The Sowers of the Thunder, a collection by Robert E. Howard (Zebra Books,
March 1975, and Ace Books, July 1979). Covers by Jeff Jones and Esteban Maroto

A personal rant this morning on the issue of: Purple Prose.

A criticism often leveled at Heroic Fantasy, particularly sword & sorcery and sword & planet, is that it’s full of purple prose. Purple prose is flowery and ornate, overloaded with metaphor and melodrama, and full of cliché.

We’ve all seen examples, but bad writing can be found anywhere, in any genre. It irritates me to see all writers in a genre lumped together. For example, I’ve heard Robert E. Howard called a purple prose writer. I probably turned purple in anger in response. Most of REH’s mature writing is remarkably lean, with seldom more than one, and often no qualifying adjectives for his nouns.

So why has Howard been tarred with the purple brush?

I believe there are three reasons. First, because of his fame, much of his very early writing has been published, including fragments and letters from his teenage years, and this “early” work has become grist for critical analysis. I’m glad we have the fascinating material we do from REH, but it’s not fair to judge him as a “writer” from this material. Much of it was not meant for publication, and almost all reflects Howard as a young writer finding his stride.

Second, Howard’s name often gets linked with those of his followers and imitators, most of whom were not nearly Howard’s equal as prose stylists. There’s purple prose to be found in many Conan pastiches but that’s NOT Howard’s Conan. Robert Moore Williams’ Zanthar series (previously discussed) is full of it but Williams is no Howard. Though I often enjoy Lin Carter’s writing, he was known to wax purple on occasion. Even Gardner Fox and John Jakes, whose work I enjoy, were not Howard’s equals.

Third, the labeling of Howard’s work as “purple” is often based on a misunderstanding of the realm in which he worked, and on the inability of critics to step outside their own narrow experience in making judgements. Howard used powerful words and phrases that evoked strong emotions. Strong emotions are suspect to many modern critics, who prefer the mild and subtle. There’s nothing wrong with mild and subtle, but Howard was not writing of mild and subtle subjects. Powerful emotions exist. They are legitimate grist for the writer and cannot be denigrated as purple prose.

Zanthar of the Many Worlds (Lancer Books, 1967). Cover by Jeff Jones

In addition, Howard’s realm was most often history or an imagined prehistory. To capture the flavor of that setting he often used words that are archaic in the modern world, words such as mail, host, flog, smite, phial, horde, plume, clangor, corselet, parapet.

To the critic, these words are “purple.” But nothing could be further from the truth. They are simple, everyday, working words; they are just old. Howard combined such words into potent phrases like (All selected from The Sowers of the Thunder)

1. The curved sabers shivered on his shield and armor…
2. To the Frank who had felt his talons in Syria…
3. The grip of powerful hands on rein and swordhilt…
4. Panting in flight toward the white walls…
5. The fight still swirled and eddied…
6. The mailed hawks…

There’s nothing colored here, except the edges of our imagination.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was The Heroes of Fantasy Quiz. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.