After introducing basic concepts and assumptions (covered last week) in In Defence of Fantasy, Ann Swinfen turns first to one of the oldest forms of literature — animal tales.
The first part of this chapter, “Talking Beasts,” covers the history and development of animal stories, noting their antiquity, varied uses through time, and purpose. Since beast stories are not particularly in the fantasy mainstream and, when because they are published now, they tend to be classified as kid lit, this week is a sidestep into an odd backwater, but one that’s interesting, more interesting actually than I thought at first it would be. Shows what I know. Anyway, here we go.
History, or Beast Tales Before the 1945 Cutoff
Animal tales are among the most ancient form of story-telling, dating to pre-literate societies. Swinfen focuses primarily on British and American Anglo traditions, ignoring extensive tale collections as well as traditions of other cultures. Let’s let that pass in silence, partly in recognition of the fact that her study is limited, and partly because, limited as it is, In Defence of Fantasy is a product of its time; in its time, fantasy was overwhelmingly white and male (and yes, if you look you’ll find exceptions, but let’s be real — in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, fantasy was not a place one went to get woke. You can make the assertion that racism and misogyny are still more the norm than the exception today, and you could successfully defend it.)
Anyway, I’m not positing an argument, just stating of fact: you won’t find a lot of multi-culturalism in Swinfen. That doesn’t diminish her study or de-value it.
It is … one of the most ancient desires in the shaping of tales, and was connected in earliest times with totemistic practices — the desire to enter the skin of the animal and assume his very nature and individuality...The episode of the Oldest Animals in the tale of Culhwch and Olwen in The Mabinogion embodies the view of animals as guardians of secret wisdom. These are animals invested with power and majesty, a survival of the beast-deities of early religion, much earlier than The Mabinogion itself. (1, p. 14)
One successful contemporary use of this kind of tale is Steven Erikson’s Memories of Ice, if you’re keeping score.
Swinfen discusses human fascination and desire to identify with animals as a primal desire, a wish to find the animal that lives inside the self, to re-connect the cerebral self with the living body, to live in harmony with nature exemplified in the pre-lapsarian idyll of Genesis.
The emergence of beast tales in the earliest days of European literature and their almost continuous popularity ever since emphasize the fact that man's relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom strikes a deep chord of imaginative recognition in the human consciousness. Since the Fall, some might say, man has been trying to heal the rift between himself and his fellow animals, and to re-establish that mutual understanding and rapport which he senses must once have existed and which through the exercise of the literary imagination, if in no other way, might be re-created. (1, p. 12)
This is one of Swinfen’s assertions on its own merit that she assumes we share. So let’s assume it. It’s not a real stretch, anyway, to recognize that, underlying our rationality and consciousness there lies an animal intellect attached to an animal body, an individual that longs to be part of the natural world, an animal among animals, and in harmony with all.
One side note of this kind of animal tale is that, universally (or near enough to universally) animals retain wisdom that humans have lost. It’s also a hallmark of these early tales that animals are not subservient to humans. A rough morality governs the stories — those who treat animals cruelly are hoisted on their own petards; those who are respectful and kind are rewarded.
These are not fantasies, but traditional stories. In fact, most of the historic antecedents to modern animal fantasies are not usually regarded as fantasies. Swinfen isolates five traditions that merge in the modern period to form the “talking beast” subgenre, and presented in roughly chronological order. Bearing in mind that there is, and will always be, some overlap between the traditions, they are:
- the folkloric remnants of old religions and traditions, mentioned above. Characterized by animals themselves as guardians of lost wisdom, guides, and men’s equals or superiors.
- Fables, starting around the 6th Century BCE with Aesop, in which animals exemplify human qualities (the greedy crow, the narcissistic rooster, the foolish hen, etc.)
- Animal Satire: beast stories based on folktales (Swinfen mentions Anansi stories that become tales of Brer Rabbit and depict an individual living by his wits in world of predators) that develop into social satires. An example of this development (the individual hero pitted against organized society) is the popular Reynard the Fox cycle that over time grew into cutting social satires. Jonathan Swift’s episode with the Yahoos and Houyhnhnms is an example of this, but it’s apotheosis is, of course, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which is social satire, yes, but even more political satire.
