Realism in literature

It is a great deficit to Fantasy scholarship that Lord Dunsany has remained largely ignored. Despite the lack of critical attention Lord Dunsany's work has received at the hands of critics, his fiction has been immensely important to other Fantasy authors. Dunsany's prose is highly stylized and is an intricate aspect of his world building. While many critics agree that Dunsany's prose style is unique and masterful, no detailed analysis of it exists. This study focuses primarily on Dunsany's prose style in The King of Elfland's Daughter, widely agreed to be Dunsany's finest novel, and certainly characteristic of his early fiction writing. I then discuss Dunsany's profound influence on J.R.R. Tolkien's critical and fictional work. Both authors embrace Dryden's "fairy way of writing" within their respective works, embracing the old and romantic, as well as nature's creations, as precious treasures in our realm and in the imaginative realm of Faery.

As realist and naturalist writers at the turn of the twentieth century adopted a scientific spirit of objectivity, they reflected the emphasis many contemporary scientific studies laid on the forces of the natural world in shaping the character, behavior, and ultimate destiny of man. In this literary mood of "pessimistic determinism," fantasy literature began to experience a resurgence, providing a marked contrast to naturalism's portrayal of the impotence of man to effect change in his circumstances. I examine fantasy's restoration of efficacy to the human will through a study of two representative works of the opposing genres: Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie and Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter. As I demonstrate, the former naturalistic novel emphasizes the impotence of its characters in the face of powerful natural world, while the latter contemporary fantasy novel uniquely showcases man's ability to effect change in his world and his destiny.