LoveKim-Week3

How has fantasy as a genre been defined? Find at least five formative definitions in Attebery (1980).

First of all, according to Irwin (1976), fantasy can be associated with a story based on and controlled by an overt violation of what is usually accepted as possibility. No matter what materials are dealt with, it can be classified as fantasy as long as a source of impossibility is established and developed in a persuasive way.  An irrational construct of the mind can be completely logically and rhetorically controlled in a story.  Another definition of fantasy can also be explained as a contradictive view of outside of the reality is established in the narrative. It is not in conflict with reality, but dependent upon the hard recognition of fact without being slavery to it (Tolkien, 1965). Tolkien also emphasizes that consistency as one of the major elements of fantasy that maintains the illusion of "secondary belief" so that readers can enter a complete second world created by sub-creator (pp.37). Forster (1927)'s definition of fantasy is that it asks us to pay something extra. In other words, not only is recognizing the story not real but also accepting the importance of the implication of the supernatural that are fantastical elements that don't explicitly have ghosts or aliens. Manlove (1975), an author of Modern Fantasy, compares a fantasy to a sort of game that a player is completely committed to the game. As the one accept all rules of the game, unexpected fantastic rewards will be given such as beauty and strangeness that are referred to "wonder." Lastly, Attebery (1980) defines a fantasy as a significant part of violation of natural laws of any narrative. And it turns to fantastic nature. It can be beings such as dragons or flying horses. It can also be magical objects, for example, rings, hats, or castles possessing wills. All matters, which are supposed to be impossible in real world, are actually happened without doubt and intellectual understanding. It rather makes us to believe that such things could come true under any circumstances.


References

Attebery, B. (1980). Locating fantasy. In The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guinn (pp.2-9). Bloonington: Indiana University Press, 1980.
 
Forster, E. (1927). Aspects of the Novel. New York; Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 108.

Irwin, W. (1976). The game of the impossible: The rhetoric of fantasy.  Urbana University of Illinois Press, 4.

Manlove, C. (1975). Modern Fantasy: Five Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 7. 

Tolkien, J. (1965). "On Fairy-Stories", In Tree and Leaf, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 55.