Signs of a fantastic story. What is fantasy? Stamps in science fiction and fantasy

Many people like to read books or watch films that are based on something fantastic, something that will never actually happen. This is the genre that is called fantasy. However, the question of what science fiction is can be answered in another way. Fantasy is just a fairy tale. And this is actually true. Why? Now you'll find out.

What is fantasy in literature

It seems to us that science fiction stories and novels began to be written not so long ago. but in fact, people were fond of this genre back in those distant times when they painted pictures on the rocks. Already from some of them today it can be determined that what is drawn there is something fantastic, which in reality simply cannot happen.

And then fantasy books very, very many authors began to write. Just look at Gulliver's Adventure by D. Swift or The Time Machine by H. Wells. But at all times, attitudes towards science fiction have always been different. Today we read science fiction books about how a war occurs between cosmic worlds, but just a couple of centuries ago the fairy tales of the Brothers Grim were considered science fiction.

Types of fiction

• Futurological fiction. This genre includes all books and films that describe wars in outer space, aliens, and incredible spaceships.
• Folklore fiction, which is sometimes also called fantasy, allows for the introduction into the human world of some phenomena or creatures that have never existed.
• Peace fiction. This type of fiction aims to create a non-existent world. Examples include the films “Avatar” or “Narnia”.
• Mystical fiction, which is called horror, allows for the introduction of some incomprehensible and mystical phenomena.
• Phasmatasmagoric fiction manifests itself in that it simply does not have any logical basis or just an explanation.
• Science fiction cites in its works certain non-existent scientific achievements, such achievements that we can only dream of.

Now you know exactly what fantasy is, and you will never again confuse this attractive and very interesting genre with anything else.

IN modern literary criticism and criticism, issues related to the history of the emergence of science fiction have been studied relatively little, and the role of the experience of “pre-scientific” fiction of the past in its formation and development has been studied even less.

Characteristic, for example, is the statement of critic A. Gromova, the author of an article about science fiction in the "Concise Literary Encyclopedia": "Science fiction became a mass phenomenon precisely in the era when science began to play decisive role in the life of society, relatively speaking, after the Second World War, although the main features of modern science fiction were already outlined in the works of Wells and partly K. Capek" (2). However, it is quite right to emphasize the relevance of science fiction as literary phenomenon, brought to life by the uniqueness of the new historical era, its urgent needs and requirements, we must not forget that the literary genealogical roots of modern science fiction go back to hoary antiquity, that it is the legitimate heir to the greatest achievements of world science fiction and can and should use these achievements, this artistic experience in the service of the interests of our time.

Small literary encyclopedia defines fantasy as a type of fiction in which the author's fiction extends from the depiction of strangely unusual, implausible phenomena to the creation of a special fictional, unreal, “wonderful world.”

The fantastic has its own fantastic type of imagery with its inherent high degree of conventionality, an outright violation of real logical connections and patterns, natural proportions and forms of the depicted object.

Science fiction as a special area literary creativity accumulates the creative imagination of the artist, and at the same time the imagination of the reader; at the same time, fantasy is not an arbitrary “realm of imagination”: in a fantastic picture of the world, the reader guesses the transformed forms of real, social and spiritual human existence.

Fantastic imagery is inherent in such folklore genres as a fairy tale, epic, allegory, legend, grotesque, utopia, satire. The artistic effect of a fantastic image is achieved due to a sharp repulsion from empirical reality, therefore the basis of fantastic works is the opposition between the fantastic and the real.

The poetics of the fantastic is associated with the doubling of the world: the artist either models his own incredible world, existing according to its own laws (in this case, the real “reference point” is present hidden, remaining outside the text: “Gulliver’s Travels” by J. Swift, “The Dream” funny man» F.M. Dostoevsky) or parallel recreates two streams - real and supernatural, unreal being.

In the fantastic literature of this series, mystical, irrational motives are strong; the science fiction writer here appears as an otherworldly force interfering with fate central character, influencing his behavior and the course of events of the entire work (for example, works of medieval literature, Renaissance literature, romanticism).

