Fantasy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres ofscience fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three, all of which are subgenres of speculative fiction. In popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form, especially since the worldwide success of The Lord of the Rings and related books by J. R. R. Tolkien. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy comprises works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends to many recent works embraced by a wide audience today. Fantasy is a vibrant area of academic study in a number of disciplines (English, cultural studies, comparative literature, history, medieval studies). Work in this area ranges widely, from the structuralist theory of Tzvetan Todorov, which emphasizes the fantastic as a liminal space, to work on the connections (political, historical, literary) between medievalism and popular culture. [1]

Traits of fantasy
The identifying traits of fantasy are the inclusion of fantastic elements in a self-coherent (internally consistent) setting, where inspiration from mythology and folklore remains a consistent theme.[2] Within such a structure, any location of the fantastical element is possible: it may be hidden in, or leak into the apparently real world setting, it may draw the characters into a world with such elements, or it may occur entirely in a fantasy worldsetting, where such elements are part of the world. [3] Essentially, fantasy follows rules of its own making, allowing magic and other fantastic devices to be used and still be internally cohesive.[4]

History
Beginning perhaps with the Epic of Gilgamesh and the earliest written documents known to humankind, mythic and other elements that would eventually come to define fantasy and its various subgenres have been a part of some of the grandest and most celebrated works of literature. FromThe Odyssey to Beowulf, from the Mahabharata to The Book of One Thousand and One Nights , from the Ramayana to the Journey to the West, and from the Arthurian legend and medieval romance to the epic poetry of the Divine Comedy, fantastical adventures featuring brave heroes and heroines, deadly monsters, and secret arcane realmshave inspired many audiences. In this sense, the history of fantasy and the history of literature are inextricably intertwined. There are many works where the boundary between fantasy and other works is not clear; the question of whether the writers believed in the possibilities of the marvels in A Midsummer Night's Dream or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight makes it difficult to distinguish when fantasy, in its modern sense, first began.[5] Although pre-dated by John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River (1841), the history of modern fantasy literature is usually said to begin with George MacDonald, the Scottish author of such novels as The Princess and the Goblin and Phantastes (1858), the latter of which is widely considered to be the first fantasy novel ever written for adults. MacDonald was a major influence on both J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. The other major fantasy author of this era was William Morris, a popular

English poet who wrote several novels in the latter part of the century, including The Well at the World's End. Despite MacDonald's future influence with At the Back of the North Wind (1871), Morris's popularity with his contemporaries, and H.G. Wells's The Wonderful Visit (1895), it wasn't until the 20th century that fantasy fiction began to reach a large audience. Lord Dunsany established the genre's popularity in both the novel and the short story form. Many popular mainstream authors also began to write fantasy at this time, including H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs. These authors, along with Abraham Merritt, established what was known as the "lost world" sub-genre, which was the most popular form of fantasy in the early decades of the 20th century, although several classic children's fantasies, such as Peter Pan and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, were also published around this time. Indeed, juvenile fantasy was considered more acceptable than fantasy intended for adults, with the effect that writers who wished to write fantasy had to fit their work in a work for children. [6] Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote fantasy in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, intended for children, [7] though works for adults only verged on fantasy. For many years, this and successes such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), created the circular effect that all fantasy works, even the later The Lord of the Rings, were therefore classified as children's literature. In 1923, the first all-fantasy fiction magazine, Weird Tales, was created. Many other similar magazines eventually followed, most noticeably The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction . The pulp magazine format was at the height of its popularity at this time and was instrumental in bringing fantasy fiction to a wide audience in both the U.S. and Britain. Such magazines were also instrumental in the rise of science fiction, and it was at this time the two genres began to be associated with each other. By 1950, "sword and sorcery" fiction had begun to find a wide audience, with the success of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. [8] However, it was the advent of high fantasy, and most of all J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which reached new heights of popularity in the late 1960s, that allowed fantasy to truly enter the mainstream.[9] Several other series, such as C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia and Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books, helped cement the genre's popularity. The popularity of the fantasy genre has continued to increase in the 21st century, as evidenced by the best-selling statuses of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series; Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & the Olympians pentalogy, which focuses on Greek mythology; The Kane Chronicles trilogy, which focuses on Egyptian mythology; and the Heroes of Olympus trilogy, which focuses on Greek and Roman mythology, along with all three's successors. Several fantasy film adaptations have achieved blockbuster status, most notably The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, and the Harry Potter films, currently one of the highest-grossing film series in film history.

