
Ursula Le Guin Wizard of Earthsea (HMH 0547773749)
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Oxford University Press; 0199536848)
J R R Tolkien Fellowship of the Ring ( Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 0395489318
Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan (Overlook Press; 1585679070)
Samuel Delany Tales of Neveryon [Wesleyan, 978-0-8195-6270-8]
CS Lewis Voyage of the Dawn Treader (HarperCollins; 0064405028)
Dianne Wynne Jones, Tough Guide to Fantasyland (Firebird; 0142407224)
NK Jemison The Fifth Season (Orbit 0316229296)
Book/Worlds for Outside Project (starting 9/18)
Small groups of students will choose one to read, research and briefly present on.
(Don't like what you see here, or have a burning passion for another kind of work? Come see us to discuss.)
Homer, The Odyssey
Apuleis, Golden Ass
Beowulf
Romance of the Rose
Chretien De Troyes, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
Mallory, Morte D’Arthur
Gawain and the Green Knight
1001 Nights
Amadis the Gaul
Don Quixote
Snorri’s Edda (the Younger Edda)
The Kalevela
The Tempest
The Faerie Queene
George Mc Donald, Phantastes
Richard Jefferies, Bevis [or After London]
William Morris, Water of the Wondrous Isles
E Nesbit Phoenix and the Carpet
[Ford Madox Ford, Mr. Apollo]
[John Carter, Warlord of Mars]
[H P Lovecraft Call of Chtulu]
Mario de Andrade Macunaima
John Crowley, Little, Big
Alan Garner Elidor (Owl Service)
Anne McCaffrey, Dragonflight (1968)
Octavia Butler, Wild Seed
Doris Lessing Making of the Representatives of Planet 8
Dream Park
Sylvia Townsend Warner, Kingdoms of Elfin