First: My apologies for taking the thread so far off-topic (in the direct sense, at least). My intention was simply to place my vote and, as per requested, enter my reasoning for the nature of that vote.
Second: I am not an academic. I do have a passion for literature, and much of my reading extends far beyond the bounds of sff; but I don't scorn the genres themselves, just poor writing and the "fannish" nature of so much of it. I'll try to clarify that as I go along here:
You continue to accuse Lovecraft and Tolkien and the like of having a detrimental affect on fantasy literature simply because they were so good at what they did that they set a bar so high that few will ever be able to approach it. Just because that bar is so high and will rarely be reached does not make their contributions detrimental. It could easily be argued that without them fantasy literature would not be where it is today, a dominant part of the global readership.
No, I do
not accuse them of anything. I tried to make that clear in the above posts, both directly and indirectly, by stating that "they, or rather their works", etc. In other words, the works themselves are fine; they are the direct result of the genuine artistic vision of each of these writers, nor did they particularly wish anyone to follow in their footsteps, so there is no moral censure here whatsoever. Nor is my complaint that "they set the bar so high[...]" because, though in some senses they did, in others there are many who have set that bar
far higher: Guy de Maupassant is one example; Robert Aickman is another. I don't think Lovecraft (for one) would argue that point at all; Tolkien might or might not; on that I am uncertain, but that he tended to prefer people creating something of their own rather than following someone else seems strongly indicated by his writings.
On the other hand, the effect of the writings has often been very detrimental. It has often sidetracked the field(s) into what are essentially blind alleys; and narrowed the once incredibly broad range of what fantasy offered to a bottleneck which came close (if it didn't completely succumb) to making the genre self-parodic to anyone who is
not a hardened fan. This is never good for any literary movement, and any which has taken this route has ended up becoming defunct, or at least moribund, until it is completely transformed. We have seen this with the Gothics; the classic ghost story; Westerns; the classic mystery and detective tale; romances; travel fiction; and much of what passed for "mainstream" literature over the decades. (Think, for example of the bulk of writing about street gangs from the 1950s and 1960s, some of which was actually very good; or much of the literature of the counter-culture; modernism, etc.) Because both Tolkien and Lovecraft set a tone unlike what had been seen before, and because their voices were so distinctive, dozens (if not hundreds) of writers have picked up on the surface or the tiny mechanisms which were only a part of their writing, and taken these for the whole. The result is a mountain of bilge which simply cannot be taken seriously by someone with any broader literary horizons.
This is not to say that there are not exceptions; thankfully there are, and some damn' fine ones. But the effect on the field has, nonetheless, been detrimental because it has narrowed it (and yes, this is in part the result of that fannish temperament, which isn't really interested in anything new, but simply wants the things they liked before recycled again and again, until they get tired of it... at which time the result is almost inevitably a discarding of all such material, no matter if it be pure pulp or golden in quality... something which we have seen time and again in the sff genre) to the point of stultification.
People imitate them because they want to be like them and there is nothing wrong or detrimental about that.
During an apprenticeship, no. It is good for a beginning writer to practice doing what they see as effective, and learning from it. It is also much better if their base for such comparisons is broader than simply one writer or a handful of writers. This is bad for even beginners... or perhaps especially for beginners, as they are in the opening stages of learning the craft, and need to learn from
all the best, not just a few.
(Incidentally, with no disrespect meant to Shakespeare, I would argue -- as others have before me -- that actually the bar was set much higher by someone like Christopher Marlowe. Shakespeare has earned his reputation more by his appeal to the masses than by actual abstract literary quality per se. There are numerous flaws in his work which it would be simply egregious for any playwright to tolerate in their own work, and were he writing today, these would quite likely cause him to do numerous revisions and excisions before the work would pass muster.)
Sure, there are lots of idiot writers but you cannot blame Tolkien high standards for their existence and the detriment they have caused to fantasy literature.
