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A Short History of Fantasy Free FREE A SHORT HISTORY OF FANTASY PDF Farah Mendlesohn,Edward James | 296 pages | 01 Oct 2012 | Libri Publishing | 9781907471667 | English | Faringdon, United Kingdom A Short History of Fantasy - Farah Mendlesohn, Edward James - Google книги Though the fantasy genre in its modern sense is less than two centuries old, its antecedents have a long and distinguished history. Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were an element of literature from its beginning. The hallmarks that distinguish the modern genre from tales that merely contain fantastic elements are the logic of the fantasy workings, the acknowledged fictitious nature of the work, and the authorship of the elements, rather than their source in folklore. Works in which the marvels were not necessarily believed, or only half-believed, such as the European romances of chivalry and the tales of the Arabian Nightsslowly evolved into works that showed these traits. Such authors as George MacDonald created explicitly fantastic works. The publication of The Lord of the Rings by J. Tolkien created an enormous influence on the writing of the field, establishing the form of epic fantasy and also did much to establish the genre of fantasy as commercially distinct and viable. Even the most fantastic myths, legends and fairy tales differ from modern fantasy genre in three respects:. Illustration to Orlando furiosofeaturing the hippogriff, a monster never actually found in folklore. Modern genre fantasy postulates a different reality, either a fantasy world separated from ours, or a hidden fantasy side of our own world. In addition, the rules, geography, history, etc. Traditional fantastic tales take place in our world, often in the past or in far off, unknown places. It seldom describes the place or the time with any precision, often saying simply that it happened "long ago and far away. The second difference is that the supernatural in fantasy is by design fictitious. In traditional tales the degree to which the author considered the supernatural to be real can span the spectrum from legends taken as reality to myths understood as describing in understandable terms A Short History of Fantasy complicated reality, to late, intentionally fictitious literary works. Finally, the fantastic worlds of modern fantasy are created by an author or group of authors, often using traditional elements, but usually in a novel arrangement and with an individual interpretation. Transitions between the traditional and modern modes of fantastic literature are evident in A Short History of Fantasy Gothic novels, the ghost stories in vogue in the 19th century, and Romantic novels, all of which used extensively traditional fantastic motifs, but subjected them to authors' concepts. By one standard, no work created before the fantasy genre was defined can be considered to belong A Short History of Fantasy it, no matter how A Short History of Fantasy fantastic elements it includes. By another, the genre includes the whole range of fantastic literature, both the modern genre and its A Short History of Fantasy antecedents, as many elements which were treated as true or at least not obviously untrue by earlier authors are wholly fictitious and fantastic for modern readers. But even by the more limited definition a full examination of the history of the fantastic in literature is necessary to show the origins of the modern genre. Traditional works A Short History of Fantasy significant elements which modern fantasy authors have drawn upon extensively for inspiration in their own works. The history of French fantastique literature is covered in greater detail under Fantastique. With increases in learning in the middle of the medieval European era, there appeared beside earlier myths and legends, A Short History of Fantasy literary fiction. Among the first to appear was the genre of romance. This genre embraced fantasy, and not A Short History of Fantasy simply followed traditional myths and fables, but, in its final form, boldly created new marvels from the whole cloth. Romance at first dealt with traditional themes, A Short History of Fantasy all three thematic cycles of tales, assembled in imagination at a late date as the Matter of Rome actually centered on the life and deeds of Alexander the Greatthe Matter of France Charlemagne and Roland, his principal paladin and the Matter of Britain the lives and deeds of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, within which was incorporated the quest for the Holy Grail. The romances themselves were not entirely believed, but such tales as Valentine and OrsonGuillaume A Short History of Fantasy Palermeand Queste del Saint Graal were only the beginning of the fantasy genre, not fully removed from belief. During Renaissanceromance continued to be popular. The trend was to more fantastic fiction. Ariosto's tale, with its endlessly wandering characters, many marvels, and adventures, was a source text for many fantasies of adventure. The poem is deeply allegorical and allusive. Leaving allegory