A little heavy on Tolkien, but good overview otherwise. ( )

Fantasy in modern times is held on the fringe much like romance novels and cheap novels. They have a strong following but many just consider them as escapism. Drout through his lectures shows the history and influence of fantasy writing from the Victorian to the present and magical realism. I never read Tolkien but the amount of time spent on the author makes me want to pick up The Hobbit and give it a try for the 57th time. I never got past the party meeting Gollum in the cave.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Brooks, Stephen R. Donaldson, among others are covered in the course. A few I know were missed but the main players were included. There is an interesting lecture the evolution of the Arthurian legend and a wrap up about the difference between fantasy and magical realism which includes the Harry Potter series and others.

The Modern Scholar is apparently no longer an active. Extra material is no longer available as their web page is no longer valid. ( )

A Modern Scholar course on audio that (wait for it) explores fantasy literature, with a large emphasis on Tolkien. Interesting material , and Drout is great at presenting it. Recommended if this is your bag. ( )

Drout is amazing! I love being able to continue to learn from this great teacher. I wanted to participate in this course because I realized that fantasy was a huge part of my childhood reading material and I wanted to re-embrace that genre with more knowledge. Highly recommend this for anyone of the same interest. ( )

Engaging, interesting, but there are bits that are simply factually incorrect. Drout is probably a reasonably devout Christian, and this affects his treatment of certain authors. He says that Philip Pullman is a completely humourless author; he must not have read, e.g., "Count Karlstein" or "The Scarecrow and his Servant", which are very funny.

He underrates the cleverness and funniness of Lloyd Alexander.

HIs remarks about Tolkien make "The Lord of the Rings" seem more interesting and impressive than it actually is.

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Having listened to this series of lectures again, I have to conclude again that it is very enjoyable. However, its anti-Pullman stance is a bit one-sided. Also, Drout suggests that humor occurs seldom in fantasy, and that even when it does, it's not very good. Lloyd Alexander's books can be quite funny, as can Diana Wynne Jones' and Joan Aiken's. Hugh Cook's "The Wordsmiths and the Warguild" is funny throughout. These book are all real fantasy, unlike Terry Pratchett's books, which as Drout rightly states, do not really belong to the fantasy genre at all.

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2022: Listened to it again and now have a longer list of fantasy books I want to listen to. I found "King Solomon's Mines" unlistenable, but now I have high hopes for "Eric Brighteyes". Will even venture to try "The Lord of the Rings" again. Also, although Philip Pullman is a good book writer, his "tweets" are awful. Maybe Drout was just able to see into the future and know what was coming. And Drout is a bit of a malaprop. He says "interregnum" when I'ld say "hiatus". ( )