Fantasy

COMING SUMMER 2020

Introduction

A Garbled Word

For some time I have wanted to write a short essay on fantasy because the existing body of critical reflection on the subject is so limited, and, in my humble opinion, so misguided. The explanation for the wildly divergent body of critical thought, I suggest, must be traced to the lack of general agreement on a definition of fantasy as a literary genre. No two thinkers who offer definitions seem to share the same one; others work with a private definition that is simply not shared. Perhaps no one believes it is worth the trouble to tackle the issue. In my mind, this lack of agreement stifles critical discussion from the get-go. By way of example, if we seriously want to talk about the genre, I believe things spiral out of control when Phyllis Whitney can say in advising the writer of fantasy, “There is a new style in fantasy today. Its keynote is reality.”ⁱ [italics mine] We cannot be certain how Ms. Whitney defines fantasy, but clearly she has a very broad definition. Even so distinguished a critic as E. M. Forster confuses fantasy (as a literary term) with comedy^.2 I will review here many definitions of fantasy, but my primary goal is to create a working definition of fantasy as a literary genre we can all share…then get on with the business of enjoying fantasy.

The most celebrated and reliable critical material on fantasy as a type comes from three men: C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, and J. R. R. Tolkien. However, these eminent authors are not exempt from error. With a disinterested flourish, Tolkien dismisses “traveller’s tales” from the domain of fantasy, but his own tale, The Lord of the Rings, is clearly a traveller’s tale. Would anyone argue that it is not a fantasy? Or, as I have said, is it too soon to say?

Many seem to balk at tackling the definition of fantasy as if it were too delicate to be subject to critical review. Imagine the “observer effect” (sometimes confused with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle) applied to literature: the closer the examination, the less you can know! Or the idea that poking at the thing will kill it. E. M. Forster asserts “any statement as to fantasy’s subject matter brings these novels into the claws of critical apparatus from which it is important that they should be saved.”³ Wayne Booth explains in the same spirit, “many of the effects that require explication are of a kind that lose their savor in being made explicit. Their authors left them implicit in the first place because open discussion threatened to destroy them.”⁴ It appears these critics feel fantasy is an experience to be enjoyed…but to delicate to be defined. As Alice would say, “How terribly odd.”  Yes, fantasy depends to a large extent on a kind of magical tone and mood, but when did exegesis ever destroy good literature. You might note that fantasy is riddled with taboos, things its characters must not do but in fantasies those taboos are always violated. Without the violation there would be no conflict; if Bilbo had not left the path in The Hobbit, his character could not have developed. I suggest the reader also violate this interdiction against a critical approach. Let’s have at it.

The Need for Fantasy

People learn through stories; it’s how we relate to one another and to life itself. Fantasy is a vehicle for exploring the meaning of life freed from life as we actually live it. In fact, fantasy seems to be obsessed with the meaning of life or, in the case of Lewis Carroll, meaning itself. Fantasy addresses those “fundamental questions of universal life: questions of good and evil, of morals and ethics, of customs and traditions, of lasting values as opposed to temporal ones of the inconsistencies in real life matched with certain illogical consistencies”⁵ Fantasy deals with man’s relation to the infinite and man’s relation to himself. Robert Scholes believes that fabulation is “teaching man to acknowledge the dark within him in order to struggle with it.”⁶ In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy laments “In civilized countries, I believe there are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorcerers, nor magicians.”⁷ Fantasy suggests our rational, left-brained, scientific side may be man’s biggest illusion. As the Judge explains in the movie, A Pocketful of Miracles, “the world goes ’round in make believe.” We need fantasy for our spirit to soar.

Let me suggest another idea: we need fantasy as a vehicle to think about the meaning of life. According to the Vedas, we collectively share an illusion of life called maya. This world of the senses is not reality at all but a misinterpretation of the truth.  Could fantasy as a genre be a opportunity for our shared reality to explore a greater truth? I believe that is the source of fantasy’s appeal, its resonance with each of us who ask, “Isn’t there more to life than this?”

The Freedom in Fantasy

Fantasy has been characterized as “intelligent, humane, amusing, humorous, whimsical, imaginative, perceptive.”⁸ Any genre of literature may offer those qualities but the fantasist has complete freedom to develop the “whimsical” and “imaginative” in ways other genres disallow. In An Anthology of Children’s Literature, Sayers proclaims, “no other field of literature affords so great an opportunity for each to express his personal vision of life as it might be, were fancy free to command.”⁹ C.S. Lewis finds that fantasy may sometimes be the best form for what one has to say. “Fiction and ideation are intertwined,” says Robert Scholes of fabulation.¹¹ You could say fantasy relaxes the rules of reality and is therefore an easier, less elegant genre than the novel just like a mystery or thriller is perceived to be inferior to the classic novel. Who invented that hierarchy? The culprit is the critical tradition that insists popular fiction is inferior because it is enjoyed by all. But isn’t the bottom line the same for all literature? If the story is great, then it endures no matter where you find the book in the library.

In This Paper, Fantasy Is a Genre, Not a Word

Along the road to defining fantasy, we stumble across a brisk debate that maintains a distinction between fantasy or fancy (a shortened form of fantasy) and imagination. Coleridge in Biographia Lltteraria and Benedetto Croce in Aesthetic launch the first salvos on this topic. I say “stumble” because I do not believe the definition of “fantasy” as seen by the OED is relevant to our purpose; in fact, it is part of the problem. Fantasy, the word, is not fantasy, the genre. It is a fine psychological discussion but it fails to get us closer to our goal. I mention the debate for those who would consider its omission an oversight. I am not interested today in the origins of fantasy or what impels an author to adopt the form. Sayers allows, “The heart would seem to be a chief begetter of fantasy. Some of the greatest fantasies appear to have been woven out of the most cherished experience, the best beloved scenes, subjects and events of the authors’ lives.”¹⁰ Well, that is true of all literature of any sort. All this loosey-goosey use of the word “fantasy” should cease. At least, I will not allow it in this paper.

A Methodology for Reaching a Definition

I have turned to the literature itself to search for a definition. When asked, I find most causal readers at a loss as to where to begin to define fantasy. “It’s fantastical.” A tautology. As Lewis says, “It’s like being in love.”¹²   Let’s ask the lovers. I hope upon finishing the paper, the reader discovers the ingredients for a dialogue to continue the conversation elsewhere.

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¹Phyllis Whitney, “Why not fantasy?” The Writer’s Handbook, (Boston, 1960), p.448.

²E.M. Forster. Aspects of the Novel (New York, i954), p.113.

³Forster, p.111.

⁴Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction(Chicago,1961), p.307.

⁵Constantine Georgiou, “Fantasy,” Children and Their Literature, ed. Constantine Georgiou (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. i969), p. 246.

⁶Robert Scholes, The Fabulators (New York, 1967),p.,94.

⁷FrankBaum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (New York, 1965), p.24. –hereafter cited as Qz.

⁸Joseph T. Shipley, “Fantasy,” Dictionary of World Literature: Criticism-Forms-Technique (New York, i94),p.235

⁹Johnson, Sickle, Sayers, “Fantasy,” An Anthology of Children’s Literature (Boston, 1959), p. 552.

¹⁰Johnson, Sickle, Sayers, p.551.

¹¹Scholes, p. 105.