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Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion
... In line with the symptomatic theory above, the vampire-themed narratives of Meyer's Twilight series belong as well to fantastic literature that discusses "the questions of unconscious emerges" (Jackson, 1981). According to Jackson (1981) fantastic literature creates a discourse space that is different from the conscious or real space due to the inadequacy of its language in expressing about desire. ...
... In line with the symptomatic theory above, the vampire-themed narratives of Meyer's Twilight series belong as well to fantastic literature that discusses "the questions of unconscious emerges" (Jackson, 1981). According to Jackson (1981) fantastic literature creates a discourse space that is different from the conscious or real space due to the inadequacy of its language in expressing about desire. Moreover, she adds that "those narrative effects and forms can be seen as manifestations of deeper cultural issues", by creating uncanny sphere, the unseen-before or unfamiliar environment or region which lie behind the real one. ...
... In Meyer's series, the forest region of Forks is described as foggy, dark, rainy and mysterious, as well as hiding inside it a pack of mysterious werewolves and a clan of vampires which both take the forms of common men and women when mingling with humans. Jackson uses the term 'paraxis' to explain that fantastic literature metaphorically has a mirror that reflects or represents an imaginary world which is "neither entirely 'real' (object), nor entirely 'unreal' (image), but is located somewhere indeterminately between the two" (Jackson, 1981). ...
This paper analyzes the problems or conflicts related to the character of Bella Swan who colors the plot in the Twilight series written by Stephenie Meyer, a popular literary romance genre with a vampire theme, a New York Times Best Seller, that consists of four (4) series, namely Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. The author uses the Symptomatic Reading theory based on several expert opinions and basic theories about romance and fantasy, as well as several other expert opinions about this work. Written from the perspective of the main character, Bella, the four Twilight series explicitly and implicitly show some of the problems or conflicts that Bella experienced as a young girl approaching adulthood. The conflicts she experiences stem from his family, herself, and her love life. By analyzing this series of novels, the author not only presents the differences between ideological matters and the facts or reality of the main character's problems, but also raises a new understanding or perhaps more precisely an acknowledgment of the realities that underlie family circumstances, choices and desires of an individual like Bella. Through this analysis, some values or discussions can be drawn and overviewed and can be taken into consideration for the teaching and learning in literature classes, or for the general readers and movie goers in general; bearing in mind that popular literature is no longer a topic to be taken lightly, but must be criticized and benefited from in this era of media and technology, which, in turn, greatly influences the popular culture itself. Thus, it is hoped as well that there will be a balance in knowledge and decision-making in discussions about popular literature.
... The aim is to evaluate Rowling's world of fairy tales and its adherence to the criteria of a fantasy secondary world according to the frameworks proposed by T. Todorov (1973), R. Jackson (1981), and F. Mendlesohn (2008. The secondary world in the Harry Potter series, the wizarding world, is open to the real world and shares its geography, yet hidden from non-magical people. ...
... The aim of the research is to evaluate the fantasy world by Rowling and assess how well it conforms to the criteria of a fantasy secondary world according to the theoretical frameworks proposed by T. Todorov (1973), R. Jackson (1981), and F. Mendlesohn (2008) theory of fantasy. ...
... R. R. Tolkien (1954Tolkien ( -1955, a father of the modern theory of fantasy literature, whose work on the creation of Middle-earth and the genre of high fantasy has been highly influential in the field of fantasy literature, C. S. Lewis (1933Lewis ( , 1950Lewis ( -1956, who wrote both high fantasy novels such as The Chronicles of Narnia and more traditional allegorical works such as The Pilgrim's Regress. We have to mention R. Jackson (1981), who wrote extensively on the Gothic and supernatural elements of literature and their relationship to the unconscious mind, and F. Mendlesohn (2008), who developed a typology of fantasy literature that includes four different categories of fantasy: portal-quest, immersive, intrusion, and liminal. And also B. Attebery (1992), who wrote on the characteristics and conventions of the fantasy genre in his book Strategies of Fantasy. ...
The aim is to evaluate Rowling’s world of fairy tales and its adherence to the criteria of a fantasy secondary world according to the frameworks proposed by T. Todorov (1973), R. Jackson (1981), and F. Mendlesohn (2008). The secondary world in the Harry Potter series, the wizarding world, is open to the real world and shares its geography, yet hidden from non-magical people. It is consistently described with its own culture, customs, traditions, and social norms. The central conflict is between Good and Evil for domination, with Evil aiming to extend its power to both the magic world and the real world. The fantasy world is relatable to readers due to its handling of universal themes and issues relevant to their lives, transferring characters into new life conditions. Research methods include content analysis, psychological research, and comparative analysis.
... Dada la autoría femenina de nuestro corpus, se hace necesaria la concurrencia de una perspectiva que considere los aspectos de género en el estudio de los relatos fantásticos o de herencia fantástica. En este sentido, los aportes de críticas como Rosemary Jackson (1988Jackson ( , 2001, Irène Bessière (2001) y Rosalba Campra (1991, 2008 tienen el valor de focalizar el potencial subversivo de estos textos, en tanto horada la coherencia del mundo y del discurso -históricamente construidos desde la lógica masculina-y resalta la perspectiva del Otro: el subordinado, el desplazado, el silenciado. Desde el prisma del terror o lo neogótico en el ámbito anglosajón, estudiosas como Diana Wallace (2004), Anne Williams (1995) y Michelle Massé (1992) han enfocado específicamente el modo en que las autoras de este género utilizan sus mecanismos y estrategias narrativas para denunciar la opresión del sistema patriarcal hacia las mujeres. ...
... Dada la autoría femenina de nuestro corpus, se hace necesaria la concurrencia de una perspectiva que considere los aspectos de género en el estudio de los relatos fantásticos o de herencia fantástica. En este sentido, los aportes de críticas como Rosemary Jackson (1988Jackson ( , 2001, Irène Bessière (2001) y Rosalba Campra (1991, 2008 tienen el valor de focalizar el potencial subversivo de estos textos, en tanto horada la coherencia del mundo y del discurso -históricamente construidos desde la lógica masculina-y resalta la perspectiva del Otro: el subordinado, el desplazado, el silenciado. Desde el prisma del terror o lo neogótico en el ámbito anglosajón, estudiosas como Diana Wallace (2004), Anne Williams (1995) y Michelle Massé (1992) han enfocado específicamente el modo en que las autoras de este género utilizan sus mecanismos y estrategias narrativas para denunciar la opresión del sistema patriarcal hacia las mujeres. ...
