Oxford and the Rise of Fantasy

What inspired the emergence and flowering of the fantasy genre in the 20th and 21st centuries?

Oxford - the historic, beautiful, and timeless seat of learning - is closely associated with the genre. Towering figures of fantasy literature, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, were both professors at the University of Oxford, and many more, like Diana Wynne Jones or Philip Pullman, were educated at Oxford or, like J. K. Rowling, influenced by its literary products and settings. Oxford and the Rise of Fantasy offers a unique opportunity to examine the fantasy genre from its earliest origins to the present day, exploring at each stage the influence of Oxford and its writers.

The course traces the history of the fantasy genre's formation and crystallization, from its medieval beginnings to the present. You will look at the story-telling and world-building literary devices used by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote his medieval bestseller about King Arthur in Oxford Castle, and the authors of Renaissance Romance fantasies. You will explore Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World, a forerunner of science fiction, and 18th-century Gothic fantasies that paved the way for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The course follows Oxford's own Lewis Carroll, Scottish fantasy author George Macdonald, and the pre-Raphaelite William Morris through to Tolkien and Lewis and beyond. We will also consider recent critical approaches to the fantasy genre as well as discuss whether these pre-21st century texts lend themselves with ease to the modern media of cinema, TV serialization, or computer games, and which adjustments have been made or are still to be made to make them relevant to our own times.

Dates and Availability

Available as a Residential or Online course on the following dates:

Session 2: 15th July to 2nd August 2024