Again, I do not blame Professor Tolkien for this; but it is a fact that this aspect of his writing has had this detrimental effect. It was fine for him to do it, as it was a genuine outgrowth of his own unique personal vision; but the imitations, almost uniformly, are not due to the same cause. The result is an uniformity in much of fantasy which has, as I said before, made it an incestuous and self-repeating medium, whereas one of the keystones of fantasy prior to this effect was its very diversity, from Eddison to Cabell to Voltaire to Howard to Moore to Dunsany to Wilde to Russ to Beaumont to.... And publishers do tend to look for what sells (they are, after all, in the business -- generally speaking -- to make money); but again, this comes down to that insular attitude of so much of sff fandom....
As for having the focus turned away from literary concerns and toward world building, maps, histories and whatnot, that is the essence of fantasy writing, it is the very point of it.
No, it is not. It has become, for many writers and readers, the point; and this is precisely what I am getting at. This is that game of "let's pretend" I mentioned above, and it has nothing to do with genuine storytelling or writing ability or creativity (in the greater sense) or anything which has to do with any form of
literary worth... which is what the title of the thread refers to. It is also the very thing which is guaranteed to be of passing interest and, if allowed to overshadow genuine creativity, to condemn any fictional genre to the dustbin, either permanently or at very least for a long, long time. (Cf. what happened with the Gothics, which are almost the paradigm of this sort of thing. It took nearly a century and a half for that movement to once again become a viable form, and even now it is still struggling. And then there is the "scientific romance"....)
It is what interests readers. As much as I appreciate your desire to uphold the high literary standards for things such as this, fantasy writers are not writing for academic classes, they are writing for the attention of a much wider worldwide audience. If we all went and focused on upholding such standards we would both fail and become irrelevant because the vast majority of the world as a whole would stop caring. Fantasy writing is not so much about making a stamp on the greater literary world as it is about telling the story in your head and sharing it with who you can for better or for worse. The world is not one of academics it one of people who wish to be entertained.
I think you're rather widely missing my point here. The majority of the reading world still sees fantasy as a childish endeavor precisely because of its emphasis on these things at the expense of genuine literary values. "Genuine literary values" does not equate with "academic values" or dry, uninteresting writing. Far from it. Genuine literary values means that a thing must delve into what it means to be human, to act as a touchstone for genuine human emotions, dreams, drives, hopes, fears, aspirations, wistful longings, flashes of poetic insight, and all the rest which goes to make up literature which tends to last. It has to say -- and not just on the surface or in a didactic fashion, but from its core -- something about how the writer actually views the world, and it must do so in such a way as to connect with at least a reasonable percentage of readers and move them or recall to them moments when they have felt these things or dreamed these dreams, in some form or another.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with "entertainment". Good literature will itself entertain, or it simply isn't good literature; it will not last. But "entertainment" is the least, and the shallowest, and the most fleeting and ephemeral, of things any writer should strive for, if they wish to pursue writing as a career; for what entertains the public of today quickly becomes stale and old-fashioned to that same public tomorrow, or at most the day after that. Hence, to follow a trend such as we have seen in fantasy literature (though that would appear already to be in the first stages of its demise) is self-defeating in the long run; for as the readers either grow bored and look for something new, or become more mature in their tastes and relegate this sort of "play" to the days of their (more or less) youth, then the writer or genre which has painted itself into that corner will sooner or later find itself "not only dated, but carbon-dated", becoming another bit of literary curiosa at best, or a byword for bad writing at worst.
What Tolkien -- or Lovecraft -- did works for them, because in their case it is genuine, and it does go toward expressing their deeper thoughts and concerns about the world and universe around them. When this is not the case -- as it almost invariably is not with this particular set of technical effects -- it is, by definition, imitative and therefore bad art.
And, just in case it might clear up any misconceptions that I am in any way dissing either of these writers, let me give you a list of my four favorite writers; the ones I return to again and again:
H. P. Lovecraft
J. R. R. Tolkien
Michael Moorcock
Harlan Ellison
Not necessarily in that order (though Lovecraft does come first, I find), but these are nonetheless the ones I hold in highest esteem, and whose works I can almost always return to with undiminished pleasure and respect.
