Welcome. I'm Caroline Barton. I'm a doctoral student and I'm an enthusiastic member of Oxford's
Team Fantasy. This 10 minute paper was originally given out Here
Be Dragons. The Oxford Fantasy Literature Summer School in 2018.
And it's intended to be a basic introduction to the life, work and immense influence
of Ursula Kayla Gwinn, a giant in fantasy and science fiction.
So let's get started. Ursula Kroeber, the Gwinn, was born in
1929 in Northern California. The daughter of noted anthropologist
Alfred Kroeber and the writer Theodora Kraków Kroeber Le Gwinn
grew up absorbing the ideas of her parents eclectic circle of friends, which included
anthropologists, writers, journalists and physicists. And several of these accomplished
individuals were also members of California native communities. So La Gwinn grew up not
only on the Greek and Norse mythology offered to her by her parents, but on folktales belonging
to the peoples of the American West. She submitted her first story for publication
at age 11. She always knew what she wanted to do. When asked in an interview,
What would you be if you weren't a writer? Liquid replied, Dead.
By the early 60s, McGuane had written unpublished, rejected draughts of five novels,
all set in the invented Central European country of cinema. She turned
instead to science fiction, she said, because there was a market for it, but also
because she found it beautiful. Her first novel wrote Cannon's World, was
published in 1966. And from there she wrote brilliant works at an impressive rate.
For our purposes, there are two cycles within her corpus that have been the most widely
read, the most influential and the most lauded. The first is the high fantasy
Earthsea cycle, which includes the trilogy, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Oshun
and The Farthest Shore, followed 20 years later by Tanu and two other books.
The second is the Hange Cycle, which consists of novels and short stories set
in a future in which various civilisations on various planets, including Earth,
contact one another for the first time and set up a confederacy called the X-Men.
Under the guidance of the planet Haine, which originally ceded all of the other planets
with genetically modified human populations, the Gwyn's
writing is always sociologically meticulous. She documents the planets
of the Eckermann and the peoples of the heartache and car God lands in Earthsea in observant,
concrete cultural detail. She attributed some of this approach to her father's
influence. Alfred Kroeber was, for the time, a really cutting edge
anthropologist. He received the first doctorate in anthropology ever granted by the state
of California. The Gwinn used that sociological bench to create incredibly
vivid worlds, and the resulting level of cultural detail is now considered
standard for quality high fantasy. Indeed, look
was one of the first fantasy authors to employ what is now a trope of the genre. The idea
that names have power and the true name of a thing grants you access to its deepest
nature. She invented the ansible and interstellar communication device
in the Danish cycle, and the Ansible now appears in numerous later sci fi works.
She was also arguably the first author to send a protagonist to Wizard School. Gedde
learns to become a mage at Roke, an all male academy for magic. It's
worth noting that the basic plot of a wizard of Earthsea is as follows,
a talented boy from impoverished origins discovers he has the ability to perform magic
and goes to wizard school. There he encounters an enemy with whom he is intimately
connected. And in their first encounter, that enemy gives him a scar, which
subsequently hurts. Whenever the enemy is nearby. When
asked about Harry Potter, the Gwynn's said, quote, Rolling has many virtues.
Originality isn't one of them. The more relevant point, perhaps,
is that LIG wins the Mattick and aesthetic choices have been hugely influential in
fantasy literature, but she's often left behind. When we talk about the towering figures
of the genre. So what are those thematic choices?
The Gwinn has a lot of the usual cultural inheritances of post Tolkien
fantasy Earthsea is broadly mediæval with a social hierarchy
ranging from kings to peasants. Dragons loom large. Magic is real.
The human relationship with nature is essential. The Hanish cycle
draws, too, on the aesthetics of early sci fi, scientists and anthropologists
venture into new worlds with new technology and culture clashes ensue.
But set pieces like Gethin, a planet on which all people are androgenous
and only gain secondary sex characteristics which can be either male or female
during certain periods, were revolutionary in the field. Indeed,
she brought unusual specific recurring concerns to all of her works that we
could consider, particularly linguine in. The idea she is
perhaps most concerned with is that a balance, the followed Taoism
and translated loud Soos touted chain, a central Taoist belief is that the
universe works harmoniously in its own ways and
that all forces in it naturally seek to be balanced with one another.
