The Monstrous Fantastic Conference Paper Abstracts - International ...

73. (F/IF) Portraying New Worlds Captiva AChair: Jerry MäättäUppsala UniversityLord Dunsany and J. R. R. Tolkien: Two Kindred SpiritsSkye CervoneBroward CollegeDespite the lack of critical attention Lord Dunsany’s work has received at the hands of critics, his fiction has been immensely important to thework of other Fantasy authors. Both Dunsany and J.R.R. Tolkien were troubled by man’s increasing removal from nature, as well as valuedman’s return to nature, and their fictional writings contain dire warnings of the desolate world humans will find themselves in if the naturalworld is destroyed. These themes were of a paramount importance to the work of both authors. Lord Dunsany’s depiction of the realm ofFaery was metaphorically important to Tolkien’s understanding of that “Perilous Realm” (“On Fairy-Stories” 38). Using a phrase first employedby John Dryden, Joseph Addison defines what is required to achieve “the faery way of writing.” Both Dunsany and Tolkien masterfully achievethis mode in their works. Addison argues this form of writing is “more difficult than any other that depends on the poet's fancy, because he hasno pattern to follow in it, and must work altogether out of his own invention” (419). The writer who embraces this tradition must rely primarilyon his own imagination and cannot find a direct correspondence between our world and his created world. The writer must have a strongsense of fancy, and “be very well versed in legends and fables, antiquated romances, and the traditions of nurses and old women” (419).Addison argues that if the writer is not able to work within these areas, he is doomed to produce the false fantastic, with fairies barelydistinguishable from humans. For Addison, “the faery way of writing” embraces both tradition and the natural. Traditions, and the wonder ofthe natural world, are central to Dunsany’s work. The old and romantic, as well as nature’s creations, are precious treasures for him. Tolkien,too, grounds his work in tradition, legends, and romance to achieve his own unique fantastic works. Nature, as well, is central to the works ofTolkien. Both men brilliantly achieve their own “faery way of writing” that fully embraces Addison’s tradition and creates realms of terror andbeauty unlike any other.Buddhist and Taoist nuances in the Chinese translation of The SilmarillionEric ReindersEmory UniversityThe Ainulindale, the creation myth of The Silmarillion, begins with a disembodied unity creating a series of successively less power and morephysical beings. The first generation of such beings manifest as musical notes, which form chords, and hence harmony and discord. Eventuallythe elves and “men” are created. This descent into physicality (and mortality) is reminiscent of Genesis 1-2, but more particularly the intertextuallyrelated account in John 1:1-18, in which God begins as “the Word.” Both The Silmarillion and John depict sound and light surroundedby a vast darkness. So much would be clear to any Western reader. But how does this cosmogony appear inter-culturally? This paper examinesthe 2001 Yilin Press Chinese translation of The Silmarillion (Jingling baozuan, “The Elves’ Jewels”), in comparison, first, to Chinese translations ofGenesis 1-2 and John 1:1-18. Do the Biblical echoes remain in the Chinese text? But there are other sources for a language about the descentinto form available to a Chinese translator, namely Buddhist and Taoist cosmogonies. For example, working with the English term “the Void,”the Chinese wavers between the (arguably) Buddhist term kongxu (emptiness), and the explicitly Taoist term hundun, an untranslatable termusually glossed as a chaotic potentiality, a seething foment which allows no divisions. I will also focus on the treatment of “bring into Being” and“take Being.” How much does the translation borrow from the Tao Te Ching and other Taoist classics? To what extent are there Buddhistnuances in the text? How do the Christian, Taoist, and Buddhist elements in the language interact? In this paper, I continue my examination ofthe ways in which Chinese religious culture percolates into the translation of Tolkien’s works.Social Fantasy, Political Change, and the Fantastic in Victorian Feminist UtopiasTaryne Jade TaylorUniversity of IowaThis paper will distill and present the critical framework underlying my dissertation on Victorian feminist utopias with an emphasis on thesignificance of the fantastic. I will center my paper discussion on seven primary Victorian feminist utopias. Though these works follow the majorconventions of the utopian genre set by Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, the world-building techniques the authors employ to construct the utopianspaces are closer to those you find in high fantasy. I will argue that it is in analyzing the world-building techniques of the authors that thecomplexities inherent in analyzing these complex works from a modern feminist perspective begin to clear. It is undoubtable that these feministutopists desired political change and, like all authors of utopia, developed social “fantasies.” These were not, however, merely the escapistfantasies of women with no other outlet for their discontent as many scholars would have you believe about Victorian women writers ingeneral. Rather, these intricate world-building techniques indicate that these utopias are much more than flights of fancy and even thoughtexperiments. Instead, these authors are constructing rich alternative realities when describing their utopian spaces. Though these spaces arefull of fantastic elements they also can serve as blueprints to possible futures by highlighting the possibility of change and providing a glimpse ofthat future. As literary spaces, these spaces are multidetermined—they exist both in their time and outside it. Understanding the way theseauthors employ the fantastic and world-building techniques positions the scholar of such highly political works a nuanced perspective. Thisperspective is most useful when considering the monstrous elements of these Victorian feminist utopias. For many contemporary feminists,feminism extends beyond gender and sex to include intersectional critiques of all forms of oppression-from sexism to racism—ableism tocapitalism. The Victorian utopian feminist, however, often did not adhere to such values in the spaces of their utopias. While it would be unfairto judge their ideologies from the perspective of the ever evolving feminism it would be equally egregious to ignore the racism, classism,imperialism, and eugenicism inherent in these works. I will argue that a careful critique of these monstrous elements can be made withoutdiscounting these works value as feminist texts once the spaces of the utopia are understood through the perspective of the scholar of thefantastic, rather than a simple cultural critique.