Why Medievalism? (Part 1)

Something I've been wondering about lately: why has medievalism (or pseudo-medievalism) dominated modern fantasy literature for its entire history, going all the way back to J.R.R. Tolkien, and George MacDonald before him?  I've always enjoyed a medieval setting in a good fantasy novel and generally  avoided works of fantasy that break the medievalist mode.  I can vividly remember my childhood distaste at a book cover depicting a dragon in space.  There may have been lasers and a dragon-jet-pack of some sort--I'm not sure--but I distinctly remember thinking it was silly.  Dragons were for fantasy.  Lasers and space were for science fiction.

Of course that was a rather childish and limited view of the genres of science-fiction and fantasy...


Fantasy and science fiction are not defined by their tropes (though they may be described by them), and I've since read and enjoyed a lot of fantasy--mostly short fiction--that eschews the genre's traditional medievalism.  (Tim Pratt, for example).  But still, most of what I read, and most of what is written, is medieval fantasy.
Apparently there are some people getting pissed about it.  I can't say they don't have a point: if you read enough fantasy, and if enough of it is badly written, derivative, hackneyed, trite, or cliched, then you're going to get soured on the whole damn genre, Tolkien and the fathers of modern fantasy be damned.  A little parody, a la Terry Pratchett, might be temporarily refreshing, but parody gets tired after the umpteenth iteration (I still haven't read past the third book of the Hitchhiker's saga) and can only carry you so far before you want to blow up the whole conventional, medievalist trope (and maybe the medievalist convention with its replica-sword-wielding, costumed super-fans). 

I'm practicing empathy--I've never actually felt this way, but I can understand those who would.  I can also imagine (but don't have to, because I know some of them) an even larger group of readers who dismiss the modern fantasy genre outright because of a prejudice against its medievalism, rife with anachronisms, archetypes, and archaisms apparently irrelevant to contemporary adult life.  With so much weariness, maybe even vitriol, some sort of inquiry is in order: Why did medievalism burgeon so fruitfully in modern fantasy literature in the first place?  And does it even still have a place in the genre, or are any and all such works doomed to the artistic death knell and label of DERIVATIVE?


I plan to take up these questions and others in some future entries.  If anyone happens to read any of them, I welcome input, feedback, and dialogue, but otherwise, I'll be embarking on an extended consideration of medievalism in fantasy for my own satisfaction as a reader and amateur scholar of the genre.