With the destruction of mythological consciousness and the growing desire in the art of modern times to seek driving forces of being in being itself, already in the literature of romanticism there appears a need to motivate the fantastic, which in one way or another could be combined with a general orientation towards a natural depiction of characters and situations.

The most consistent techniques of such motivated fiction are dreams, rumors, hallucinations, madness, and plot mystery. Created new type veiled, implicit fiction (Yu.V. Mann), leaving the possibility of double interpretation, double motivation of fantastic incidents - empirically or psychologically plausible and inexplicably surreal (“Cosmorama” by V.F. Odoevsky, “Shtos” by M.Yu. Lermontov, “ Sandman" by E.T.A.

Such conscious instability of motivation often leads to the disappearance of the subject of the fantastic (“ Queen of Spades» A.S. Pushkin, “The Nose” by N.V. Gogol), and in many cases its irrationality is completely removed, finding a prosaic explanation in the course of the development of the narrative.

Science fiction stands out as a special type artistic creativity as folklore forms move away from the practical tasks of mythological comprehension of reality and ritual and magical influence on it. The primitive worldview, becoming historically untenable, is perceived as fantastic. A characteristic feature of the emergence of fantasy is the development of an aesthetics of the miraculous, which is not characteristic of primitive folklore. A stratification occurs: the heroic tale and tales about the cultural hero are transformed into heroic epic(folk allegory and generalization of history), in which the elements of the miraculous are auxiliary; the fabulously magical element is recognized as such and serves as a natural environment for a story about travel and adventure, taken beyond the historical framework.

So Homer's Iliad is essentially a realistic description of the episode Trojan War(which is not hampered by the participation of celestial heroes in the action); Homer's "Odyssey" is, first of all, a fantastic story about all kinds of incredible adventures(not related to the epic plot) one of the heroes of the same war. The plot images and incidents of the Odyssey are the beginning of all literary European fiction. In much the same way as the Iliad and the Odyssey relate to the heroic saga “The Voyage of Bran, son of Phebal” (7th century AD). The prototype of future fantastic travels was the parody " True story"Lucian, where is the author for strengthening comic effect sought to pile up as much incredible and absurd as possible and at the same time enriched the flora and fauna of the “wonderful country” with numerous tenacious inventions.

Thus, even in antiquity, the main directions of fantasy were outlined - fantastic wanderings, adventures and a fantastic search, pilgrimage (a typical plot is a descent into hell). Ovid in “Metamorphoses” directed the original mythological plots of transformations (transformations of people into animals, constellations, stones, etc.) into the mainstream of fantasy and laid the foundation for a fantastic-symbolic allegory - a genre more didactic than adventure: “teaching in miracles.” Fantastic transformations become a form of awareness of the vicissitudes and unreliability of human fate in a world subject only to the arbitrariness of chance or the mysterious higher will.

A rich body of literary-processed fairy-tale fiction is provided by the tales of “A Thousand and One Nights”; the influence of their exotic imagery was felt in European pre-romanticism and romanticism. Literature from Kalidasa to R. Tagore is saturated with fantastic images and echoes of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. A unique literary amalgamation of folk tales, legends and beliefs are represented by numerous works of Japanese (for example, the genre of “story of the terrible and extraordinary” - “Konjaku monogatari”) and Chinese fiction (“Tales of Miracles from the Liao Cabinet” by Pu Songling).

Fantastic fiction under the sign of the “aesthetics of the miraculous” was the basis of the medieval knightly epic - from Beowulf (8th century) to Peresval (c. 1182) by Chrétien de Troyes and Le Morte d’Arthur (1469) by T. Malory. The fantastic plots were framed by the legend of the court of King Arthur, which was subsequently superimposed on the imaginative chronicle of the Crusades. Further transformation of these plots is demonstrated by the monumentally fantastic Renaissance poems “Roland in Love” by Boiardo, “Furious Roland” by L. Ariosto, “Jerusalem Liberated” by T. Tasso, and “The Fairy Queen” by E. Spenser, which have almost completely lost their historical-epic basis. Together with numerous chivalric novels of the 14th - 16th centuries. they constitute a special era in the development of science fiction. A milestone in the development of the fantastic allegory created by Ovid was the “Roman of the Rose” of the 13th century. Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Men.

