Q: Why Does Fantasy Always Follow Tolkien?
ANSWER: While it is true that many modern fantasy stories seem to be influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien once can find exceptions to the trend. But the straightest, simplest answer is that commercial publishers have to make a profit in order to stay in business and experience has taught them that readers are more likely to buy books that echo some of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ideas than books that pursue very different themes and styles in fantasy literature.
On the other hand, Tolkien did not invent the majority of themes and styles for which he is most well-known. It cannot even be said that he necessarily even popularized them. Other authors of the 1930s and 1940s were using Norse and European mythology, medieval literature, and Europe as inspirations for their fantasy literature. Many of those authors are still widely read and respected today, including Robert E. Howard, C.S. Lewis (Tolkien’s friend), Andre Norton, Edgar Rice Burroughs, T.H. White, L. Sprague de Camp, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, George Orwell, and others.
While it is true that few if any of those authors still dominate best seller lists in genre fiction, many of their books remain in print or are republished again and again through the years; furthermore, many of today’s top science fiction and fantasy authors still cite these authors as inspirations. So while Tolkien is most often acknowledged as the “father of modern fantasy literature” he was really more like “one of the founding fathers of 20th century-style fantasy literature”. There are other authors from the 19th century such as Mark Twain, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, and Bram Stoker (and many more) who continue to influence science fiction and fantasy literature and entertainment today. Those 19th century authors had profound influence upon Tolkien and his contemporaries.
Tolkienesque fantasy fiction can probably be defined as fantasy stories that involve Tolkien-inspired Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, and Hobbit-like creatures or stories that feature nearly hopeless wars against ancient “dark lords” who reign over huge expanses of the fictional world. If we should credit Tolkien with any one specific element of fantasy literature, perhaps it is the quest to overthrow the dark lord more than anything else that he served to define and popularize. Except for the Biblical tradition of Satan/Lucifer having gained mastery over the world of Men, there is really nothing quite like Tolkien’s legends of Morgoth and Sauron in modern literature.
Of course, the Bible is contemporary with many ancient beliefs in gods and demons who fought for mastery over the world; and Tolkien himself styled his Valar and Maiar at first upon pagan gods and later upon Biblical angels and demons. So Tolkien’s fiction serves as a gateway for using religious thought as an inspiration for modern fantasy literature. Even Milton’s Paradise Lost lacks the metaphorical layer of invention that separates the story from the tradition that inspires it. Satan inspired much literature in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and up through the 20th century, but I think Tolkien was probably the first “Dark Lord of the World” author; at least, anyone who used such a theme prior to Tolkien seems to have been overshadowed by his fiction.
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Ohai,
I was wondering if anymore info could be found about the New Lands and the Dark Land.
I’m interested in these continents but little is know about them (With Dark Land I mean the continent in the South of Arda)