High and Low Fantasy
Apr. 20th, 2014 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.
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)(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-20 10:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-20 10:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-20 01:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-20 02:42 pm (UTC)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..."
(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-20 03:09 pm (UTC)---L.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-20 03:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-20 02:51 pm (UTC)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)(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-20 04:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-20 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-20 07:46 pm (UTC)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)I'm rereading Gabriel García Márquez, & that got me thinking too...
(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-21 08:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-21 09:01 am (UTC)