En este artículo proponemos una lectura de algunas obras contemporáneas de herencia fantástica escritas en lengua española por mujeres, comprendiéndolas como parte de una «narrativa de lo siniestro». Para ello matizamos la teorización actual sobre el género retomando su basal enfoque psicoanalítico, lo que nos permite situar la irrupción de lo unheimlich en el horizonte de la lógica del relato de formación o bildungsroman. En específico, nos centramos aquí en la infancia como primera etapa de formación psicosocial, atendiendo a las manifestaciones de las zonas ocultas de la personalidad como momentos de anagnórisis que serán elaborados a posteriori. Las conclusiones apuntan a la necesidad de incluir en el ejercicio de reformulación constante de lo real –y, con ello, de lo fantástico– no solo los elementos físicos e instrumentales que componen nuestro mundo, sino también y sobre todo aquellos componentes éticos que marcan tanto nuestros conocimientos conscientes como aquellas zonas que preferimos ignorar.
... In this sense, myths should not be seen as mere representations of the impossible, the marvelous and the fantastic but rather as the manifestations of different versions and possible expressions of the real. Jackson (2008) supports the very same idea when she argues that the fantastic elements in postmodern narratives should not be viewed as irrational or unreal; rather, they highlight the arbitrary nature of what is considered real and possible (p. 12). ...
This paper intends to explore how the notions of the body and identity are conceptualized, represented, and experienced in Greek mythology by pointing out the parallelism between Greek mythology and postmodernism since postmodern concepts and theories of the body and identity politics can be traced back to myths. Myths offer enchanting narratives about the creation of the universe, the nature of existence, and natural events, alongside fantastical tales of deities, extraordinary beings such as monsters, superhuman heroes, magical transformations, and polymorphous metamorphoses. Classical mythology is also fascinated with etiology, the study of first causes, and the origins of the conditions in our lives. In this sense, how mythical bodies emerge and identities take on certain shapes and develop in various ways gain importance. Myths are full of boundary-breaking forms of existence, transgressive and subversive identities, fluid beings, indeterminate origins, and hybrid bodies, through which we are transported into alternative visions. They defy all kinds of rigid categories, unalterable formations, and the hierarchical order of existence. Similarly, postmodern bodies blur the boundaries among different forms of beings and they are characterized by fluidity, hybridity, multiplicity, fragmentation, discontinuity, and uncertainty. In this sense, this paper sets out to argue that myths align with postmodern and posthumanist understanding of body and identity and mythic thinking is integral to human intellectual dimension and has influenced the emergence of bodies and identities in postmodern texts.
... As Atterbery (2022: 9) claims, "[f]antasy is the lie that speaks truth." This is because fantasy narratives address these unspoken cultural desires that are otherwise difficult to articulate directly and are therefore expressed through fantastical narratives (Jackson 1981). In doing this, fantasy fiction draws upon folklore to make sense of the new world and use its meanings in new contexts (see Attebery 2022;Matthews 2011;Sullivan 2001). ...
Thainess’ [ khwam-pen-Thai ] or Thai identity has long been a state-constructed ideology linked to nationalist sentiment. However, in the 21 st century, internal politics and globalisation have come to challenge its monopoly. Against this backdrop, reinventing classical literature and folklore has emerged as a way to reimagine and rethink ‘Thainess’ in Thai literature. This holds particular relevance since transnational cultures, ranging from classical Indian mythology to the contemporary Korean wave, continue to be hybridised and reconstructed. This paper examines the hybridity of Thainess in contemporary Thai literature, focusing on two different genres: fantasy and fanfiction. Firstly, I explore the fantasy novel series ‘ Nawa Himmaphan ’ [New Himmaphan] (2013–2018), depicting an apocalypse and creating a new world inspired by the Indian mythical forest named Himavanta. The novel adapts and reinterprets the roles and meanings of Deva (the god) and Asura (the demon) in an upside-down future. Secondly, I examine an adaptation of the Ramakien , the Thai version of the Indian Ramayana , published on the internet and transformed into Boys Love (BL) fanfiction referencing Korean idols called ‘ Huachai Thotsakan KAIHUN ’ [The Heart of Thotsakan KAIHUN] (2016–2017). It reconstructs the Ramakien, challenging its traditional meaning while asserting the aesthetics of K-pop fans. Through the lens of the hybridity framework, this paper argues that these texts not only illustrate cross-regional cultural hybridisation but also challenge the top-down construction of Thainess. Hybridity creates a ‘liminal space’ for Thainess, establishing a new power structure that highlights the significance of marginalised voices against the backdrop of political polarisation and the influence of transnational flows.
... Some treat the fantastic as departure, or escape from reality, a marvelous and wish-fulfilling fantasy (Harwell, 2017, Tolkien, 1966, others claim that the fantastic starts from the hesitation point when it is no longer possible to say whether it is a fantastic realm or a simpler explanation of a troubled mental health is possible (Todorov, 1975, Irwin, 1976, Hume, 1984. The third approach generally recognizes the controversy of the genre and says that it is not one simple thing (Jackson, 1981, Napier, 1996. ...
Short article with no abstract.
... Each category has as profound an influence on the rhetorical structures of the fantastic as does its taproot text or genre. (p. 3) Rosemary Jackson (1981) illustrates the function of fantasy literature in the following manner: fantastic literature points to or suggests the basis upon which cultural order rests, for it opens up, for a brief moment, on to disorder, on to illegality, on to that which lies outside the law, that which is outside dominant value systems. The fantastic traces the unsaid and the unseen of culture: that which has been silenced, made invisible, covered over and made 'absent'… (p. 2) She argues that 'the "value" of fantasy has seemed to reside in precisely this resistance to definition, in its "free-floating and escapist qualities'" (p. 1). ...
