Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Funny thing about fantasy: these days there is very little use of the classic mythologies.
Tolkien's shadow froze too much of the epic fantasy subgenre into quasi-medieval forms.
|
Depends what authors you pick, though some of it like Rick Riordan are pretty light hearted. There is Stephan Lawhead, Joanne Harris, Mary Stewart, Ray McCarthy, Neil Gaiman, Michael Scott, Robert Holdstock, Derek Landy and loads of other Fantasy authors that while not making use of Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Egyptian, Babylonian and Chinese certainly are not either stereotypical Medieval nor bad versions of Tolkien.
I'd not regard Greek mythology as at all being more important or in any way better than other accessible mythologies, the putting of Greek and to a lesser extent Latin on a pedestal is largely an artefact of the English Public School and the so called Classical Education that takes the Ancient Roman view that only the Greeks were cultured, the Keltoi were savages (one of the early famous Roman playwrights was a Celt from Northern Italy). The Greeks themselves had a more balanced view of the Celts (they extended as far as Northern Turkey), Phoenicians, Babylonians, Hittites and Egyptians. You'd want to take a lot that Julius Caesar wrote about North Africans, Keltoi (the Gauls was a Roman term for Celts) and the East Europeans that displaced Celts (e.g. Helvetii to Switzerland) with a bucket of salt!
Also I think the quasi-medieval stuff was more Warhammer / RPG driven? Tolkien mines ancient Celtic (elves = Sidhe), Scandinavian (Dwarves), Greek, Teutonic / Germanic etc (Rohan, Wargs). I'd only recognise the Hobbits as being purely his own invention.
Most Arthurian stuff *IS* medieval French and not much like the older Welsh and Cornish Celtic legends. Lancelot didn't exist. Guinevere was as much Fay as Morgan, who was no relation to Arthur. Avalon was the Isle of Apples, also in Irish Myth. Nothing to do with Glastonbury. The Morrigan is nothing to do with Arthur either or Morgan le Fay. Irish for Terror Queen, though mór in modern Irish is an unrelated word.