aside, however, the action is that of a typical knightly romance, involving knightly duels, and combats against giants and sorcerers. That is probably the first work in which most of the characters are not men, but elves although the difference seems to be rather little. There are mentioned also the wars between goblins and elves A Short History of Fantasy, which were destined to have a great future in fantastic fiction. The tale of Don Quixote deeply satirized the conventions of the romance, and helped bring about the end of this time of romance, although A Short History of Fantasy by other historical trends in fiction. Literary fairy talessuch as were written by Charles Perraultand Madame d'Aulnoybecame very popular, early in this era. Many of Perrault's tales became fairy tale staples, and influenced latter fantasy as such. This era, however, was notably hostile to fantasy. Writers of the new types of fiction such as Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding were realistic in style, and many early realistic works were critical of fantasical elements in fiction. In one respect, this was an A Short History of Fantasy stage in the development of fantasy as a genre. The development of a realistic genre ensured that fantasy could be defined as a distinct type, in contrast. Lord Byron 's Manfred. In reaction to Enlightenment 's cult of Reason, Romanticism highly prized the supernatural, tradition and imagination, together with the age in which they were supposed to rule - Middle Ages. These traits readily borrowed traditional elements of the fantastic. The Romantics invoked the medieval romance as justification for the works they wanted to produce, in distinction from the realistic pressure of the Enlightenment; these were not always fantastic, sometimes being merely unlikely to happen, but the justification was used even from fantasy. One of the first literary results of this fascinations was Gothic novela literary genre that began in Britain with A Short History of Fantasy Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. It is the predecessor to both modern fantasy and modern horror fiction and, above all, has led to the common definition of "gothic" as being connected to the dark and horrific. The fanastic, dream-like atmosphere pervaded the genre at this point. Some stories appeared to contain such elements and then explained them away. The genre straddled the border between fantasy and non-fantasy, but many elements from it, particularly the houses of particular import, being ancient, owned by nobles, and often endowed with legends, were incorporated in modern fantasy. Of particular importance to the development of the genre was that the Gothic writers used novelistic techniques, such as Defoe A Short History of Fantasy using, rather than the literary style of the romance, and also began to use the landscape for purposes of expressing the characters' moods. On the other hand, the Gothic still held back the pure fantasy. In The Castle of OtrantoA Short History of Fantasy presented the work as a translation; the fictitious original author is therefore responsible for its fantasical elements, which Walpole distances himself from. The modern fantasy genre first took root during the 18th century with the increased popularity of fictional travelers' tales, influencing and being influenced by other early forms of speculative fiction along the way, A Short History of Fantasy unfurling in the 19th century from a literary tapestry of fantastic stories and gaining recognition as a distinct genre mainly due to the nigh-ubiquitous recession of fantastic elements from "mainstream" fiction in the late s. In the early Victorian era, stories continued to be told using fantastic elements, less believed in. Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carolusing novelistic characterization to make his ghost story plausible; [15] Scrooge at first doubts the reality of the ghosts, suspecting them his own imagination, an explanation that is never conclusively refuted. The other major fantasy author of this era was William Morris A Short History of Fantasy, a socialist, an admirer of Middle Ages, a reviver of British handcrafts and a poet, who wrote several fantastic romances and novels in the latter part of the century, of which the most famous was The Well at the World's End. He was deeply inspired by the medieval romances and sagas; his style was deliberately archaic, based on medieval romances. These fantasy worlds were part of a general trend. This era began a general trend toward more self-consistent and substantive fantasy worlds. In Phantastesfor instance, George MacDonald has a mentor-figure explain to the hero that the moral laws are the same in the world he is about to enter as in the world he came from; this lends weight and importance to his actions in this world, however fantastical it is. Authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Grey A Short History of Fantasy developed fantasy, in the telling of horror tales, [21] a separate branch of fantasy that was to have great influence on H.
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