... It is possible to suggest that the supernatural effects that were used by the early gothic authors were usually located outside the human. In Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion, Jackson (2009) states that "within a supernatural economy, or a magical thought mode, otherness is designated as otherworldly, supernatural, as being above, or outside the human. The 'other' tends to be identified as an otherworldly, evil force: Satan, the devil, the demon (just as good is identified through figures of angels, benevolent fairies, wise men)" (p.31). ...
... Although believers in an optimistic transhuman future have frequently contested fears about the implications of using the new technologies to enhance human beings, Gibson's views about our future and his depiction of Dixie clearly fall on the pessimistic side foreseen by Wiener and Fukuyama. From Empowerment to Vulnerability: Testing Transhuman Grounds and the Power of the Mind Rosemary Jackson (1981) had linked the notion of death wish both to entropy and to the literary fantastic by resorting to Freud's well-known essay "The Uncanny." Dixie's death wish is, in this sense, a request to go back to a world where entropic death may rule again, which at first glance might seem scientifically illogical. ...
McCoy Pauley, one of the hackers who mentored protagonist Case in William Gibson’s pathbreaking novel Neuromancer (1984), is also one of the first literary simulacra to follow George E. Martin’s hypothesis, formulated in 1971, to achieve immortality by uploading the human mind, a way for humans to become transhuman immortals. Aligned with Norbert Wiener’s warning insights about the future of the human species, this chapter traces the intertextual position in which Gibson located his peculiar character by contrasting his figure with other popular sci-fi personages, such as Murphy, the protagonist of Paul Verhoven’s Robocop (1987), as well as the Terminator or Neo, the protagonist of The Matrix Trilogy. By resorting also to classic sources, the core of the work focuses on Gibson’s warning suggestion that (transhuman) technology also becomes a source of human vulnerability when consciousness becomes commodified merchandise.
References:
Gibson, William (1984). Neuromancer. New York: Ace Science Fiction
Jackson, Rosemary (1981). Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. London: Methuen.
Martin, George M. (1971). “Brief proposal on immortality: an interim solution”. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 14 (2): 339‒40. Doi:10.1353/pbm.1971.0015
... In contrast, the terror genre features ordinary run-of-the-mill, but essentially evil, characters (psychopaths, sociopaths or other types of mentally disturbed individuals), who sow fear through violence and murder (Cavallaro, 2002;Rockoff, 2002;Zinoman, 2011). The last genre in the fantastic category is fantasy (Brooke-Rose, 1981;Jackson, 2003;Walters, 2011): stories about fantastic or imaginary worlds (sometimes representing an idealized Middle Ages) with princesses, kings, heroic knights, mythological creatures, talking animals and monsters. ...
Advertising creativity has been scarcely operationalized and, considering the irregular lists of formats drawn up to date, few are the studies that have addressed the classification of the formulas or sources that help to create advertising messages. The aim of this study is to make a contribution in this respect by positing audiovisual narrative genres as useful and prolific sources for gaining strategic insights and establishing creative concepts. To this end, a content analysis was performed on a sample of 411 ads picking up awards or shortlisted at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (2009-2018). Besides the audiovisual genre, positioning and product categories are also examined. The results indicate the importance of genres, especially comedy and drama, in advertising, while providing several practical pointers as regards their strategic and creative implications.
... Having emerged out of romance (Jackson 4), fantasy literature not only shares its resistance to a concrete definition with romance, but also its "irreality" (Fluck 422). Romance's subversion of hierarchies and its highlighting of reality's fantasies are also the main functions of the fantastic as "literature of subversion" (Jackson 1981). The quality of fantasy novels also stems from their distance to reality and their simultaneous reliance on the real, opening up imaginative possibilities within liminal elements such as threshold spaces and characters similar to those used in romance (19)(20). ...
This paper offers a comparative reading of Herman Melville's romance Moby Dick (1851) and George Saunders's fantastic ghost story Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), tracing the reverberations of Toni Morrison's 'American Africanism' as a specific kind of White supremacist discourse in both novels. After sketching nineteenth-century romance and recent fantasy literature as liminal genres fitting for a critical negotiation of the equally liminal Africanist presence, this paper shows how both novels employ liminality as a shared narrative strategy to transport their criticism on White supremacy and anti-Blackness.
Published with COPAS - Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies
... Some kinds of modern fantasy aim to elucidate reality itself as myth. In his book Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion,Jackson (2015) explains that:Fantasies express a longing for an absolute meaning, for something other than the limited 'known' world. Yet whereas 'faery' stories and quasi-religious tales function through nostalgia for the sacred, the modern fantastic refuses a backward-looking glance. ...
A prize-winning novel in literary horror after the occupation of Iraq, Frankestien in Baghdad (2013) is a story about a monster who is created from the remains of bombing victims, which are often treated as garbage. This paper is about the concept of violence in Frankestien. The paper shows how Ahmed Al This study examines how the monster in the novel gives a voice to contemporary fears of society and what sorts of fears of the monstrosity are highlighted. To illustrate this claim, different roles of the nameless monster in Frankenstein in Baghdad are analyzed. The present study furthermore discusses how violence is represented as the main theme in the novel, how far the supernatural monster in Ahmed Saadawi's Arabic Booker Prize-winning novel Frankenstein in Baghdad (2014) is a social construct and how he has reflected the violence and political dimensions in Iraqi society during 2005 to 2013.
