Abstract
This chapter argues for a dynamic and flexible definition that reflects the cultural and national diversity of the genre and accommodates different theoretical approaches (Neoclassical, reader response, and Cultural Studies) without imposing an ethnocentric taxonomy.
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Notes
- 1.
More specifically, Irwin defines fantasy as “a story based on and controlled by an overt violation of what is generally accepted as possibility; it is the narrative result of transforming the condition contrary to fact into ‘fact’ itself” (1976: 4).
- 2.
Rabkin is more specifically concerned with establishing the fantastic as the opposite of narrative reality. He writes that the fantastic occurs “when the ground rules of a narrative are forced to make a 180 reversal, when prevailing perspectives are directly contradicted” (1976: 12).
- 3.
S.C. Fredericks outlines some of the shortcomings of many of these studies in “Problems of Fantasy” (1978).
- 4.
This division is not static or rigid. Works by, for example, indigenous authors who might depart from what Western or non-indigenous readers consider consensus reality but who consider their works to be alternate descriptions of reality (not departures from it) would offer a rich venue for further theorizing ideas of the fantastic and mimetic.
- 5.
Farah Mendlesohn notes that immediately following Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Fantasy could be separated into two types: the stylists, like Peter S. Beagle, Poul Anderson, and David Lindsay; and the adventure writers like William S. Burroughs, Sprague De Camp, and Robert E. Howard, that followed more closely the sword and sorcery approach. She marks 1977 as the moment when a third type emerged epitomized by Brooks’ Shannara series and Stephen Donaldson’s The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: the romance writer. She notes that from Brooks and Donaldson forward the reverie—a kind of internal monologue that the reader is privy to, but does not actually function as fragmented internal dialogue, but rather as a kind of self-contemplation—prophecy that forces the hero to demonstrate his fitness through some kind of display, and action that carries emotional weight push the genre in a clear direction (2008: 38–42).
- 6.
A few critics have noted that while many devalue genre fiction because it is formulaic, “The real point often seems to be the reverse formulation, that ‘literature’ is somehow not ‘generic’” (Lennard 2007: 10). Anne Cranny-Francis makes a similar point when she writes that “all fiction (and all non-fiction) is generic, but some of it works to disguise its conventionality” (1993: 93). Literary realism naturalized conventions “so that they seemed obvious or inevitable to readers, and so became effectively invisible” (1993: 93). Literary fiction also utilizes generic conventions, they are just not as obvious and so are presented as natural.
- 7.
I am not so much criticizing the existence of genre fiction, but rather the assumption that anything labeled genre fiction is unworthy of literary study. This issue is also faced by those who study other genre fictions, such as modern Romance.
- 8.
Barnes and Noble’s online interface places the series within Science Fiction & Fantasy and further sorts it into Epic Fantasy, if the whims of marketing teams are to be taken into account—and there is no reason they should not be.
- 9.
I agree with scholars like Tom Shippey who mark the beginning of Fantasy as a recognizable, and marketable, genre with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Shippey writes that “it is possible to say that [fantasy] would have existed, and would have developed into the genre it has become, without the lead of The Lord of the Rings. This seems, however, rather doubtful” (2000: xvii–iii). Brian Attebery calls it the “mental template” for Fantasy fiction (1992: 14). Stefan Ekman writes that “although fantasy works had been written for one or even two centuries previously, depending on how one chooses to define the genre, the publication of Tolkien’s novel marked the beginning of seeing fantasy as a genre, and its influence has shaped modern fantasy and reader expectations alike” (2013: 9). But while this text might have ushered in Fantasy as a genre, that is not the same as treating it as an ur-text.
- 10.
The reception of Game of Thrones by non-Fantasy readers is in many ways the exception that proves the rule. When Game of Thrones came out, many viewed it as an aberration, a unique expression in the genre of Fantasy. This is because most assume that Fantasy only means Tolkien-inspired narratives. So it was surprising for many to see this kind of text existing within the Fantasy genre. So much so that a simple Google search will return numerous articles, blogs, and posts asking if Game of Thrones is even Fantasy fiction. But those who read widely in the genre know that A Song of Ice and Fire, while undoubtedly popular and influential, was not an isolated or major intervention within the genre—the turn to Gritty Fantasy had already started. David Chandler and Doug Smith point to reactions to other media—namely horror that showed more viscera and blood and grittier television shows like The Wire, respectively—as the impetus for grittier texts, and a number of authors were working within the subgenre before, concurrently with, and of course after Martin. For more on Gritty Fantasy see Faircloth (2011) and Smith (2015).
- 11.
In 2013, upset about the seeming trend the Hugo Awards (Fantasy and Science Fiction’s highest honors) were taking towards more literary or “politically correct” works, disgruntled fans attempted to form a voting bloc in order to nominate more “swashbuckling” and “space adventure” novels. Many quickly discerned that their real issue was that “nominees for the Hugo awards have become substantially less white and less male” (Berlatsky 2015). The initial group that spearheaded this attempt was called the Sad Puppies, but later branched out into the Rabid Puppies who nominated similar, but not always overlapping, authors. While they often claim not to be racist or sexist, but suggest they are merely advocating for overlooked authors of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are being ignored in favor of more social justice type works, the following quote from Theodore Beale (aka Vox Day), the founder of the Rabid Puppies, in response to a speech N.K. Jemisin gave in which she called for a reconciliation within Science Fiction and Fantasy, speaks largely for itself: “Being an educated, but ignorant half-savage, with little more understanding of what it took to build a new literature by “a bunch of beardy old middle-class middle-American guys” than an illiterate Igbotu tribesman has of how to build a jet engine, Jemisin clearly does not understand that her dishonest call for “reconciliation” and even more diversity within SF/F is tantamount to a call for its decline into irrelevance” (2013). In the same post he also clarifies that “it is not that I, and others, do not view her [Jemisin] as human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens), it is that we simply do not view her as being fully civilized for the obvious historical reason that she is not” (2013).
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Wickham, K. (2023). Fantasy as Genre: On Defining the Field of Study. In: Gomel, E., Gurevitch, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Fantasy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26397-2_2
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