- “Naturalist tales,” stories of animals in which the animals are not stand-ins for humans. Anna Sewall’s Black Beauty is an example of this kind of story. Jack London’s White Fang is another. Not fantasy, but a component of modern fantasy in that the stories shift focus to the animal as an animal, not a representative of human traits.
- Early modern animal fantasies. Think Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories and Jungle Books, Walter de la Mare’s The Three Mulla-Mulgars (currently out of print), Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, Hugh Lofting’s Dr. Dolittle (you guessed it — out of print). Sometimes satiric, sometimes socially critical, these books follow naturalist tales in depicting animals with some regard to their lived realities. In other words, we can identify with the animals without reducing them to character traits or caricatures of people.
Enough About Influences — How Does It Work Out?
The question is: out of this cauldron of history, how does this most ancient form of story-telling translate to modern fantasy?
Swinfen insists that modern fantasy, when successful, recognizes character qualities appropriate to the animal. Despite giving speech to animals, these authors recognize their animal characters are animals first, and they behave according to animals in nature behave. She mentions a wide array of fantasies from her time period of 1945-1980 and discusses how the authors draw from their historic antecedents in different ways, and to different effects.
T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, for example, draws from the earliest beast tale traditions, as Merlyn transforms Wart into different animals so he can learn lessons from each species. All the animals are Wart’s teachers, and he learns the essential lessons of wisdom, courage, and leadership under their tutelage. Most modern fantasies examine, not individual animals but animals within their societies, lending themselves fruitfully to social criticism and blending the other four traditions. They also fit comfortably within quest literature, mostly. Examples: Robert O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Andre Norton’s Breed to Come (currently out of print and available used only), Paul Gallico’s Jennie (also disgracefully out of print), David Small’s The Mouse and His Child, C. S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy and to a lesser degree, all of the Narnia books, and of course, Richard Adams’ Watership Down.
Before you hit the comment box, yes, these are mostly children’s books. It’s still a truism that animal tales are marketed first to kids. Good children’s books are written on two levels, of course, so they read well both by children and adults, true as much for The Mouse and His Child as for Harry Potter. But this sub-genre is not exclusively for kids, and some of these beast tales are definitely not for little ones. And Swinfen spends a fair bit of space explaining why Jennie is a successful fantasy (the cats are true to their natures, and through the story, the protagonist Peter, a boy turned into a cat, learns how to embrace his nature and find happiness) and E.B. White’s Stuart Little is not:
...[I]n spite of his pluck, resourcefullness, and good nature, he [Stuart] has an oddly negative character. What he really hungers for are all the material trappings of American urban life, and although the poetic Margalo awakens some response in him, the reader is left wondering what it can be. Stuart Little remains an essentially superficial book…. (1, p. 25)
At the end of the chapter, Swinfen offers an extended critique of Watership Down, a highly successful fantasy and beast tale.
A complex book, it draws on all the traditions outlined at the start of this chapter — folklore, animal fable, animal satire, the work of naturalists, and earlier fantasies. It is also almost Eliotesque in the oblique and direct references it makes to the whole range of European literature… (1, p. 37)
The characters are true to their species: they’re rabbits, they behave like rabbits. There’s an examination of leadership, there’s a quest, there’s social commentary; the rabbits have evolved an elaborate religious and folkloric tradition, there’s genuine crisis, growth, and renewal.
This tradition has carried on past Swinfen’s time frame with books like Brian Jacques’ Redwall, Dorothy Hearst’s Wolf Chronicles, the animal books by David Clement-Davies, and others. More than most other kinds of fantasies, though, animal tales suffer by the widespread assumption that they’re not much more than kid lit, despite that, as Swinfen writes,
At a more sophisticated level, animal tales can be used to explore the whole range of human character and relationships, by examining human society from the point of view of the animal; or animal metamorphosis may provide an enhanced vision of primary world reality; or the search may be widened to explore not only the individual but the community -- how it is created, how it operates, what are its philosophical, religion and political assumptions -- through the medium of the animal community. (1, p. 12)
Next week: Parallel worlds.
References
1. Ann Swinfen, In Defence of Fantasy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.