Subgenres
Modern fantasy, including early modern fantasy, has also spawned many new subgenres with no clear counterpart in mythology or folklore, although inspiration from mythology and folklore remains a consistent theme. Fantasy subgenres are numerous and diverse, frequently overlapping with other forms of speculative fiction in almost every medium in which they are produced. A couple of examples are the science fantasy and dark fantasy subgenres, which the fantasy genre shares with science fiction and horror, respectively.

Propp's Morphology of the Folk Tale

Disciplines > Storytelling > Propp's Morphology of the Folk Tale | See also

Propp's analysis
Russian Vladimir Propp (1895-1970) analysed many of his country's folk tales and identified common themes within them. He broke down the stories into morphemes (analysable chunks) and identified 31 narratemes (narrative units) that comprised the structure of many of the stories. Folk stories around the world form a web of connections and the same or similar stories can be found in many places. These old stories also have formed the basis of many more stories since and hence Propp's morphology is useful not only in understanding Russian folk tales but pretty much any other stories. Propp has been both lauded for his structural approach and criticized for his lack of sensitivity to subtle story elements such as mood and deeper context. Nevertheless, his analysis provides a useful tool in understanding stories ancient and modern and, after early influence on such luminaries as Claude Lvi-Strauss and Roland Barthes, has become a classic of folklore and structuralist analysis. He identified that Five categories of elements define not only the construction of a tale, but the tale as a whole.: 1. Functions of dramatis personae (The functions of characters are those components which could replace Veselvskijs motifs, or Bdiers elements () Function is understood as an act of a character, defined from the point of view of its significance for the course of the action .) 2. Conjunctive elements (ex machina, announcement of misfortune, chance disclosure mother calls hero loudly, etc.) 3. Motivations (reasons and aims of personages) 4. Forms of appearance of dramatis personae (the flying arrival of dragon, chance meeting with donor) 5. Attributive elements or accessories (witchs hut or her clay leg) Whilst not all stories will contain all of Propp's narratemes, it is surprising to find stories that contain none, and many modern books and movies fit nicely into his categories.

The 31 Narratemes
Here are the 31 elements of stories that Propp identified, plus their symbol, interpretations and discussion. Note that some of these functions generally occur in pairs, such as departure and return. They may also be repeated. Few stories contain all elements, but where they do contain elements, they will very largely occur in the sequence given here. 0. Initial situation

1st Sphere: Introduction Steps 1 to 7 introduces the situation and most of the main characters, setting the scene for subsequent adventure. 1. Absentation: Someone goes missing 2. Interdiction: Hero is warned 3. Violation of interdiction 4. Reconnaissance: Villain seeks something 5. Delivery: The villain gains information 6. Trickery: Villain attempts to deceive victim

7. Complicity: Unwitting helping of the enemy

2nd Sphere: The Body of the story

The main story starts here and extends to the departure of the hero on the main quest. 8. Villainy and lack: The need is identified 9. Mediation: Hero discovers the lack 10. Counteraction: Hero chooses positive action 11. Departure: Hero leave on mission

3rd Sphere: The Donor Sequence

In the third sphere, the hero goes in search of a method by which the solution may be reached, gaining the magical agent from the Donor. Note that this in itself may be a complete story. 12. Testing: Hero is challenged to prove heroic qualities 13. Reaction: Hero responds to test 14. Acquisition: Hero gains magical item 15. Guidance: Hero reaches destination 16. Struggle: Hero and villain do battle 17. Branding: Hero is branded 18. Victory: Villain is defeated 19. Resolution: Initial misfortune or lack is resolved

4th Sphere: The Heros return

In the final (and often optional) phase of the storyline, the hero returns home, hopefully uneventfully and to a hero's welcome, although this may not always be the case. 20. Return: Hero sets out for home 21. Pursuit: Hero is chased 22. Rescue: pursuit ends 23. Arrival: Hero arrives unrecognized 24. Claim: False hero makes unfounded claims 25. Task: Difficult task proposed to the hero 26. Solution: Task is resolved 27. Recognition: Hero is recognised 28. Exposure: False hero is exposed 29. Transfiguration: Hero is given a new appearance 30. Punishment: Villain is punished 31. Wedding: Hero marries and ascends the throne

Adventure fiction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adventure fiction is a genre of fiction in which an adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, forms the main storyline.

