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Christian Fantasy
Proto-Fantasists
I use the term �proto-fantasists� to refer to authors who wrote before fantasy was conceived of as a genre, but whose work shares many of the same characteristics and employs many of the same principles as are characteristic of and employed in modern fantasy. Indeed, I would argue that our modern concept of fantasy literature has largely been shaped by the main works of the proto-fantasists listed below.
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
By far Edmund Spenser�s most significant work (fantasy or otherwise) is his half-finished The Faerie Queene. He conceived of it as an allegory, and probably also as a romantic epic, in �heroical verse�, divided into twelve books about the twelve moral virtues. There is also a good deal of historical allegory in the poem, with Queen Elizabeth figuring as the �Faerie Queene�. With all its dragons and giants and fair maidens and knights out on quests, replete as it is with multiple levels of meaning, I can�t help but think this is proto-fantasy at its most obvious. Nor does The Faerie Queene�s incompleteness hamper the story all that much: episodic as it is, with each book a semi-detached story, it�s more like a half-finished series than an unfinished tale.
A brief chronology of the major events in Spenser's life is available on-line. You can also access the complete (incomplete) Faerie Queene through The Edmund Spenser Home Page, the most complete source of on-line resources relating to Edmund Spenser (that I�ve found, at least). Set up by Richard Bear of the University of Oregon, The Edmund Spenser Home Page provides briefly annotated links to the major works of Spenser on-line, as well as to other Spenser and Spenser-related sites.
John Milton (1608-1674)
I�m really not entirely certain whether or not I should include Milton here as a Christian �proto-fantasist�. As an Arian, fictionalizing what he (and I) would consider Biblical history, it�s hard to justify classifying him as either a Christian or a proto- fantasist. But it�s also hard not to include him.
For despite Milton�s aberrant theology, his most important work, Paradise Lost, �was accepted as orthodox by many generations of acute readers well grounded in theology�, as we are told by no less Christian a scholar than C.S. Lewis. He goes on, in his Preface to Paradise Lost, to note that �we should not ... from any passage in the whole poem, have discovered the poet�s Arianism without the aid of external evidence.� Lewis concludes this lecture on �The Theology of Paradise Lost� with the comment that, �as far as doctrine goes, the poem is overwhelmingly Christian.�
And it was such a hugely influential poem, too. In fact it�s largely on the strength of this influence, plus Milton�s use of myths, angelologies, and cosmologies of previous ages (as well as those of his own) that I include him here as a �proto-fantasist�.
A number of biographies of Milton are available on line: the two I'm aware of at this point are an early, anonymous one, probably by a friend or acquaintance of his, and a very short one, from an Italian museum.
There seem to be a fair number of Milton-related sites on-line, but a fair number of these seem to be inaccessible most of the time. The best one that I managed to get through to was The Milton-L Home Page, a nice-looking, scholarly site with links to other Milton-related pages and to various e-text versions of Paradise Lost as well as to other major works of Milton, including Comus and Paradise Regained.
John Bunyan (1628-1688)
I can�t think of anyone who would deny Bunyan the position of preeminent Christian proto-fantasist, except maybe Catholics and anti-allegorists, and I think even Catholics might be kindly- disposed towards Bunyan these days. (There�s no hope for a rabid anti-allegorist, however!)
There�s not much on John Bunyan on-line, but there is a short biography of him by his home town of Bedford. The Home Page of the International John Bunyan Society is on-line, but there's not much available on it unless you like subscribing to newsletters or going to conferences. The complete text of John Bunyan's classic Pilgrim�s Progress is available, the first book in HTML format, and both the first and second books in plain-text, as well as his whole Holy War (in plain-text).