Има два поустинга на една и съща тема, но в различни клубове. Реших, че ще е най-добре ако изведа тази информация в отделна тема!!!

Извадих това есе(Introduction to the Book) на Martin H. Greenberg от зборника разкази "My Favourite Fantasy Stories", чийто редактор е тои самия.

И така:

As soon as mankind began to tell stories, the concept of fanatasy was not far
behind. From the ancient myths and legends every culture created to explain
natural phenomena to the folktales, fairy tales, and our urabn legends today, our capacity for imagining the fantastic is exceeded only by our desire to find it. As the concept of fanatsy literature evoleved over the centuries, it has also become more frefined and now encompasses every type of fiction, from mainstream fantasy to epic high fantasy, from sword and sorcery to urban fantasy. But no matter how many types of fantasy literature exists today, the purpose behind the genre remains the same; toescape the real world and explore other places and events that exist only in the imagination.

Unlike science fictuion, which required the fantastic to develop before it could even exist, the roots of fantasy fiction stretch back before the dawn of history. The first structured mythologies, of Mesopotamia and Egypt, pre-date the invention of the written word, as they appear already fully developed in the earliest of texts. the very first "novel" --the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, elements of wich probably date back before the 4th millennium BC--in parts relates the type of quest beloved of modern fantasy readers as the hearstick king of Uruk searches for the secret ot etenal life.

In the 2nd millennium BC, a group of people known as Indo-Europeans migraeted from their homeland north of the Black Sea. Eventually this group took over most of Europe, part of the Middle East, and much of the Indian subcontinent, assimilating the local cultures into their own. From this mixture of languages and societies came what is generally believed to be one of the first creationmyths, the Rig-veda, in which Indra, the warrior god and leader of the Adityas, ancientchildren of the earth, does battle with Vritra, the great dragon and leader of the danavas, the children of Danu the Restrainer. After many epic battles, Indra destroys Vritra with his thunderbolt, making the creation of our world possible. It is here taht the important theme of warrior versus warrior, one concerned with protecting the mankind, the other with destroying it, emerged.

When the Greeks rose to prominence in the 2nd millennium, they took the best elemnets of the creation myths of all the indigenous populations and made them their own.Indra, the lighting god, evolved into Zeus, god of thunder and the heavens. The Indo_European god of the sun. named Mitra, became Apollo, and so on. In fact Hera, Poseidon and several other gods actually originated on the Indian continent, and were brought into the local Mediterranean cultures when Indo_Europeans settled in those areas. Several minor gods, including Demeter, Aphrodite, Rhea, and others have their beginnings firmly established in the Medirranean subcultures.

Although the Greeks had used written language in the 2nd millennium BC, they did not start writitting down their stories until the 8th century BC. Add to this the fact taht each poet , playwriter, or author interpreted the myths in a way most suitable to what they were writing, and the genealogy of Greek mythology becomes even more muddled.The poet Hesiod was the first to acctually weave the dissimilar fragments of the Indo-Europena, Mediterranean, and Greek myths into a cohesive whole. He played a large part in the creating the Greek pantheon we know today, chronicling their exploits and genealogy as real beings in his works " Theology". it is in his work that we find the myths of Uranus, who mates with Gaea, the earth, creating the Titans, includingt Cronos, who gives birth to the gods as we know them.

The epic poems of Homer, including the Illiad and the Odyssey, utilized the myths of the times symbolically in some of the first stories to use a connected narrative element and theme. Homer set the stage for a new, dynamic form of storytelling, solidifying the pantheoin's place in history in the process.

The comedic playwriter Aristophanes used fantasy in his play "The Birds", written in 414 BC, which describes how a greek vagabond convinced the birds to build a utopian city in the sky , and eventually made the gods do hi bidding. Other Greek playwriters used fantasy for satire and humour in their plays, and fantasy flourished as it never had before.

With the rise of the Roman Empire came an emphasis on a more practical pantheon. The Roman gods existed primarily for the use of the people, to be venerated on their particular festival days or at designated physical locations. However, the creation story of Rome, tale of of the brothers Romulus and Remus, as well as Virgil's "Aeneid" are excellent examples of the Roman fantasy stories, in which larger-than-life characters struggle against the forces of nature to achiev their goals.

The first English fantasy epic is the classic Northumbrian poem "Beowulf", written down for the first time sometime during the 18th century. Again, this tale of the struggle of the greatest Geatish warrior against almost elemental evil creature Grendel continues the warrior vs. warrior myth Beowulf the protector saving the Danes from Grendel thje Destryer. The 19th centurt poet Cynewulf wrote "Andreas", often called the Christian "Beowulf" as well as "The Dream Of the Rood", an imaginative poetic meditation that was precursor to the dream visions of the Middle Ages.

The next major step in the developmnet of fantasy occured in the 12th century, when the Welsh cleric Geoffrey of monmouth transformed a minor Celtic war chieftain into one of the greatest legendary figures in the English language, King Arthur. ordinally published in LAtin in the 12 century, Monmouth's partly legendary "History of the Kings of Britian" wa s translated into French by historians Geoffrey Gaimar and Robert Wace of Jersey. The English priet Layamon then retold the tale in English in 1205 in his poem, "The Burst", the first Anglicized version of the story of King Arthur. Again the theme of protector vs destroyer is set down, King Arthur vs Mordred, with the sorcerer Merlin in the middle.