History
Critic Don D'Ammassa, in the Introduction to the Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction defines the genre as follows: ...an adventure is an event or series of events that happens outside the course of the protagonist's ordinary life, usually accompanied by danger, often by physical action. Adventure stories almost always move quickly, and the pace of the plot is at least as important as characterization, setting and other elements of a creative work.[1] D'Ammassa argues that adventure stories make the element of danger the focus; hence he argues that Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities is an adventure novel because the protagonists
are in constant danger of being imprisoned or killed, whereas Dickens' Great Expectations is not because

"Pip's encounter with the convict is an adventure, but that scene is only a device to advance the main plot, which is not truly an adventure."[1] Adventure has been a common theme since the earliest days of written fiction. Indeed, the standard plot of Medieval romances was a series of adventures. Following a plot framework as old asHeliodorus, and so durable as to be still alive in Hollywood movies, a hero would undergo a first set of adventures before he met his lady. A separation would follow, with a second set of adventures leading to a final reunion. Variations kept the genre alive. From the mid-19th century onwards, when mass literacy grew, adventure became a popular subgenre of fiction. Although not exploited to its fullest, adventure has seen many changes over the years - from being constrained to stories of knights in armor to stories of high-tech espionages. Examples of that period include Sir Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas, pre,[2] Jules Verne, Bront Sisters, H. Rider Haggard, Victor Hugo,[3] Emilio Salgari, Louis Henri Boussenard, Thomas Mayne Reid, Sax Rohmer, Edgar Wallace, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Adventure novels and short stories were popular subjects for American pulp magazine, which dominated American popular fiction between the Progressive Era and the 1950s.[4] Several pulp magazines such as Adventure, Argosy, Blue Book, Top-Notch, and Short Stories specialized in this genre. Notable pulp adventure writers included Edgar Rice Burroughs, Talbot Mundy, Theodore Roscoe, Johnston McCulley, Arthur O. Friel, Harold Lamb, Carl Jacobi, George F. Worts, [4] Georges Surdez, H. Bedford-Jones and J. Allan Dunn. [5] Adventure fiction often overlaps with other genres, notably war novels, crime novels, sea stories, Robinsonades, spy stories (as in the works of John Buchan, Eric Ambler and Ian Fleming),science fiction, fantasy, (Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien both combined the secondary world story with the adventure novel) [6] and Westerns. Not all books within these genres are adventures. Adventure fiction takes the setting and premise of these other genres, but the fast-paced plot of an adventure focuses on the actions of the hero within the setting. With a few notable exceptions (such as Baroness Orczy, Leigh Brackett and Marion Zimmer Bradley)[7] adventure fiction as a genre has been largely dominated by male writers, though female writers are now becoming
common.

The Hero's Journey Outline

The Heros Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization. Its stages are: 1. THE ORDINARY WORLD. The hero, uneasy, uncomfortable or unaware, is introduced sympathetically so the audience can identify with the situation or dilemma. The hero is shown against a background of environment, heredity, and personal history. Some kind of polarity in the heros life is pulling in different directions and causing stress. 2. THE CALL TO ADVENTURE. Something shakes up the situation, either from external pressures or from something rising up from deep within, so the hero must face the beginnings of change. 3. REFUSAL OF THE CALL. The hero feels the fear of the unknown and tries to turn away from the adventure, however briefly. Alternately, another character may express the uncertainty and danger ahead. 4. MEETING WITH THE MENTOR. The hero comes across a seasoned traveler of the worlds who gives him or her training, equipment, or advice that will help on the journey. Or the hero reaches within to a source of courage and wisdom. 5. CROSSING THE THRESHOLD. At the end of Act One, the hero commits to leaving the Ordinary World and entering a new region or condition with unfamiliar rules and values. 6. TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES. The hero is tested and sorts out allegiances in the Special World. 7. APPROACH. The hero and newfound allies prepare for the major challenge in the Special world. 8. THE ORDEAL. Near the middle of the story, the hero enters a central space in the Special World and confronts death or faces his or her greatest fear. Out of the moment of death comes a new life. 9. THE REWARD. The hero takes possession of the treasure won by facing death. There may be celebration, but there is also danger of losing the treasure again. 10. THE ROAD BACK. About three-fourths of the way through the story, the hero is driven to complete the adventure, leaving the Special World to be sure the treasure is brought home. Often a chase scene signals the urgency and danger of the mission. 11. THE RESURRECTION. At the climax, the hero is severely tested once more on the threshold of home. He or she is purified by a last sacrifice, another moment of death and rebirth, but on a higher and more complete level. By the heros action, the polarities that were in conflict at the beginning are finally resolved. 12. RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR. The hero returns home or continues the journey, bearing some element of the treasure that has the power to transform the world as the hero has been transformed.