The development of fantasy during the Renaissance is completed by “Don Quixote” by M. Cervantes, a parody of the fantasy of knightly adventures, and “Gargantua and Pantagruel” by F. Rabelais, a comic epic on a fantastic basis, both traditional and arbitrarily reinterpreted. In Rabelais we find (chapter “The Abbey of Thélem”) one of the first examples of the fantastic development of the utopian genre.

To a lesser extent than ancient mythology and folklore, fantasy was stimulated by religious mythological images of the Bible. Major works of Christian fiction - “ Lost Paradise" and "Paradise Regained" by J. Milton are based not on canonical biblical texts, but on apocrypha. This does not detract from the fact that works of European fantasy of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as a rule, have an ethical Christian overtones or represent a play of fantastic images in the spirit of Christian apocryphal demonology. Outside of science fiction are the lives of saints, where miracles are fundamentally highlighted as extraordinary. However, Christian mythology contributes to the flourishing of a special genre of visionary fiction. Starting with the apocalypse of John the Theologian, “visions” or “revelation” become a full-fledged literary genre: various aspects of it are represented by “The Vision of Peter the Plowman” (1362) by W. Langland and “The Divine Comedy” by Dante.

K con. 17th century mannerism and baroque, for which fantasy was a constant background, additional artistic plan(at the same time there was an aestheticization of the perception of fantasy, a loss of a living sense of the miraculous, characteristic of the fantastic literature of subsequent centuries), was replaced by classicism, which is inherently alien to fantasy: its appeal to myth is completely rationalistic. In novels of the 17th - 18th centuries. Motives and images of fiction are used to complicate the intrigue. The fantastic quest is interpreted as erotic adventures (“fairy tales,” for example, “Akaju and Zirfila C. Duclos”). Fantastic without having independent meaning, turns out to be a help to a picaresque novel (“The Lame Demon” by A.R. Lesage, “The Devil in Love” by J. Cazotte), a philosophical treatise (“Voltaire’s Micromegas”), etc. The reaction to the dominance of educational rationalism is characteristic of the 2nd sex. 18th century; the Englishman R. Hurd calls for a heartfelt study of fantasy (“Letters on Chivalry and Medieval Romances”); in “The Adventures of Count Ferdinand Fathom” T. Smollett anticipates the beginning of the development of fantasy in the 19th and 20th centuries. gothic novel by H. Walpole, A. Radcliffe, M. Lewis. By supplying accessories to romantic plots, fantasy remains in an auxiliary role: with its help, the duality of images and events becomes the pictorial principle of pre-romanticism.

In modern times, the combination of fantasy and romanticism has proven especially fruitful. “Refuge in the realm of fantasy” (Y.L. Kerner) was sought by all romantics: fantasy, i.e. the aspiration of the imagination into the transcendental world of myths and legends was put forward as a way of becoming familiar with higher insight, as a life program that is relatively prosperous (due to romantic irony) in L. Tieck, pathetic and tragic in Novalis, whose “Heinrich von Ofterdingen” is an example of an updated fantastic allegory , meaningful in the spirit of searching for an unattainable and incomprehensible ideal-spiritual world.

The Heidelberg school used fantasy as a source of plots, giving additional interest to earthly events (for example, “Isabella of Egypt” by L. A. Arnim is a fantastic arrangement of a love episode from the life of Charles V). This approach to fiction has proven particularly promising. In an effort to enrich the resources of fantasy, German romantics turned to its primary sources - they collected and processed fairy tales and legends (“Folk Tales of Peter Lebrecht” arranged by Tieck; “Children’s and family tales" and "German legends" by the brothers J. and W. Grimm). This contributed to the formation of the genre of literary fairy tales in all European literatures, which remains a leader in children's fiction to this day. Its classic example is the fairy tales of H. C. Andersen.

