steepholm: (Default)
[personal profile] steepholm
I put this query out on Facebook but may as well repeat it here, since the answer hasn't come zinging back in unambiguous terms as yet...

Who coined the terms "high fantasy" and "low fantasy" - both the concepts and the actual phrases? I feel this is something I ought to know just like that, since they have historically had quite wide currency, even though (for several reasons) I dislike and avoid them myself.

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 06:36 pm (UTC)
thistleingrey: (Default)
From: [personal profile] thistleingrey
I would've thought you would know offhand, too! It seems that Lin Carter or Edward James may've had something to do with it; anent Carter, does "high fantasy" appear before 1960s/'70s reception of Tolkien?

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 10:47 pm (UTC)
thistleingrey: (Default)
From: [personal profile] thistleingrey
Thank you--that's useful. It makes sense to me that "low fantasy" came separately....

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 01:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com
Yeah, I dislike them so much I stopped reading anything that mentioned them. So I don't know.

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 02:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] heliopausa.livejournal.com
My guess, after a short check via the google N-gram thing, is that the use of the two terms as opposed to each other started around 1978, in Dark Imaginings (http://books.google.com.vn/books?id=0zNaAAAAYAAJ&q=%22low+fantasy%22&dq=%22low+fantasy%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XttTU9KCIcb1kQXJq4GQAQ&redir_esc=y), a work of literary criticism by Robert H. Boyer, Kenneth J. Zahorski (which I haven't read).
The term "high fantasy" seems to have been around since the mid-nineteenth century, though.

Editing to add: The term "low fantasy" was around earlier in the 1970s, but it looks like it was then being used by psychologists to describe children who didn't fantasise much, as e.g. "Seven- to nine-year-old boys were initially administered part of the Michigan Picture Test and then categorized as High and Low Fantasy on the basis of their scores..."
Edited Date: 2014-04-20 02:47 pm (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 03:09 pm (UTC)
larryhammer: floral print origami penguin, facing left (Default)
From: [personal profile] larryhammer
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy credits low fantasy to Boyer and Zahorski, but in the introduction to The Fantastic Imagination from 1977.

---L.

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 03:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com
Interesting - thanks! I would assume (though I've not looked into it yet) that "high fantasy" in a 19-century context would mean something very different from its use in opposition to "low fantasy" - more a matter of elevated expression or even the rank of the characters involved. Mind you, those connotations linger even its later usage, along with a motley rag-bag of other ones (one reason why the term has very little utility).

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 02:51 pm (UTC)
ext_12726: (Bedtime reading)
From: [identity profile] heleninwales.livejournal.com
My feeling is that "high fantasy" was the original and was used to distinguish Tolkienesque fantasy from whimsy or fairy tales. "Low fantasy" was a much later coinage. Is there anything in Rhetorics of Fantasy about the origins of the terms? I know that Farah defines her own categories, but was there anything in there about "high/low fantasy"?

Unfortunately, I honestly can't remember and also can't remember where my copy is. My books are very disorganised at the moment. :(

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 03:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com
I'm away from my books atm and so can't check, but I don't remember her discussing it. If she did I imagine it would have been as part of clearing the ground for her own taxonomy, which is set up quite differently of course.

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 04:25 pm (UTC)
ext_12726: (Bedtime reading)
From: [identity profile] heleninwales.livejournal.com
If I can find my copy of Rhetorics of Fantasy I'll see whether "high/low" is mentioned. It might have been briefly discussed in the introduction and of course it's a reputable source.

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 07:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nancylebov.livejournal.com
I think high fantasy was used to distinguish epic fantasy from sword and sorcery. The fate of kingdoms (or the world) vs. wandering fighters.

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-20 07:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ethelmay.livejournal.com
In the nineteenth century, the expression "high fantasy" occurs quite a lot with the apparent meaning of "vivid fantasy" or "extreme fantasy." I wouldn't count that kind of usage as a genre term at all -- more praise of the author's imagination.

I rather thought Lin Carter or L. Sprague de Camp came up with "high fantasy" as a genre term, but I may well be thinking of "heroic fantasy."

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-21 08:36 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] readthisandweep.livejournal.com
I can't answer your question, because I don't know. Your post did get me thinking. About the difference between fantasy (whatever height) & magical realism.

I'm rereading Gabriel García Márquez, & that got me thinking too...

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-21 08:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com
Magical realism is one of the many things the high/low distinction wasn't built to deal with - though I suppose it would probably be low if one were forced to choose (which one isn't, of course).

(no subject)

Date: 2014-04-21 09:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] readthisandweep.livejournal.com
Well, quite - because the two are different.

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