To be continued...

When You Dream, There are no Rules!<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small"><EM>Редактирано от De_Vor на 27.07.01 04:12.</EM></FONT></P>

Редактирано от De_Vor на 27.07.01 05:08.

In the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer advanced the fantasy story even furthur byincorporating legends andmyths into his seminal "Canterbury Tales".Among the stories of the various pilgrims traveling to Canterbury is the Pardoner's tale of the tree thieves who each meet Death personified in appropriate ways. One of the first to use the frame story device, Chaucer combined the myths and the folktales of his time with archetypes of real people, making his work accessible to the common man.

The Elizabethan Age Brought an Explosion of literary fantasy to the torefront of public consciousness. Beginning with Christoipher marlowe's "Doctor Faustus", perhaps the first deal-with -the-devil story in which the church has only a secondary role next to tangled web taht entagles the power-hungry doctor. At the same time, William Shakespeare was starting his meteoric rise to glory, with his historical, tragic, and comedic plays sweeping the imagination of England like no one had ever before him. Fantasy was a major element in several of his plays, in particular " A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The Tempest", ANd "Macbeth", and he paved the way for the fantastists of the following centuries. Another important author of the time was Wdmund Spenser, whose romantic masterpiece "The Faerie Queene" wa sdedicated to Queen Elizabeth.

The 18th century was a period when fantasy blossomed once again, beginning with Jonathan Swift's political satire "Gulliver's Travel" and ending with William Blake's " Songs opf Expirience" and"The Marriage to Hell and Heaven".By rejecting the standards of the then-contemporary life and writing about his driving passions, Blake blazed a new trail for fantasy writers to follow. Horace WAlpole wrote the precursor to the Gothic Romance "The Castle of Ontario"in the lkater half of the century.

The dawning of the 19th century brought with it the seminal novel "Frankenstein" by Mary Wollstonetcraft Shelley, which straddled the boundary between fantasy and science fiction. Later, in the respective Victorian Age, was Charles Dickens, whose novel "A Christmas Carol" is perhaps one of the best known fantasy novels the world over.The firs half of the 1800s also witnessed the development of America's great fantastist, Edgar Allan Poe, whose melancholy, macabre works weren't fully appreciated until decades after his dreath in 1849. During the last years of the 19th century, two wrote novels that prorhesied the shape of things to come: Jules Verne, with his fantastic sea adventure story "20000 Leagues Under the Sea", and H.G Wells, hile ckloaked in the trappings of early sci-fi, opened the door for dozens of future fanatsy authors to step through.

Which brings us to the 20th century. a time in which a book that came out nowhere defined fanatsy for several generations of readers. That book, of course is " The Hobbit". John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's charming fable, originally conceived as a serial bedtime story for his son, made fantasy accesible to every reader, and continued the cycle of warrior protector( howver unlikely a hero Bilbo Baggins is , he is still a hero) vs warrior destryer, in the guise of the ancient dragon Smaug.

With Tolkien's work sweeping America, and coupled with the rise of the pulp magazine era, fantasy enjoyed a renaissance ina maerica. Authors such as Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, Jorge Luis Borges, Lewiss Carroll, and Ray Bradbury rose to prominence during this era. Dozens of fanasy worlds were created and explored during this ascendancy of the fanatsy genre.

In the latter half of the 20th century, the emphasis of fanatsy genre has shifted somewhat. Instead of the single novel, we now see trilogies, or perhaps multivolume works that span thousands of pages along with thousands of years of imagined history. Authors such as Tad Williams, Robert Silverberg, Roger Zelazny, Melanie Rawn, Stephenr. Donaldson, Ursula K. Le Guin, marion Zimmer Bradley, Robert Johnson, Lloyd Alexander, George R.R. martin, David Edings, and Merceds ALckey reinvented the fantasy novel as the epic series, covering their created worlds and characters in exhaustive detail, yet still leaving enough surprises to keep their readers coming back for more, volume after volume. Of course, the legions of writers whoa are still tackling fantasy in all its myriad forms are too many to count. Authors such as Michael Moorcock, Harlan Elilison, Charles de Lint, Jonathan Lethem, Orson Scott Card, Joan D. Vinge, Lucius Shepard are taking the fantasy story to bold new plateaus.

With such a rich and varied history to draw upon, chosingone story would seem to be an impossible task. Yet taht is what we asked seeral of today's preeminent fantasy writers to do, pick the one fantasy story that spoke to them, touch them, made them reexamine the genre in a new light. And they answered, withthe results in this book you're holding right now. From ornate passages of Charles Dickens to the lean, understated, yet richly evocative prose of Roger Zelazny, some of the best fantasy of two centuries is presented here, chosen by the very people who know it best-- those who write it.Each story is preceded by a brief ( or not so brief, in some cases) introduction by the author who selected it, telling why they still remember that particular story. So prepare yourself for a journey of imagination unlike any you've ever expirienvced as you read these stories chosen by today's top fantasy authors as their favourites.

Martin H. Greenberg


THE END

When You Dream, There are no Rules!

Hmm,interesno su4inenie.

BTW,pro4eti i prologa v "Legendi" na Robert Silverberg.