Romantic fiction is synthesized by Hoffmann’s work: here is both the Gothic novel (“The Devil’s Elixir”) and literary fairy tale("Lord of the Fleas", "The Nutcracker and mouse king"), and enchanting phantasmagoria ("Princess Brambilla"), and realistic story with a fantastic background (“The Bride’s Choice”, “The Pot of Gold”).

An attempt to improve the attraction to fantasy as an “abyss of the otherworldly” is represented by “Faust” by I.V. Goethe; Using the traditional fantastic motif of selling the soul to the devil, the poet reveals the futility of the wanderings of the spirit in the realms of the fantastic and affirms earthly life activity that transforms the world as the final value (i.e. utopian ideal excluded from the realm of fantasy and projected into the future).

In Russia, romantic fiction is represented in the works of V.A. Zhukovsky, V.F. Odoevsky, L. Pogorelsky, A.F. Veltman.

A.S. turned to science fiction. Pushkin (“Ruslan and Lyudmila”, where the epic fairy-tale flavor of fantasy is especially important) and N.V. Gogol, whose fantastic images are organically fused into the folk poetic ideal picture of Ukraine (“Terrible Vengeance”, “Viy”). His St. Petersburg fantasies (“Nose”, “Portrait”, “Nevsky Prospekt”) are no longer associated with folk fairy-tale motifs and are otherwise determined by the general picture of “escheated” reality, the condensed image of which, as it were, in itself gives rise to fantastic images.

With approval critical realism fiction again found itself on the periphery of literature, although it was often involved as a unique narrative context, giving a symbolic character to real images (“The Picture of Dorian Gray” by O. Wilde, “ Shagreen leather» O. Balzac, works by M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrina, S. Bronte, N. Hawthorne, A. Strindberg). The Gothic tradition of fantasy is developed by E. Poe, who depicts or implies a transcendental, otherworldly world as a kingdom of ghosts and nightmares that dominate the earthly destinies of people.

However, he also anticipated (The History of Arthur Gordon Pym, Descent into the Maelstrom) the emergence of a new branch of fantasy - science fiction, which (starting with J. Verne and H. Wells) is fundamentally isolated from the general fantasy tradition; she paints a real, albeit fantastically transformed by science (for better or worse), world, which opens up in a new way to the researcher’s gaze.

Interest in science fiction as such is being revived towards the end. 19th century among the neo-romantics (R.L. Stevenson), decadents (M. Schwob, F. Sologub), symbolists (M. Maeterlinck, prose of A. Bely, dramaturgy of A.A. Blok), expressionists (G. Meyrink), surrealists (G . Kazak, E. Kroyder). The development of children's literature gives rise to a new image of the fantasy world - the toy world: in L. Carroll, C. Collodi, A. Milne; V Soviet literature: from A.N. Tolstoy (“The Golden Key”), N.N. Nosova, K.I. Chukovsky. An imaginary, partly fairy-tale world is created by A. Green.

In the 2nd half. 20th century The fantastic principle is realized mainly in the field of science fiction, but sometimes it gives rise to qualitatively new artistic phenomena, for example, the trilogy of the Englishman J.R. Tolkien “The Lord of the Rings” (1954-55), written in the vein of epic fantasy, novels and dramas by Abe Kobo, works of Spanish and Latin American writers (G. Garcia Marquez, J. Cortazar).

Modernity is characterized by the above-mentioned contextual use of fantasy, when an outwardly realistic narrative has a symbolic and allegorical connotation and gives a more or less encrypted reference to some mythological plot(for example, “Centaur” by J. Andyke, “Ship of Fools” by K.A. Porter). A combination of various possibilities of fiction is the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita". The fantastic-allegorical genre is represented in Soviet literature by the cycle of “natural philosophical” poems by N.A. Zabolotsky (“The Triumph of Agriculture”, etc.), folk fairy-tale fiction by the works of P.P. Bazhov, literary fairy tale - plays by E.L. Schwartz.