Feminist utopian and dystopian works manifest similar issues with different approaches. In feminist utopias, there is a stark difference between the present patriarchal systems and fictional societies. Traditional gender roles such as wifehood and motherhood among many others are generally not employed within feminist utopian novels. Most importantly, males, correspondingly male dominance over females, are totally non-existent or subverted. In this way, most writers emphasize the notion that sex is a biological entity whereas gender is a construction of societal norms. In feminist dystopias, moreover, the same gender roles are taken to excessive limits in such ways that femininity is depicted as a way of insult, especially by totalitarian regimes, or females are objectified and punished due to their gender category. Women’s lives are controlled and regulated by certain devices of the societies and states they partake in. Considering the parallel intentions of utopian and dystopian literature, this dissertation aimed to compare and contrast a utopian novel and a utopian short story, Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Sultana’s Dream by Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain respectively, as well as two dystopian novels, Swastika Night by Katharine Burdekin and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, so as to put forth the notion that submission to the traditional gender roles brings about the disintegration of women, thereby providing the sustainability of the prevalent subordination, whereas subversion of these roles and resistance against normative references strengthen the female identity by opening up new perspectives, thereby bringing forth women’s liberation.
L. M. Montgomery’s Jane of Lantern Hill employs the natural magic of “Jane Victoria” Stuart’s environment to convey psychological changes and healing for the main character in what appears to be an immersive fantasy comprised of a Prince Edward Island that provides a magical setting for Jane’s emotional and social development. In contrast Kevin Sullivan’s film adaptation, Lantern Hill, employs the magic of the supernatural to achieve those same psychological impacts on Victoria Jane in something akin to an intrusion fantasy, in which ghosts and haunting dreams propel both Jane and the viewer into an almost-Gothic Prince Edward Island. This article explores the impact of those changes and suggests that the magic of Montgomery’s story, which can be revealed over time through beautiful imagery and language in the novel, must be conveyed quickly through highly visual and auditory means in the film, raising questions about the gaps created between natural and supernatural magic and how those gaps change the meaning or outcome of the story.
This book explores and brings to light untold stories from the margins of Chinese society. It investigates and reveals grassroots and popular cultural beliefs, amusing anecdotes, items of lore, and accounts of the strange and the unusual. It delves into questions of identity formation, considering gender, sexuality, class, generational divides, subcultures, national minorities, and online communities. It examines heritage-making practices and the persistence of marginalised memories. Bringing together views from cultural studies , literature, gender studies, cultural heritage, sociology, history, and more, the book argues that neither the margins nor the centre can be understood in isolation, and that by focusing on the margins, a fuller picture of Chinese society overall emerges, including new perspectives on spatial and social marginality, on hierarchies of marginality, and neglected spaces, voices, and identities.
O presente estudo tem como objeto de análise a obra Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1944), do argentino Jorge Luís Borges, um dos escritores mais expressivos da literatura especulativa da América Latina. O conto em questão apresenta-se como um verdadeiro labirinto de ideias e divide opinião de críticos quanto a sua classificação dentro do universo especulativo. Os gêneros Literatura Fantástica, Literatura de Fantasia e Realismo Mágico têm sido as principais bases teóricas de análise dessa obra. No entanto, o estudo aqui proposto visa enquadrar o conto, não dentro dos limites dos gêneros acima mencionados, mas dentro do gênero de Ficção Científica, que embora faça parte do amplo universo da literatura especulativa, tem seus próprios regimentos e figurações. Para tanto, buscamos explorar conceitos e premissas que amparam a tese aqui apresentada utilizando críticos, tais como Darko Suvin (2005), Damien Broderick (1995) e James Gunn (2005), dentre muitos outros. Os resultados apontam uma estreita ligação entre a Ficção Científica de Borges e sua forte ligação com narrativas mitológicas, o que seria, em parte, uma das principais razões da dificuldade de caracterização da obra dentro de uma única categoria genérica.
Este artículo analiza el tratamiento narrativo de la figura de la solterona en algunas obras de ficción contemporánea escritas por mujeres en Hispanoamérica, que se inscriben en la línea de lo fantástico que hemos denominado como “siniestro”. A través de una breve revisión histórica del surgimiento y aplicación del término “solterona”, se busca mostrar cómo, pese a los avances en materia de reivindicación de género, este arquetipo mantiene prejuicios sociales y morales que querríamos asumir como obsoletos. Se revisan someramente obras de Patricia Esteban Erlés, Cecilia Eudave, Giovanna Rivero, Claudina Domingo, Mariana Enríquez, Mónica Ojeda y Bibiana Camacho para profundizar, luego, en el análisis de sendos relatos de Yeniva Fernández y Solange Rodríguez Pappe. Las conclusiones muestran cómo la solterona se yergue, en esta narrativa, como una figura del horror proyectivo, que revela nuestros miedos e inseguridades como sociedad antes que las (supuestas) carencias y defectos de quien nunca ha contraído nupcias.
In this paper, the author argues that fantasy literature serves as a cognitive playground that helps us practise and reaffirm our magical-thinking intuitions. He demonstrates how, just as in magical practices, magic in fantasy fiction becomes a tool for overcoming difficulties and restoring a sense of balance, security, and control. He contends that supernatural agents can be seen as emotional correla-tives, giving faces and voices to emotional states and describing a phenomenon from the perspective of how it feels, rather than from a rational viewpoint. This opens up a possibility to articulate those aspects of our emotional lives that are difficult to express in terms of mimetic representation. He posits that, through dis-tancing, fantasy fiction creates a safe environment for engaging with such emotional states, in which magic restores our intuition that no matter how dark our situation appears, we have an inner capacity to overcome it. The main example that is used in the paper is J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.
O que caracteriza uma distopia no século XXI? É esta a questão que se apresenta como força-motriz do presente artigo. A partir de um mergulho no coração das trevas da ficção contemporânea em língua inglesa, e com base nas discussões teórico-críticas acerca dos utopismos e distopismos (BACCOLINI, 2020; BACCOLINI; MOYLAN, 2003; CAVALCANTI, 1999; MOYLAN, 2016; SARGENT, 1994, 2010), é possível constatar que a ficção distópica produzida nessas duas primeiras décadas do século XXI tem apresentado características que a difere daquelas distopias do século passado. No presente artigo, esse amplo, diverso e fragmentado conjunto obras contemporâneas é denominado neodistópico. Constitui-se como objetivo deste artigo, portanto, conceituar o neodistópico e oferecer uma visão panorâmica de suas características, com ênfase na intertextualidade (KRISTEVA, 2005; SAMOYAULT, 2008), multiperspectividade (HARTNER, 2014; NÜNNING; NÜNNING, 2000) e metaficção (HUTCHEON, 1980; WAUGH, 1984). Diante disso, romances como Atlas de nuvens (Cloud Atlas, 2004), de David Mitchell, O poder (The power, 2016), de Naomi Alderman, Guerra americana (American war, 2017), de Omar El Akkad, Nova York 2140 (New York 2140, 2017), de Kim Stanley Robinson, The water cure (2018), de Sophie Mackintosh, a trilogia MaddAddam (2003, 2009, 2013), e Os testamentos (The testaments, 2019), de Margaret Atwood, entre outros, podem ser considerados como paradigmáticos do neodistópico, oferecendo, assim, uma relevante amostra dos elementos que o caracterizam.
