[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] Hi everyone! My name is Teresa Best and I'm a scholar in medieval literature, mostly concentrating on German medieval literature,
and I also work on fantasy literature and doing a project at the University of Sweden where I'm based on the popular Middle Ages,
where I'm one of two principal investigators,
yet researching how medieval literature is adapted in fantasy and is transformed in recent fantasy literature.
As a literary scholar. The answer, uh, is very boring at first, Mavi says.
I would say fantasy is first and foremost a literary genre.
But what is so special about fantasy is its world building.
So the secondary worlds that are created and that are so complex, so rich with different cultures, different languages, different ethics and so on.
So to invent such a complex, three dimensional and detailed world is what is the most fascinating thing about fantasy for me.
Yeah. Being in Oxford. Uh, I, I have to, uh, single out Tolkien because I think, uh,
the novels and all the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien are really unprecedented for fantasy, and they shape the genre in an unprecedented way.
And if we actually think about it, it would be highly unlikely that, uh,
such complex novels written by an Oxford man and an Oxford scholar on Old Norse and Old English literature would become this popular.
This would be highly unlikely. So maybe this Tolkien, and maybe to name a second one, is William Morris.
Maybe not so much, uh, based on his literary work, which was influential for Tolkien, of course, and his companions at the inklings.
But, uh,
I think William Morris is important for fantasy because of his aesthetics that he and the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts movement developed.
And so bringing some kind of these kinds of medieval decorations into fantasy and into book printing is something that is very special,
um, for fantasy. And this makes William Morris so special.
And when you look around in England, all of his patterns and, um, everything he produced is nearly everywhere.
So he's very popular as well and therefore so influential, I think.
When you're a literary literary scholar, there is such a few time to read for your own pleasure.
And then it's mostly, to be honest, not fantasy. But, uh, what I read in spring, when I was here in Oxford as a fellow at Saint John's, was RFK Babel.
And I really like that because it's a totally different kind of fantasy, almost not related to medieval literature or the Middle Ages,
I would say, but it has an interesting mixture of linguistics, academia, as I recently learnt, belonging to the genre of dark academia.
And uh, this is combined with, yeah, some interesting perspective on postcolonial issues and also a bit of revolution.
And so even though it's an ending that you wouldn't expect, uh, I would recommend that.
And it's also nice for someone who's interested in Oxford, even though Oxford is, uh, to some extent fictitious.
Maybe not so much have concrete thoughts, but a lot of questions that I ask myself on where the genre is heading.
And maybe I would predict that this trend of transmedia expansion is will be going on for a while.
I think there are so many prequels in production right now that I'm not so confident,
to be honest, that this fantasy hype will last for very long time.
From now on. I think it might be. There might be a point where this expansion of the world is becoming a bit dull or even harder to invent,
something that is really new, and that could tell people something new about the world they know so well.
And so maybe this the trend will last for bit of time, but, um, maybe not forever.
And but the interesting thing is to see how fantasy is developing its neo medieval aesthetics,
what happens with the popular Middle Ages that we find in fantasy, and how is fantasy reacting to appropriations that are there from far right?
For example, how do they cope with this go vote, go broke theme and issue?
And this will be an interesting thing also, I think for um, for cultural studies in general to see how these things are developing.
And so a lot of questions and maybe we should look at that in, uh, five years or ten years and see what, uh, what it turned out to be.
At first, when I started working on fantasy literature, the focus was very much on fantasy coming from medieval literature.
And, um. Yeah, you're always very trained to look at structures, motives, motivation of events and plots and so on.
And so there are a lot of things I recognise, um, when, for example, historical characters are mentioned or motives,
um, are there that can be recognised because they, they are known from medieval literature or known from texts.
I know to some point very well. And so, um, this gives me another perspective, I think, on, um, on the fantasy literature and to some extent maybe,
uh, hinders me to feel this very immersive feeling that maybe other fans are experiencing with fantasy.
But the really interesting thing is that I wouldn't have predicted in the first place,
is that fantasy literature always influences my reading of medieval literature, because you see that some things aren't so modern at all.
So, for example, surreality or worldbuilding, transmedia expansion.
These are all things that we to some extent can observe in medieval literature.
And even though we cannot say that there's a direct influence backwards.
But, um, this helps to get a new focus in research and to understand this medieval texts in another way,
which is very interesting and creates new insights every now and again when you reread texts.
The most popular example may be why it's The Ones and Future King.
Because we have these additions that are full of decorations and decorated title pages,
which are very much informed by William Morris's Kelmscott Press, and he was influenced by medieval and early modern printing.
Also in other fantasy, we have these initials, these decorated initials that remind us of medieval literature and how it was produced.
We have the decorations at the beginnings of chapters or something like that.
So, um, this is something where we find medieval texts in the books.
And, um, what I also had to look at is how our fantasy host fantasy literature state that staging, that it is medieval or neo medieval.
So what is shown on the covers, for example?
So we have swords, axes, crowns when we think of Martin for example.
So all things that remind us or that tell the people looking at the covers, this is something we relate to Middle Ages.
And so this medieval or neo medieval character is put very much to the front.
So it's kind of a technique to advertise fantasy.
And um, this is so interesting because it relates so much to what we think about the Middle Ages.
What is the Middle Ages for us?
And so we find Middle Ages or things that remind us of the Middle Ages in the text as well as on the fronts.
And this is was what interested me most in the first place.
And so I'm very eager always to see how new special editions are designed.