Science fiction has become a traditional auxiliary means of Russian and Soviet grotesque satire: from Saltykov-Shchedrin (“The History of a City”) to V.V. Mayakovsky (“Bedbug” and “Bathhouse”).

In the 2nd half. 20th century the tendency to create self-sufficiently holistic works of science fiction is clearly weakening, but science fiction remains a living and fruitful branch various directions fiction.

Research by Yu. Kagarlitsky allows us to trace the history of the “science fiction” genre.

The term "science fiction" is of very recent origin. Jules Verne did not use it yet. He entitled his series of novels “Extraordinary Journeys” and in correspondence called them “novels about science.” Present Russian definition“science fiction” is an inaccurate (and therefore much more successful) translation of the English “science fiction”, that is, “scientific fiction”. It came from the founder of the first science fiction magazines in the USA and writer Hugo Gernsback, who in the late twenties began to apply the definition of “scientific fiction” to works of this kind, and in 1929 for the first time used the definitive term in the journal Science Wonder Stories, has since become entrenched. This term received, however, a very different content. When applied to the work of Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback, who closely followed him, it should perhaps be interpreted as “technical fiction”; for H. G. Wells, it is science fiction in the most etymologically correct sense of the word - he is not so much talking about the technical embodiment of old scientific theories , as much as about new fundamental discoveries and their social consequences - in today's literature, the meaning of the term has expanded unusually, and there is no need to talk about too strict definitions now.

The fact that the term itself appeared so recently and its meaning has managed to be modified so many times testifies to one thing - science fiction has traveled most of its path over the last hundred years, and has developed more and more intensively from decade to decade.

The fact is that the scientific and technological revolution gave science fiction a huge impetus, and it also created an unusually wide and diverse readership for it. Here are those who are drawn to science fiction because the language of scientific fact with which it often operates is their own language, and those who, through fiction, join the movement of scientific thought, perceived at least in the most general and approximate outlines. This is an indisputable fact, confirmed by numerous sociological studies and extraordinary circulations of fiction - a fact that is fundamentally deeply positive. However, we should not forget about the other side of the issue.

The scientific and technological revolution took place on the basis of centuries-old development of knowledge. It carries within itself the fruits of thought accumulated over centuries - in the full breadth of the meaning of this word. Science not only accumulated skills and multiplied its achievements, it rediscovered the world for humanity, forcing it from century to century to be amazed again and again by this newly discovered world. Every scientific revolution—ours first of all—is not only the rise of subsequent thought, but also an outburst of the human spirit.

But progress is always dialectical. It remains the same in this case. Abundance new information The pressure that befalls a person during such upheavals is such that he is in danger of being cut off from the past. And, on the contrary, awareness of this danger can in other cases give rise to the most retrograde forms of protest against the new, against any restructuring of consciousness, respectively today. We must ensure that the present organically includes what has been accumulated by spiritual progress.

Until recently, one most often heard that science fiction of the 20th century was a completely unprecedented phenomenon. This view held so firmly and for a long time in large part because even its opponents, who defend the deeper connections of science fiction with the past of literature, sometimes had a very relative idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthis past.

Criticism of science fiction was mostly carried out by people with a scientific and technical, rather than a humanities, education - people who came from among the science fiction writers themselves or from amateur circles (“fan clubs”). With one, albeit very significant, exception (Extrapolation, published under the editorship of Professor Thomas Clarson in the USA and distributed in twenty-three countries), magazines devoted to the criticism of science fiction are organs of such circles (they are usually referred to as “fanzines”, that is, “amateur magazines”; in Western Europe and... the USA there is even an international “fanzine movement”; Hungary has recently joined it). In many respects these journals are of considerable interest, but they cannot compensate for the lack of specialized literary works.