The Wizard of Oz is not only an iconic film but an iconic fantasy film. An unwillingness to describe it as such within film studies points to a long history of the fantasy genre’s critical neglect. Dissecting the intrinsically cinematic apparatus of space, this article will seek to demonstrate how The Wizard of Oz functions as a fantasy film. Specifically, it will scrutinise how the film attempts to elicit a positive and reassuring encounter with a sense of the magical that seems tied to the genre’s unique aesthetic pleasures. As the film demarcates a mimetic sense of reality, Kansas, from another magical space wherein the fantasy elements of the narrative takes place, Oz, its sense of space hesitates between a sense of the real and the unreal in a manner similar to that originally described in Tzvetan Todorov’s The Fantastic. The Wizard of Oz would seem to operate a similarly fantastic sense of space, constructing a relationship between the two realms that oscillates between the virtues of both as it celebrates the values of the homely and the otherworldly, the familiar and the new in order that it might mitigate its potential traumas and showcase its joys.
The first half of the 20th century introduced the idea of the uncertainty in the scientific fields as well as in the art. Knowledge and creation were affected by the centrality assumed by the concept of uncertainty. It is possible to identify a specific literary field concerning uncertainty. Most novels and short stories belonging to the fantastic genre moves on the blurry limits between imagination and reality, that is to say between the condition of verosimilitude and impossibility of the narrative world. The postmodern fictions are structured in the same way, exploring the blurry limits between fiction and reality according to the metafiction typical features. For this reason, the literature of uncertainty includes fantastic literature as well as postmodern one. In these fields of literature, all kinds of novels and short stories need an internal and low visible narrative structure. In my opinion the comparison between Juan Carlos Onetti’s "Un sueño realizado" and Edmundo Paz Soldán’s "Amor a la distancia" shows two different narrative models. Onetti’s short story, "Un sueño realizado", could be an example of a static architecture of uncertainty built by assimilation. Otherwise, Paz Soldán’s short story, "Amor a la distancia", could reveal a dynamic architecture of uncertainty made by alternation.
The aim of this study is to provide an academic analysis of the fantasy genre emerging in literature as a new literary term. Each country introduces new terms and literary genres into its own literature, recognizes its essence, and then tries to reconcile it with its own culture. Fantasy as a literary genre cannot be compared with its status in world literature today. This study identifies fantasy as the most important fictional genre in literature and analyzes its importance with several scientific approaches. It also examines the characteristics of the ongoing fiction and fantasy genres. Then, determine their relationship based on scientific evidence.
A partir del ensayo “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, de H. P. Lovecraft, hemos construido un modelo descriptivo coherente del género literario del horror con sus relaciones internas y externas, y que bien podría servir de punto de partida para posibles ampliaciones. Para ello, hemos cotejado, revisado y desarrollado determinados conceptos de los estudios clave sobre el miedo, desde Aristóteles hasta los más recientes acercamientos, pasando por Radcliffe, Freud, Delumeau, Kristeva, Carroll, y Jackson, entre otros, y hemos determinado las diferencias entre dos géneros tan cercanos como el terror y el horror. El presente artículo analizará diversos acercamientos teóricos al respecto, que van desde la historia de la literatura, al psicoanálisis, la psicología y la teoría literaria, buscará puntos en común y desarrollará conceptos teóricos clave para la demarcación del genero del horror, y que es, desde hace tiempo, un género perfectamente delimitado.
Türk matbuatının ilk tarihçisi, ilk derleme müdürü olarak anılan; özellikle basın ve tiyatro tarihine dair öncü çalışmalara imza atmış Selim Nüzhet Gerçek’in edebiyat tarihlerinde adına rastlanmayan romanı Meçhul Kuvvetlere Kurban 1922 yılında İleri gazetesinde yirmi dört bölüm olarak yayımlanmıştır. Bu araştırmanın amacı yaklaşık yüz yıldır gölgede kalmış olan bu romanı öncelikle Seval Şahin’in Cinai Meseleler (2017) eserinde incelediği “Osmanlı-Türk Polisiyesinin Özellikleri” çerçevesinde değerlendirmektir. Araştırmanın bir diğer amacı da romanın fantastik anlatı türünün belli başlı özellikleri açısından incelenmesi ve önde gelen fantastik yazını düşünürlerinin görüşleri ışığında eserin hangi açıdan bu türe ait olduğunun saptanmasıdır. Bu amaca ulaşmak için Rabkin, Jackson, Todorov ve Atterbery gibi düşünürlerin görüşlerinden yararlanılmıştır. Meçhul Kuvvetlere Kurban romanı üzerine yapılan bu iki boyutlu araştırma sonucunda romanın konusu, karakterleri ve kurgusuyla Osmanlı-Türk edebiyatında polisiye geleneğe bağlanabilecek özgün nitelikte bir eser olduğu görülmektedir. Ayrıca, romanın çeşitli fantastik unsurlar ihtiva etmesi ve fantastik türünün belli başlı niteliklerini taşıması da eserin özgünlüğüne katkıda bulunmaktadır.
