Branwell Brontë ‘s map of Angria – part of the secondary world created by the Brontë siblings. C1830-31.
This Fantasy Study Day was an enjoyable prelude to the forthcoming exhibition at the British Library exploring the genre, Fantasy: imagining impossible worlds (27 October 2023-25 February 2024), featuring key experts involved in the exhibition and catalogue. As I have been designing the forthcoming MA Creative Writing for Arts University Bournemouth, and had written the outline of a module called ‘Im/Possible Worlds’ back in early May which is intended to explore Fantasy and Science Fiction, this felt good timing.
Rising at 4am I left my home in West Dorset at 5am to catch the 5.52am train to Waterloo – it was a long, hot day, but it felt very stimulating and worth the effort.
I don’t know if the day was programmed with an intentional narrative, but one seemed to emerge. Tanya Kirk, curator of print collections at the British Library, kicked things off with a talk about designing the forthcoming exhibition. It seemed like Tanya acted as a kind of keeper of the portals, both in curating the exhibition of imaginary worlds, and as our threshold guardian of the day.
Michelle Anya Anjirbag’s talk on fairy tales and folk tales – ‘taproot texts’ of so much modern fantasy informed by the oral tradition – seemed to foreshadow the final presentation by Anna Milon on LARP*ing – co-authored improvised shared world fantasies which involve alot of elements from oral traditions: storytelling, poetry, spells, charms, curses, proclamations, lore, and song. Through the prosumerism (to use Alvin Toffler’s term) of LARPing, it feels like the genre has gone full circle in some ways, with the often ephemeral oral tradition aspects echoing earlier sources, and enriching the scene, helping it to avoid entropy. Ironically, it is through the ravenous consumption of what Le Guin called ‘Consumerist Fantasy’, that fans are inspired to create their own ‘hacks’ of ‘canon’ material via Fan-Fic, Cos-Play and LARPing – not merely emulating existing narratives, but taking them in new directions. In the latter, much of the material is site- and time-specific, created to be performed in a certain context and then let go of, thus being the opposite of a commodity. Anna gave a couple examples of stories created for specific scenarios, and these she read out while in a gorgeous costume, which gave the audience a flavour of LARP and livened up the end of a hot day in the bowels of the British Library.
As a former professional storyteller who has performed many myths, legends, folk tales, and fairy stories (including Gilgamesh, Beowulf, as well as much of the Arthuriad including Gawain and the Green Knight), and has gone on to compose and compile written versions of folk tales for The History Press, this felt like familiar territory – but it was heartening to see how the oral tradition mutates and continues.
Professor Emritus Rob Maslen’s paper on Quest narratives, Dr Dimitra Fimi’s talk on ‘Crossing Borders of Otherness’, and Professor Matthew Sangster’s talk on ‘Architectures of the Strange’ (all from Glasgow University’s MLitt in Fantasy) also helped expand the creative imaginary of the genre in fascinating ways.
Thus the tradition moves forward, breaking new territory (fan culture; YA/New Adult fiction) in old ways (the oral tradition; play; print), as well as sideways. Familiar ground is revisited and re-appraised. The old stories are deconstructed and re-imagined for new audiences – breathed new life into by new generations of writers – while the widening market for Global Fantasy, which is bringing non-European, or Anglophone fantasy to Western audiences, helps to enrich the field with much-needed diversity.
It feels like Fantasy, which has never been more popular, or more participatory, is in rude health.
*Live-Action Role-Playing. I starred in one in the late 80scalled ‘Strange Lands’, in which I played Robin Hood – I still have the (foam) silver arrow.
Dr Kevan Manwaring 