American fantasy fiction

Jagoda Wardzyńska
 Fantasy fiction has been an important part of fiction since the dawn of mankind.
The ”Epic of Gilgamesh” is considered to be the oldest piece of fictional writing, dating
back 4,000 years (Andrews). Iliad and Odyssey still influence the fantasy writings of
today, even though they were produced centuries ago (Grant i Clute 921). Cambridge
Dictionary defines fantasy as “a type of story or literature that is set in an imaginary
world, often involving traditional myths and magical creatures and sometimes ideas or
events from the real world, especially from the medieval period of history” (“Fantasy”).
A fantasy is a “story based on and controlled by an overt violation of consensus in
reality” (Irwin 4). It is no wonder that the general audiences strive to read this particular
genre. Fantasy allows its readers to enter a whole different world and detach from the
problems of day-to-day life. Just in the United States fantasy and science fiction
generated 590 million dollars in sales annually (Curcic).
Even though the history of American literature is extensive, it would not be until
the 18th century that the first novels would be published, with William Hill Brown’s
The Power of Sympathy being one such example. However, that does not mean that
there was no interest with the fantastical beforehand, as Puritanism encouraged its
believers to consider supernatural occurrences as acts of God or Satan. Cotton Mather, a
major Puritan clergyman of the 17th century, described in his writings instances of
ghosts haunting people who were not righteous (Attebery 26).
One of the first examples of what could be considered a piece of fantasy fiction
is Washington Irving’s Rip van Winkle. Published in 1819, this short story follows a
Dutch-American villager by the name of Rip van Winkle, who inexplicably falls asleep
for 20 years and reawakens to a world changed by the American Revolution. He then
goes on to meet the ghosts of the crew of Half-Moon, which was a ship of the Dutch
East India Company. The story demonstrated that adapting the well-known concept of a
sleeping hero into the American culture and making a new fairy tale was possible,
though it’s not an easy ordeal (Attebery 29-31).
With the 19th century came the rise of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and
Nathaniel Hawthorne, who used fantastical elements in their works as well. One of
Poe’s works that can be considered “the nearest thing to a fully realised fantasy” is The
Fall of the House of Usher. According to Brian Attebery, however, Poe’s fantasy did not
live up to the quality of fairy tales. (Attebery 40-41).
 What truly helped American fantasy fiction flourish, however, was literature for
children. It was Nathaniel Hawthorne who helped it develop, his most notable works in
this genre being A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys and Tanglewood Tales. Mark
Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are other examples of American children’s literature,
though only the first of the aforementioned three has fantastical elements in it. What
truly changed the course for the American fairy tale was Lyman Frank Baum’s The
Wizard of Oz released in the year 1900. Baum managed to produce a world so
fantastical, yet so American that it had charmed the audiences (Attebery 84). Though it
is a story for children, it contains a lot of social commentary as well (Wagenknecht
232).
With the early 20th century following the release of Wizard of Oz, came the
founding of a magazine called Weird Tales. Jacob Clark Henneberger established Weird
Tales in March of 1923, with it being marketed as a market for pulp fiction stories
which did not fulfil the requirements of other, more profit-focused magazines (Carney
7). Despite going through a big deal of financial troubles, it published the works of
many prominent fantasy writers of the era, for example H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E.
Howard, Seabury Quinn and Edmond Hamilton.
With the 1940 also came the rise of superhero comics, beginning with the
release of Superman in 1938. This genre could be considered fantasy as well, because it
fulfils some of the requirements in the definition of fantasy, despite its obvious crossing
over into science fiction.
Though J. R. R. Tolkien is a British writer, his influence on the literary world of
fiction is unmistakable. It’s thanks to his The Lord of The Rings series that the fantasy
genre is so popular and thriving nowadays, but it also overshadowed American fantasy
fiction (Attebery 154). However, it has inspired it, too, which is visible in the works of
Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, Andre Norton’s Judgement on Janus and
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. Contemporary writers of fantasy
include George R. R. Martin, who wrote the series A Song of Ice and Fire, which was
then adapted into an extremely popular show Game of Thrones, Robert Jackson Bennett
and Sarah J. Maas.
American fantasy fiction lives on not only through literature. For example
Dungeons & Dragons, an American fantasy role-playing game, has been influenced by
the works of not only the aforementioned J. R. R. Tolkien but also by American writers
such as Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, A. Merrit, Fletcher Pratt and Michael Moorcock.
Many fantasy movies are produced by American enterprises, with a major example
being the Californian streaming service Netflix.

Conclusions
Though American literature is quite extensive, it took a long time for it to
produce fictional novels, and even longer to consider fantasy a possibility, first of which
took almost a century to accomplish. It could have been because United States of
America was a “young” country, without any folklore and mythic stories of the old to
base their fiction upon. This is precisely why early American fantasy fiction writers
failed to deliver a good story; they focused too much on recreating European trends
instead of making their own. Change was on the horizon, brought about by Hawthorne’s
A Scarlet Letter in which he added a bit of fantasy to the lives of Puritan settlers, and
finally by engraved in the American literature by L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz.
And so, the fantasy tradition is continued in games, shows, movies, art and literature.
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