: Again, the term fantasy my apply to works of more modern
: literature, but the modern fantasy genre shares nearly
: all it's elements, it's structure, and it's thematic
: style with many elements of classic mythology and
: legends.
"[...]fantasy my apply[...]"?
No, no, no, no, you've obviously had your head in the mud for the past half-century or so. It has similar elements, yes, because the fantasy genre is generally centered on the time period when people still believed in such myths and legends. Of course there are going to be similar ideas! Saying otherwise would be like saying Melville's books about ships had absolutely nothing in them about the ocean! Or that Hawthorne's books didn't mention puritans! Fantasy is fiction about similar things, but that doesn't qualify myths or legends as being part of the same genre, even if you don't want to call it fantasy. Saying such is sheer idiocy.
: This is highly debatable, and I simply don't believe it's
: true. People of the time may have paid lip-service to
: their local myths and folklore, as we in this country
: do with some of the more fanciful elements of our
: religions, but that doesn't mean that they really
: believed them. An author now may write a book about
: angels and demons, mythic elements of a popular
: religion that many people subscribe wholeheartedly to,
: but it doesn't mean that the book is anything more
: than a work of fiction. As Gracchuss said regarding
: the Roman gods in "Spartacus,"
: "Privately, I believe in none of them. Neither do
: you. Publicly, I believe in them all." Classic
: authors may have taken figures of popular beliefs of
: their time, as we might take the character of the
: Devil, and spun them into works of fiction which, when
: passed down through centuries of retelling, slowly
: became myth.
I'm not even going to try to enlighten you about this. After that argument, it would obviously be hopeless. If you're so thick that you can't understand it now, you won't ever. It's pathetic, really.
Doom.
