View Single Post
Old 10-13-2014, 08:15 AM   #114
Geralt
Witcher
Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Geralt ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Geralt's Avatar
 
Posts: 933
Karma: 7321117
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Swamp. Slaying Drowners.
Device: Kindle PW2
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghitulescu View Post
The recurs to fantastic creatures was IMHO only a method to get a place in the literary world of that time, which was populated by other fictional works, but based on history (like Les Mystères de Paris, or Ben Hur).
What are you even talking about? Fantastical creatures have been present in literature since the beginning. Just crack open any of the Greek, Indian,Chinese or any other epics and you'll find them. Fantasy has been around since mankind started telling each other stories. What place? It was always here in one form or other.

Quote:
The Victorian era had a lot of the elements needed for such a literary current, like the jobless wives who spent their time in reading love novels (love being forbidden to women, who had to be seduced against their will in order to hmm hmm) and to keep the children obedient by scare.
Yes fantasy novels began appearing because bored housewives and naughty kids. How utterly reductive can you get?

Quote:
And therefore, both love (in historical times) and grotesque fictional monsters gained place, against classical (read greek antique) works, equally sad. And the competition of fantastic monsters enraged on and on, and we saw Dracula, Frankenstein (actually the monster has no name, Frankenstein is the mad scientist), and so on.
Vampires have been present in stories way before Dracula (1897). East Europe has had such myths for a long time.
Bram Stoker didn't just invent vampire, he borrowed a lot. These were published before Dracula:
You have Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" (1871) about a lesbian vampire.
You have John Polidori's "The Vampyre" (1819) which is a short story.
Plus as I said all the East European tradition.
I cant be bothered to write all the Frankenstein sources so if you're interested go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franken...ey.27s_sources

You seem to do a lot of A = B ergo C. It doesn't quite work. History of fantasy or literature in general is much more complex and symbiotic thing.
Your simple explanations don't do the job very well.
Geralt is offline   Reply With Quote