If one exerts one's own aggressive will, one may disrupt that harmony and
cause harmful consequences. We should only act when necessary. We should
act while being mindful of maintaining the world's in balanced harmony. Mages
in Earthsea must work to uphold the equilibrium of the central balance of forces
that keeps the world from chaos. Gwyn's mages were Jedi Knights before
Jedi Knights. Right. GED is taught. Time and again that he must consider the rippling
consequences of every action. To light a candle is to cast a shadow.
His master tells him. The creation of Eya, an epic detailing the
history of Earthsea, declares, quote, only in silence. The word
only in dark, the light only in dying life bright.
The Hawks flight on the empty sky. Arguably, Lou, Gwyn's
environmentalism and her pacifism, two strong themes in her novels relate back
to this principle of living in peace with the world. Her belief in anarchism and voluntary
public service is also, I think, related to this idea of maintaining equilibrium
and rejecting authoritarian dominance as antithetical to balance.
In the climax of a Wizard of Earthsea, Gedde gives his own name to the deadly shadow
that has been pursuing him, declaring it to be part of his own nature. The wizard and
the shadow embrace and get is made whole. Numerous scholars have pointed
out that this shadow is really similar to the union shadow self, the repressed,
unconscious part of us. That must be integrated into our self concept to achieve
healthy adulthood. Gwinn hadn't read Yeom before writing
Earthsea. And while GED's shadow confrontation certainly follows the Young-Hee and pattern,
it more obviously suits her interest in holding dark and light in balance.
Fantasy is the language of the inner self. She wrote and noted the darkness
within us. Can't be done away with. By swinging a sword.
These tenets also inform her portrayal of the androgenous Athenians in the left hand
of Darkness, a Athenian poem reads, quote, lt is the
left hand of darkness and darkness. The right hand of light, like hands
joined together, like the end and the way. The Gwinn tries in
this novel to convey a theme she's discussed elsewhere, that male and female
qualities are equally valuable and must be held in balance. This
gender essentialist view, which assumes that all women are one way and all men or another
binary and distinct, perhaps no longer satisfies. Even in the 60s
and 70s, winds, feminist credentials were the subject of debate. McQuinn herself
has admitted that Earthsea is a patriarchal fantasy, heavily male dominated, and
that her use of male pronouns for the androgynous Athenians was not an ideal choice.
The second book in the Earthsea cycle, the tunes of Otsu on, focuses on the coming of age of
a female protagonist, TMR, who serves as the high priestess of what is essentially a
death cult and eventually frees herself from its hold. The women of the Temple
of the Nameless Ones have only symbolic power, and they're subject to the Kageyama patriarchal
ruler who's literally called the God king. They willingly serve the patriarchal
order. They give themselves up to be spiritually devoured. They become their own jailers.
TNR, who governs a dark labyrinth in which she sacrifices victims, is both
the Miniter and Ariadne. She comes to reject the dark
and extricates herself, destroying the labyrinth in the process. Yet no alternative
for a self-possessed, newly freed woman is immediately forthcoming. She
has nowhere to go. The Gwinn doesn't seem to have anywhere to put her.
It's only into Hanu. That lagoon offers a partial vision of meaningful female
life in Earthsea. There's so much more to say about
Gwen and her hugely rich body of work, and it has engendered all kinds of debate amongst readers and
scholars. But for now, I will leave you with her words from a commencement
address delivered to Mills College in 1983. I hope you
live without the need to dominate. And without the need to be dominated. I hope
you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people.
And when you fail and are defeated and in pain and in the dark,
then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live,
where no wars are fought and no wars are won. But where the future is,
our roots are in the dark. The earth is our country. Why did we look
up for blessing instead of around and down? What hope we have.
Lies there. Not in the sky, full of orbiting spy eyes and weaponry,
but in the earth. We have looked down upon not from above, but from below.
Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark. That nourishes where human beings
grow human souls. Thank you for your time.