As for academic science, the rise of science fiction also affected it, but prompted it to focus primarily on the writers of the past. Such is the series of works by Professor Marjorie Nicholson, begun in the thirties, devoted to the relationship between science fiction and science, such as the book by J. Bailey “Pilgrims of Space and Time” (1947). It took a certain amount of time to get closer to modernity. This is probably due not only to the fact that it was not possible, and could not be possible, to prepare positions for this kind of research in one day, to find methods that meet the specifics of the subject, and special aesthetic criteria (from science fiction, for example, one cannot demand that approach to the depiction of the human image, which is characteristic of non-fantastic literature. The author wrote about this in detail in the article “Realism and Fantasy”, published in the journal “Questions of Literature” (1971, No. I). Another reason lies, it should be thought, in the fact that. Only recently has a large period in the history of science fiction ended, which has now become the subject of research. Previously, its tendencies had not yet been sufficiently revealed.

Now, therefore, the situation in literary criticism is beginning to change. History helps us understand a lot in modern science fiction, and the latter, in turn, helps us appreciate a lot in the old one. They write more and more seriously about science fiction. Of the Soviet works based on the material of Western science fiction, the articles by T. Chernyshova (Irkutsk) and E. Tamarchenko (Perm) are very interesting. They devoted themselves to science fiction lately Yugoslav professor Darko Suvin, now working in Montreal, and American professors Thomas Clarson and Mark Hillegas. Works written by non-professional literary scholars also become more profound. An international Association for the Study of Science Fiction has been created, uniting representatives of universities where science fiction courses are taught, libraries, writers' organizations in the USA, Canada and a number of other countries. This association established the Pilgrim Award in 1970 "for outstanding contributions to the study of science fiction." (The 1070 Prize was awarded to J. Bailey, 1971 - M. Nicholson, 1972 - Y. Kagarlitsky). The general trend of development now is from a review (which, in fact, was the often cited book by Kingsley Amis “New Maps of Hell”) to research, and historically based research.

Science fiction of the 20th century played a role in preparing many aspects of modern realism in general. Man in the face of the future, man in the face of nature, man in the face of technology, which is increasingly becoming a new environment of existence for him - these and many other questions came to modern realism from science fiction - from that fiction that today is called “scientific”.

This word characterizes a lot in the method of modern science fiction and the ideological aspirations of its foreign representatives.

Extraordinary large number scientists who exchanged their occupation for science fiction (the list of them opens H.G. Wells) or combining science with work in this field of creativity (among them are the founder of cybernetics Norbert Wiener, and major astronomers Arthur Clarke and Fred Hoyle, and one of the creators atomic bomb Leo Szilard, and the great anthropologist Chad Oliver and many other famous names), is not accidental.

In science fiction, that part of the bourgeois intelligentsia in the West, which, due to its involvement in science, understands better than others the seriousness of the problems facing humanity, has found a means of expressing its ideas. tragic outcome today's difficulties and contradictions and feels responsible for the future of our planet.

Fantastic motifs are one of the main techniques for creating a certain key situation in works of not only Russian but also world culture.

In Russian literature, writers of various directions have addressed these motifs. So, for example, in romantic poems Lermontov contains images other world. In "Demon" the artist depicts the protesting Spirit of Evil. The work carries the idea of ​​protest against deity as the creator of the existing world order.

The only way out of sadness and loneliness for the Demon is love for Tamara. However, the Spirit of Evil cannot achieve happiness because it is selfish, cut off from the world and from people. In the name of love, the Demon is ready to renounce his old revenge against God, he is even ready to follow Good. It seems to the hero that tears of repentance will regenerate him. But he cannot overcome the most painful vice - contempt for humanity. The death of Tamara and the loneliness of the Demon is an inevitable consequence of his arrogance and selfishness.

Thus, Lermontov turns to fiction in order to more accurately convey the mood and intent of the work, to express his thoughts and experiences.

A slightly different purpose of fantasy in the works of M. Bulgakov. The style of many of this writer’s works can be defined as fantastic realism. It is easy to notice that the principles of depicting Moscow in the novel “The Master and Margarita” clearly resemble the principles of depicting Gogol’s Petersburg: a combination of the real with the fantastic, the strange with the ordinary, social satire and phantasmagoria.