Using Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a textual tool, this essay will explore not only the authentication of the Self and its subsequent deconstruction when confronted by its Other, but will also discuss how such a confrontation and the search for authenticity and authority are fashioned and perpetuated in the construction of personal histories. Acknowledging this presence illuminates the larger implications of the anxieties surrounding the unstable construction of the Self and its complex, sometimes contradictory, relationship to its long-repressed Other(s). This essay will begin by examining the Self as a psychological construct that initially seeks the affirmation established by the existence of its mirroring double figure. The Gothic novel intuitively gives voice to the repressed and in so doing, confronts the Self with its uncanny double, a reflection which the Self perceives as a threat to its own existence. This engagement of the uncanny as a device of the Gothic transforms the familiar into the unfamiliar, and, consequently, the psychological authentication of identity experiences a series of oscillations between the Self and the Other that leads to an identity crisis. This confusion is rooted in the confrontation between two estranged figures struggling to establish one as the authentic Self.
The “Red-Wedding” scene from A Storm of Swords, which displays cruelty and savagery and leads to the deaths of several main characters, can be viewed as a tragic turn of events within the epic narration. However, even from a philological perspective, the scene revives tragic themes and notions. The scene intertwines terror and pity, which are well-known tragic devices. The event itself, the murder of the guests, echoes the transgression of the Greek fundamental law of xenia, a recurrent theme in many Greek tragedies, from Aeschylus’ Oresteia to Euripides’ Hecuba. The aim of this paper is to show how the use and reshaping of devices from Greek drama within the narrative form of the epic fantasy allow it to break away from the traditional schemes and contribute to a new and seizing kind of narration relying on “fantastic terror”.
Gängige Formen von Diskriminierung sowie die Reproduktion normativer Stereotype sind auch bei künstlicher Intelligenz an der Tagesordnung. Die Beitragenden erläutern Möglichkeiten der Reduktion dieser fehlerhaften Verfahrensweisen und verhandeln die ambivalente Beziehung zwischen Queerness und KI aus einer interdisziplinären Perspektive. Parallel dazu geben sie einem queer-feministischen Wissensverständnis Raum, das sich stets als partikular, vieldeutig und unvollständig versteht. Damit eröffnen sie Möglichkeiten des Umgangs mit KI, die reduktive Kategorisierungen überschreiten können.
Gängige Formen von Diskriminierung sowie die Reproduktion normativer Stereotype sind auch bei künstlicher Intelligenz an der Tagesordnung. Die Beitragenden erläutern Möglichkeiten der Reduktion dieser fehlerhaften Verfahrensweisen und verhandeln die ambivalente Beziehung zwischen Queerness und KI aus einer interdisziplinären Perspektive. Parallel dazu geben sie einem queer-feministischen Wissensverständnis Raum, das sich stets als partikular, vieldeutig und unvollständig versteht. Damit eröffnen sie Möglichkeiten des Umgangs mit KI, die reduktive Kategorisierungen überschreiten können.
This thesis explores the connection between madness and identity in nineteenth-century Russian literature, with significant focus on works by Dostoevskii, Tolstoi, Gogol’ and Pushkin. Proposing personhood as comprised of the personal and the social, I argue that discrepancies between these two halves – relating to different types of breakdown in social relations – engender madness in Russian literary works. Analysing a range of characters through the lens of a variety of identity theories, I argue that duality is projected in three dimensions in these texts. Personal and social selves are opposed in the formation of identity, as are the real and imaginary in the construction of fictional worlds. The duality of sanity and madness straddles both to create an interdependence of self and other across the three spheres. Examining different types of ‘madness’, including clinical disorders such as mania and spiritual concepts such as holy folly, I argue that the fluidity of insanity in literary protagonists means it can be viewed as a non-alignment with the social other on any plane. I aim to answer the questions of how a disparity between perceptions of reality leads to a definition of madness, and the significance of the role the other plays in the categorisation of ‘the mad’ and ‘the sane’. This thesis is divided into three main parts, assessing the mad individual in relation to: social system, society, and individuals. The first examines mania and St Petersburg’s social hierarchy, demonstrating how relational identities create a desire for power, and how idealised selves distance an individual from reality. The second addresses group mindsets to explore how fluid definitions of madness are determined according to the social environment within the spheres of the provinces and holy folly. The third investigates epilepsy and depression, highlighting the importance of a loving relationship and morality for sanity.
This chapter takes a different approach than previous ones. Rather than analyzing a single writer’s experiments with allegory, this chapter will focus on a selection of authors. Jonathan Swift and Eliza Haywood treated allegory as a powerful satirical tool, aiming at both specific politicians and corruption more generally. Specific individuals were momentary manifestations of larger political and cultural forces. Pushing against corruption, for Swift and Haywood, required a double focus on abstractions and specifics. This tactic would later feed into early novels, as we will see in this chapter’s analyses of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Sarah Fielding, and Henry Fielding.
El siguiente artículo presenta las principales líneas de investigación de mi ensayo Pequeñas memorias y escritura de lo cotidiano. Cortázar, Perec y sus ecos contemporáneos (2021). En particular, el análisis de ciertos “micro-géneros” literarios como las “instrucciones” o los “trabajos prácticos”, ligados a la exploración de lo cotidiano, nos permitirá analizar la obra de Julio Cortázar desde el punto de vista de los “proyectos a realizar”, una noción que nos obliga a repensar los vínculos entre la literatura y los protocolos experimentales del arte conceptual.
En los últimos años, lo fantástico se ha convertido en una de las vías expresivas fundamentales en la narrativa española. Un amplio número de autores nacidos entre 1960 y 1975 cultiva lo fantástico con asiduidad, sobre todo en sus cuentos y microrrelatos. Se trata de escritores que han asumido el género con total normalidad, a la vez que exploran nuevas formas y temas vinculados con las concepciones estéticas e ideológicas de la Posmodernidad. Este artículo examina algunos de los elementos recurrentes en los relatos de estos autores con el objetivo de establecer una Poética de lo fantástico contemporáneo.
