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What is fantasy literature?
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Oct 1, 2021 · History of Fantasy and Subgenres and Types of Fantasy in Literature. Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Oct 1, 2021 • 7 min read. For many readers, literary fiction provides desperately needed escapism so they can endure the difficulties of everyday life.
- What Are The Main Elements of Fantasy?
- 5 Elements of Fantasy to Consider
- Magic
- Adventure
- Struggle For Mastery
- Subgenres and Types
- Place/Setting and Worldbuilding
Fantasy is (according to The Oxford Dictionary‘s definition): ‘A genre of imaginative fiction involving magic and adventure, especially in a setting other than the real world.’ Many fantasy novels involve adventure as a key feature. Characters may discover portals to other worlds or discover hidden magic, wonder and surprise in our own world. Novel...
MagicAdventureStruggle for masterySubgenre and typesThe word magic comes from the Greek magikos, from magos. This means ‘one of the members of the learned and priestly class’. This explains how magic, in fantasy, is often associated with learning, with complex books and rituals. Thus ideas of ‘learning’ and ‘power’ supplement its modern definition: ‘The power of apparently influencing events by usin...
Adventure in fantasy is common, from bands of travelling, questing heroes (like Frodo and friends in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings) to girls who fall down magical rabbit holes (Alice in Wonderland). Adventure in fantasy often features another meaning of magic: ‘A quality of being beautiful and delightful in a way that seems remote from daily life...
Themes of struggle and mastery are found in many forms throughout many fantasy novels. Part of this is due to fantasy’s origins in ideas of arcane, ‘special’, yet volatile and dangerous knowledge. The initiate often must learn to control the unpredictable surges of ‘wild’ magic, to trace or utter the ‘right’ thing to achieve the desired effect. Thi...
As with many other large genres of fiction, fantasy has many subgenres and types. You could describe Sir Terry Pratchett’s inventive Discworldseries as ‘comic fantasy’ since rather than focusing on dangerous quests only it pokes fun at our world as well as well as genre tendencies. For example, the trope of lavish fantasy world-building. In Discwor...
Because of its exploration of the otherworldly and the supernatural, place is a key aspect of many fantasy novels. Some places are created through magic. The lion Aslan sings the Kingdom of Narnia into being in C.S. Lewis’ lore. (A Christian mythology parallel to the Creation in the Bible.) By contrast, Jadis, the White Witch, destroys a whole worl...
Most importantly, fantasy is for the audience—it allows people to escape from reality, becoming lost in exciting and unusual stories that provoke the imagination. Fantasy allows authors and audience alike to fulfill their wonders about magic and the supernatural while exploring beyond what is truly possible in our world.
- 3 min
Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fantasy literature may be directed at both children and adults.
Mar 15, 2024 · Fantasy, imaginative fiction dependent for effect on strangeness of setting (such as other worlds or times) and of characters (such as supernatural or unnatural beings). Examples include William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fantasy world and usually inspired by mythology or folklore. The term "fantasy" can also be used to describe a "work of this genre", usually literary. Its roots are in oral traditions, which became fantasy literature and drama.
Mar 7, 2022 · 1. Magic. In fantasy fiction, there is always some element of magic—a system of laws, dynamics, powers, or character abilities that are not found in the regular world (referred to in the fantasy genre as the ‘primary world’). In the fantasy world, the world of magic where the fantasy story takes place is referred to as the secondary world.