The narration in the novel is carried out simultaneously in two plans. The first plan is the events taking place in Moscow. The second plan is a story about Pilate and Yeshua, composed by a master. These two plans are united, brought together by the retinue of Woland - Satan and his servants.

The appearance of Woland and his retinue in Moscow becomes the event that changed the lives of the heroes of the novel. Here we can talk about the tradition of the romantics, in whom the Demon is a hero, sympathetic to the author with his intelligence and irony. Woland's retinue is as mysterious as he himself. Azazello, Koroviev, Behemoth, Gella are characters who attract the reader with their uniqueness. They become the arbiters of justice in the city.

Bulgakov introduces a fantastic motif in order to show that in his contemporary world it is only possible to achieve justice with the help of an otherworldly force.

In the works of V. Mayakovsky, fantastic motifs are of a different nature. Thus, in the poem “An Extraordinary Adventure that Vladimir Mayakovsky had in the Summer at the Dacha,” the hero has a friendly conversation with the sun itself. The poet believes that his activity is similar to the glow of this luminary:

Let's go, poet,

The world is in gray trash.

I will pour my sunshine,

And you are yours

Thus, Mayakovsky, with the help of a fantastic plot, solves realistic problems: he explains his understanding of the role of the poet and poetry in Soviet society.

Without a doubt, turning to fantastic motifs helps domestic writers more vividly, accurately and clearly convey the main thoughts, feelings and ideas of their works.

In literature and other arts, the depiction of implausible phenomena, the introduction of fictional images that do not coincide with reality, a clearly felt violation by the artist of natural forms, causal relationships, and laws of nature. Term F.... ... Literary encyclopedia

FICTION, a form of depicting life in which, based on real ideas, a supernatural, surreal, wonderful picture of the world is created. Distributed in folklore, art, social utopia. In fiction, theater, cinema... Modern encyclopedia

Fantasy- FICTION, a form of displaying life in which, based on real ideas, a supernatural, surreal, “wonderful” picture of the world is created. Distributed in folklore, art, social utopia. In fiction, theater,... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (from the Greek phantastike the art of imagining) a form of displaying the world in which, on the basis of real ideas, a logically incompatible (supernatural, miraculous) picture of the Universe is created. Distributed in folklore, art,... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (Greek phantastike - the art of imagining) - a form of reflection of the world, in which a logically incompatible picture of the Universe is created on the basis of real ideas. Widespread in mythology, folklore, art, social utopia. IN XIX - XX... ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies

fantasy- FICTION in literature, art and some other discourses, the depiction of facts and events that, from the point of view of the prevailing opinions in a given culture, did not and could not occur (“fantastic”). The concept of "F." is… … Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

Fantasy- FANTASTIC means the special nature of works of art, directly opposed to realism (see this word and the word fantasy). Fiction does not recreate reality in its laws and foundations, but freely violates them; she forms her own... Dictionary of literary terms

FANTASTIC, and, female. 1. That which is based on creative imagination, fantasy, fiction. F. folk tales. 2. collected Literary works, describing fictional, supernatural events. Scientific f. (in literature,... ... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

Noun, number of synonyms: 19 anrial (2) fiction (1) great (143) ... Dictionary of synonyms

This term has other meanings, see Science Fiction (meanings). Fantasy is a type of mimesis, in the narrow sense a genre of fiction, cinema and fine arts; its aesthetic dominant is... ... Wikipedia

Books

• Fiction 88/89, . 1990 edition. The condition is excellent. A traditional collection of science fiction works by Soviet and foreign writers. The book presents stories of young science fiction writers, and...
• Fiction 75/76, . 1976 edition. The condition is good. The collection includes new works by both famous and young authors. Heroes of novels and short stories travel through time via superhighways...

How does fantasy differ from other genres? After all, both in the detective story and in love story that the characters and the worlds are fictional.