La mayoría de las lecturas clásicas del discurso fantástico (Todorov, Jackson, etc.) han enfatizado el componente subversivo o irracional del mismo. Aunque también existen comentarios acerca de su componente miméticos o realista, éstos últimos no han profundizado en las posibles consecuencias que esa dimensión realista y su interacción con la propiamente fantástica pueden tener para entender y explicar la interacción entre ambos componentes y, por tanto, lo que podría ser el núcleo estructural de todo relato fantástico. A través de una innovadora clasificación de los objetos materiales que suelen aparecen en esos relatos y a través del estudio de su ontología metafísica, mi artículo trata de mostrar que ese componente mimético y realista no sólo es parte fundante del discurso fantástico sino que incluso reivindica lo que aparentemente ese discurso estaría cuestionando, es decir la consistencia metafísica de la realidad extramental. Con ejemplos extraídos principalmente de las literaturas hispánicas concluyo que la literatura fantástica es esencialmente un oxymoron metafísico y que su dimensión subversiva o disidente se da sólo a posteriori, una vez que el autor ha obedecido las leyes aristotélicas de la construcción textual.
Recent studies of the conceptualization of the Devil in the early modern period have pointed to the shifting theological and philosophical coordinates, which made possible a diverse spectrum of representation of diabolical evil—from Francis Bacon’s naturalistic scepticism to King James’s supernatural demonology. Shakespeare has always been central to this discussion but has not yet been placed in a contextual frame that incorporates the rise of scholarly interest in the diabolical. This article interprets Shakespeare’s representation of diabolical evil in Hamlet (1601), Othello (1603), Measure for Measure (1604) and Macbeth (1606) as constituted by a complex tension between natural and supernatural ideas about the origin of evil. Drawing on a raft of recent scholarship on representations of witchcraft and devils in the period, I show that diabolical figures in the universe of Shakespeare during the period of great tragedies between 1601 to 1606 exist in two modes of representation: as a persistent magical ambience and as a localized agent. Ambivalence is expressed in the hesitation between these opposing theological modes and is evident in the way that the Devil’s material agency is obscured and left unresolved. Viewing this through the lens of the fantastic as an ontological uncertainty that results in epistemological hesitation helps us to frame Shakespeare’s ambivalence, which at least in part originates in the ambivalent theology of Calvin. The analysis thereby positions hesitation and diabolic temptation in line with Calvin’s theology and shows how Calvin’s framework of secular evil presents an intellectual context through which Shakespeare’s ambiguity can be understood in theological terms.
El artículo analiza la presencia de elementos políticos e ideológicos en dos cuentos fantásticos del narrador cubano Antonio Benítez Rojo (1931-2005): “Estatuas sepultadas” y “Peligro en La Rampa” (Tute de reyes, 1967). El objetivo del estudio es mostrar las formas en que una ficción fantástica puede involucrarse en una cuestión política y tomar partido, contra cierta opinión generalizada acerca del carácter evasivo de ese género literario. El marco teórico para considerar fantásticos ambos textos es la teoría de Ana María Barrenechea, y para analizar la presencia y funcionamiento de componentes políticos e ideológicos se parte de la teoría del punto de vista de Boris Uspensky. Como resultado, el estudio muestra la presencia de elementos temáticos políticos en ambos cuentos y la toma de partido del autor a favor del discurso oficial, pese a la sutileza que le proporcionaron las voces narrativas empleadas en los dos textos.
“Tolkien scholarship” is used as a generic term for all critical studies whose subject is Tolkien's work. This chapter of the dominant critical reception of Tolkien's fiction consistently shows two characteristics which seem especially significant: a visceral hostility and emotional animus, and a plethora of mistakes showing that the books had not been read closely (or in a few cases, at all). The Hobbit was published in 1937 to some acclaim, but Tolkien criticism started in earnest with publication of The Lord of the Rings , as a book for adults, in 1954–1955. It stepped up with the book's spectacular success beginning in 1965, was given renewed impetus by the results of readers' polls in 1996–1998, and again by Peter Jackson's films in 2001–2003, and 2012–2013. Tolkien also received some critical notice with publication of The Silmarillion (in 1977).
Dede Korkut Hikâyeleri anlatım teknikleri, kurgu özellikleri yönünden önemli bir konumda bulunmaktadır. Nitekim bir eserin okuyucunun ilgisini çekmesinde içeriğin ve anlatım tekniğinin önemli etkileri bulunmaktadır. Bu anlatım tekniklerinden biri olan ve geleneksel anlatılarda da karşılaştığımız fantastik / olağanüstü ögelerle eserlerin zenginleştirilmesini Dede Korkut Hikâyelerinde de gözlemlemek mümkündür. Bu çalışmada Dede Korkut Hikâyeleri fantastik / olağanüstü ögeler açısından değerlendirilmiştir. Metinler fantastik / olağanüstü ögeler yönünden incelenmesine ek olarak, fantastik edebiyat türünün özellikleri yönünden de incelenmiştir. İncelenen destanların, kullanılan fantastik / olağanüstü ögelerin metin kişilerinde ve/veya okuyucuda gerçek / düş yönünden herhangi bir kararsızlık süreci oluşturmadığı için fantastik edebiyat kapsamında yer almadığı; fantastik edebiyata yakın bir tür olan saf olağanüstü kapsamında yer aldığı sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.
Emerged as a reaction to the strict laws, firm regulations and scientific reasoning of the Enlightment Era, Gothic literature is accepted as the darker strain, developed during the Romantic Period in the 18th century. The authors of Gothic literature tended to create terror and suspense with the uncanny, supernatural, spiritual, and irrational elements to replace order and accepted beliefs of the Age of Reason. Gothic fiction possesses certain traits: setting as the abandoned castles, cemeteries, towers, isolated churches; mysterious and gloomy atmosphere; the use of supernatural powers such as witches, vampires, ghosts or spirits; magic, mystery and curse. Although as a genre, gothic has been associated with men, women gain crucial roles in horror stories in literature of the western and Turkish cultures. There are various epithets attributed to female characters in gothic fiction: damsels in distress, victims, domestic governesses, evils, predators or prisoners; however, in this study, victims and femme fatales in horror narration are comparatively analyzed. Within this scope, examples from western and Turkish literatures were chosen for the analysis to specify the similarities among gothic female literary characters. Based on the analysis, it could be concluded that while the victims are forced to struggle with the evil forces to resist patriarchy, femme fatale gothic figures create them to challenge patriarchy.
