How does Attebery (1980) define Fantasy? Find at least five definitions.
I found more than 5 definitions of Fantasy from Attebery’s journal.
I found more than 5 definitions of Fantasy from Attebery’s journal.
According to Attebery(1980), Fantasy may be defined as any narrative which includes as a significant part of its make-up some violation of what the author clearly believes to be natural law. Fantasy also can be distinguished by demanding a straightforward treatment of impossible characters, objects, or events. Fantasy, thought, needs consistency; Reader and writer are committed to maintaining the illusion for the entire course of the fiction. Moreover, Fantasy is a game of sorts, and it demands that one play whole-heartedly, accepting for the moment all rules and turns of the game.
Attebery(1980) does not believe that it is useful to take the definition of fantasy any further than this. The single condition, that a story treat an impossibility as if it were true, marks off a large body of literature for us. Several lines of division suggest themselves: the preponderance of the marvellous within the story, the orientation of the tale toward wonder or its obverse, horror, the location of the supernatural in another world or in this, the presence of allegory and symbolism, the story’s moral weight, and the types of supernatural machinery involved. The simpler the definition, the more room it leaves for subclassification and evaluation.
Fantasy invokes wonder by making the impossible seem familiar and the familiar seem new and strange, and a better work of fantasy can also engage us intellectually and morally by presenting the clash of ideas and issues in simple and concrete form.
I have started to read the book of ‘A Wizard of Earthsea’, it seemed to be the very interesting story. However, as names and terminologies were not familiar with me, I expect that it will take longer time to finish reading of this book.
Reference
Attebery, B. (1980). Locating fantasy. In The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guinn (pp.2-9). Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1980.
Le Guinn, U. (1993; 1968). A Wizard of Earthsea. In The Earthsea Quartet (pp.13-167).London: Penguin.
Hi Kate,
ReplyDeleteThat’s good point you made about the definitons of a fantasy. As far as I am concerned, however, Tolkien addressed that ‘fantasy needs an inner consistency of reality’ which basically means that an author should be able to create a consistent secondary world. And the world has its own laws so that the reader’s disbelief towards the second belief can be suspended. Hope you enjoy your reading :)
I to beilieve that a good fantasy has to rely to a degree on the solid facts of the world that we live in and understand, in order to be able to relate to and believe that the events in the fantasy world can actually work. It's kind of like when teacher's in school described the abstract Idea of something like static electricity and described how the friction of two meeting objects create the electricity. All very foreign and strange to the learner but when given the example of when you rub your head on a balloon and stick it to the ceiling it that is static electricity holding it up there. Giving a real world context. I hope that made sense on some level.
ReplyDeleteHi Katie,
ReplyDeleteAnother good post - well done:)
I'm left wondering what you think of these definitions, relating to any fantasy you've read, or may read?
Esther:)