Copyright - 1992 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.

fantasy (literature)

      Fantasy is the treatment of events that the rational mind 
      considers impossible or highly unlikely.  As a so-called literary 
      genre, however, it is hard to define.  Writings since ancient 
      times have incorporated elements of myth and legend for purposes 
      ranging from satires and allegory to simple story-telling.  The 
      18th-century movement known as the Enlightenment brought critical 
      attention to bear on the use of the probable and the possible in 
      fiction.  In the early 19th century the English writer Samuel 
      Taylor Coleridge formulated the influential view that fantasy, or 
      "fancy," is a poorer echo of the higher workings of the 
      "imagination." This view entered into later speculation on 
      fantasy writing and is still reflected in the distinction 
      sometimes made between "high" and "low" fantasy, the former taken 
      to include works of literary skill and psychological depth, and 
      the latter generally indicating the so-called "sword and sorcery" 
      books that make up the bulk of titles in the fantasy section of 
      bookstores.

      Modern fantasy and its subgenre, SCIENCE FICTION, developed from 
      the GOTHIC ROMANCES of the later 18th century.  (Science fiction 
      is now usually concerned with creating alternative realities, 
      whereas fantasy aims more toward the suspension of disbelief in 
      the unreal.) Equally important were such figures as George 
      MacDonald and Lewis CARROLL, who exemplified the urge of many 
      writers to explore the imagination along routes alternative to 
      those followed in realistic writing.  The difficulty in 
      considering fantasy as a distinct field in literature is seen in 
      the fact that writers as disparate as Jorge Luis BORGES, Ray 
      BRADBURY, James Branch CABELL, Italo CALVINO, Ursula LEGUIN, 
      C.S.  LEWIS, H.P.  LOVECRAFT, J.R.R. TOLKIEN, and Charles 
      Williams have all been called fantasists.

      Bibliography:  Brooke-Rose, Christine, A Rhetoric of the Unreal 
      (1983); Hunter, L., Modern Allegory and Fantasy (1989);  Irwin 
      W.  R., The Game of the Impossible (1977);  Magill, F.  N., ed., 
      Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature, 5 vols.  (1983); Manlove, 
      C.  N., The Impulse of Fantasy Literature (1983); Moorcock, M., 
      Wizardry and Wild Romance (1988);  Olson, L., Eclipse of 
      Uncertainty (1987);  Todorov, Tzvetan, The Fantastic (1974);  
      Tymn, M.  B., et al., Fantasy Literature (1979).