p>The main issues that are covered in this study of American postmodernist fiction are its mapping of narrative, the political projects articulated by contemporary American writers, and the relationship between postmodernist fiction and postmodern culture. Narrative is not a commonly used term in discussions of postmodernist fiction, most criticism seeing postmodernism as a form characterised by an obsession with the aleatory play of language and an investigation of the fiction-making process. Nor are the political and cultural concerns of postmodernism adequately covered. The death of the `real' in postmodernism is not usually seen to allow fiction the possibility of referentially engaging with the forms and processes of postmodern culture because no `reality' exists for postmodernist fiction to refer to. This thesis questions these approaches to postmodernist fiction and offers an alternative approach to a group of novels that I call political metafiction. These novels include works by Pynchon, Gaddis, Coover, Reed, McElroy, Burroughs, Sukenick, and Barthelme, all of whom reconfigure narrative outside the linear realist model of narrative as a means to enact, address, and resist the operations of ideology in contemporary society. To ground the discussion of these texts there is a substantial discussion of narrative, focusing on the need to reconceptualise narrative as a process of arrangement and as a dynamic form, rather than as a functional structure. There is also a discussion of political metafiction's relationship to postmodern culture, which questions the view that postmodernist fiction cannot establish a critical distance from postmodern culture. I argue that the self-consciousness with which political metafiction maps its narratives prevents a replication of the fragmented space of postmodernity, allowing political metafiction to intervene in the production of cultural meanings instead of being defined by those which already exist. Detailed discussions of the novels of political metafiction follow, focusing on both the specific narrative forms they generate and the political projects they articulate as a means to reconfigure forms of identity and cultural practice in contemporary society. Particular attention is paid to Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and McElroy's Lookout Cartridge, novels which crystallise many of the issues with which political metafiction is engaged.</p
p>This thesis explores the uncanny modalities of erotic affect in vampire literature and film, presenting the vampire as a popular cultural version of transgressive human sovereignty. My theoretical trajectory interfaces literary, cinematic, cultural studies, and continental philosophy, and emerges from an initial overview of twentieth century cultural contexts for discussing the secular sacred. Although I engage with psychoanalysis, I have not merely extended the long history of psychoanalytic interpretations of the vampiric. Rather, I seek to test its application for a body of literature and film which celebrates Plenitude. I also consider the dynamics of Lack and Plenitude via the perspectives on transgression and sovereign human agency offered by continental philosophy.
I will situate my study of this popular form within the history of the genre, debates on the status of the popular, and theoretical perspectives on transgression. Subsequent chapters explore vampiric transgression's particular modalities and their articulation in fiction and film. I consider the libertine as sovereign subject and locate transgression at the beginning of modernity. Vampire fiction developed contemporaneously with Sade's concept of transgressive sovereignty. Despite their commonality with libertines, vampires have developed an economy of maintaining ecstasy. I also explore the perverse fantastic and Lacanian notions of supplementary female jouissance by a focus on lesbian vampires by male authors. The textual operations of jouissance in Gothic are addressed as a form of pornography. Masochistic elements are highlighted in the work of Freud and Nietszche as they theorise the numinous excess of eroticism from a materialist frame. The inadequacy of Freudian Oedipality and Lacan's model of originary Lack are indicated by a Nietszche-based reading of vampires as sovereign übermenschen effecting an eternal return in undeath. To explore this condition, a theoretical approach is needed which considers a human-based metaphysics of becoming.</p
p>This thesis charts the status and function of Optical Agency in William Morris's The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems , and in the work of John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites. It reads Morris's first volume in relationship to Ruskin's complex optical theories. It claims that the importance of optical discourse, particularly photography, to the sister arts analogy in the mid 19th Century has been both undervalued and misrepresented. It shows how diverse forms of optical mediation do not constitute neutral practices, but culturally and historically specific ones that are appropriated in the texts of Ruskin and Morris. Chapter one sets into play the interrelationships between texts by Wordsworth, Millais, de Quincey, Brewster, and Patmore in order to dramatise a paradigm for larger optical issues. At the same time it demonstrates how two optical practices, monoscopy and stereoscopy, can be understood to be appropriated to the discourses of literature and painting. Chapters two and three read closely Ruskin's Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice and Morris's Shadows of Amiens in order to chart a prevalent range of optical issues. Ruskin's theory of the Noble Grotesque is read as a mode of visual perception which celebrates a process of transcendence before the eye, as the perpetually aberrant depth of field. Perceptual aberration is subsequently located as a central optical issue in both Ruskin and Morris. An analogous account of the Ruskinian grotesque is examined in Morris's `Rapunzel'. Optical complexities present in the rhetoric of contemporary reviews of The Defence of Guenevere are taken in Chapter four as exemplary of larger problems inherent in the disruptive optical discourse. Chapter six reads the volume in relationship to Ruskin's account `Of Modern Landscape' in Modern Painters 3 dramatising the conflicting biases of optical mediation in the sister arts analogy.</p
La novela En la ciudad de los muertos (2011) es un raro ejercicio en la narrativa vampírica
actual, la cual parece haberse congraciado con el humanizado o naturalizado vampiro
posmoderno. En contraste, Latorre reivindica en esta obra al arquetípico no muerto de
la literatura gótico-romántica. En este estudio se ofrece una aproximación a las estra
tegias
narratológicas a las que se ha recurrido en la obra para imbuir de terror a un ser
cuya inteligencia adaptativa lo ha transmutado en algo muchas veces ajeno a lo mons
truoso.
Para ello, se desentrañarán los hipotextos principales de los que se sirve la no
vela.
También, se cuestionará su supuesta pérdida de vigencia como ente capaz de
producir un efecto terrorífico, de encarnar los terrores, vicios o preocupaciones de la
contemporaneidad. Y, por último, se estudiarán las sutiles actualizaciones que se han
incorporado en los valores cronotópicos de la novela gótica a la que emula.
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