Fantasy and Children’s Literature

Last week we looked at Domestic and Adventure stories. This week we are looking more directly at the fantastical.

When thinking about fantasy, we have a few milestones. The first is J.R.R. Tolkien’s work. Tolkien is most famous for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and its precursor written for children, The Hobbit.

Tolkien is credited with creating what we sometimes call “High Fantasy” or “Epic Fantasy” – stories that center on a true battle between good and evil. When you think of many of the tropes of fantasy literature, many find their roots in Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings had a profound impact on the shape of fantasy literature.

Tolkien’s work was inspired by the fairy and folk tales that fascinated him as a child. He was educated at Oxford and was part of a literary circle called the Inklings, in which C.S. Lewis was also a member. Tolkien served in the British army during Worl War I which shaped some of the themes of his writing. Tolkien was a philologist, and with his fascination with languages and their development he created a number of different languages for his fantasy world.

Tolkien began sketches of the first books of The Lord of the Rings around the same time but continued to work on them intermittently for the next decade. They were not published until 1954. In creating Middle-Earth, the fantasy world in which the books take place, Tolkien wrote an immense amount of material, some of which would later be published as The Silmarillion by his son.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first movie of a trilogy based on the trio of The Lord of the Rings books.

The Hobbit is a much simpler story, but due, in part to the success of the first films, was turned into its own trio of films.

Throughout, the main star was probably the country of New Zealand where the movies were all filmed.

Have you encountered Tolkien’s work before? What strikes you about the excerpt or the film trailers? What kinds of things do you expect to see in a fantasy story?