The main role in the classification of genres is played by what is emphasized. For example, in a romance novel the key role is played by romantic relationship, creating love experiences. In a detective story there is mystery, curiosity and excitement created for the reader.

In science fiction, the main emphasis is on a fundamentally different reality, largely different from ours. Science fiction and fantasy have their beginnings in folk tales and legends.

Science fiction as an independent genre was formed in the mid-19th century, when the works of Jules Verne appeared to the world.

All fantastic literature conventionally divided into popular science fiction (SF) and fantasy. SF is what theoretically could actually happen; Fantasy is a fairy tale, something that definitely cannot happen (at least not in our world).

Fantasy world

If in science fiction the laws of nature operate as they should, then in the world of fantasy chemistry, physics and any other science do not matter. This world is ruled by magic and inhabited by supernatural beings.

Usually the main theme of fantasy is the struggle between Good and Evil. The plot is built on the archetypes of Journey, Rescue, Mystery or Confrontation.

In each country, fantasy, as a rule, is based on local folklore, but Western European folklore still has no competition.

Representatives of the fantasy world:

• elves
• witches and wizards
• ghosts
• werewolves
• vampires
• trolls
• gnomes
• orcs and goblins
• centaurs, minotaurs, etc.
• mermaids
• magical animals: dragons, unicorns, basilisks, griffins, etc.

Fantasy subgenres:

• Heroic fantasy ( main character fearless, ready for exploits and travel)
• Epic fantasy ( prerequisite– battles, conflicts and confrontations between peoples)
• Historical fantasy (fictional history of a people or the world + magic, etc.)
  Dark fantasy (Evil reigns, the atmosphere is gothic and gloomy)
• Modern fantasy (our days, the heroes are vampires, werewolves and other paranormal creatures)
• Children's fantasy (aimed at children and teenagers)
• Fantasy detective (magic, conspiracies, crimes, sword duels, etc.)
• Romance or erotic fantasy
• Humorous or sarcastic fantasy (may well ridicule all the cliches of the genre and pianos in the bushes)

Fantasy world

In addition to artistic merit, a high-quality fantasy novel should have a strong idea that evokes surprise, admiration, or fear, and is easy for the reader to navigate.

What is an idea in fiction?

This is an unusual concept on which the plot of the work is built. The idea starts with the question “What if...?”

For example: the idea of ​​the book “Amphibian Man” by A. Belyaev began with the question: “What if a person can swim freely underwater without special devices?”

The idea of ​​the films in the series Star wars” began with the question: “What if there was a war in the galaxy before?”

The idea for the book “The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov began with the question: “What if the devil himself appears in Moscow?”

A fantasy world is an alternative reality with its own laws. Even if it is a fantasy where magic rules, there must be a clear structure and logic.

Writing a credible world is more difficult than creating a credible character. You need to think through in detail how this reality will work, how it will differ from others and how it will attract attention?

Write a comprehensive encyclopedic summary following this outline.:

• Time and place of action
• Territory dimensions
• Divisions of territory: planets, continents, countries, etc.
• Capital(s)
• Government system, political parties and unions, laws of society
• Domestic and foreign policy
• Economy, currency, terms of trade
• Information about the population: nationalities, languages, beliefs, races, etc.
• Laws of physics and nature
• Geography: relief, climate, minerals, coastline, soil, vegetation, wildlife, ecology
• Key events in history
• Crime rate
• Transport
• Agriculture and industry
• Armed forces
• Medicine
• Social Security
• Raising children
• Education
• Science
• Communications
• Sources of knowledge: books, libraries, Internet, media, etc.
• Art: architecture, theater, cinema, painting, music, etc.

Subgenres in science fiction:

• Hard SF (the plot revolves around scientific discovery or technology)
• Light SF (the basis of the plot is the relationship between the characters or their adventures)
• Military SF (battles of the main race with aliens)
• Space opera (scene: space and distant planets, plot: space adventures)
• Cyberpunk (describes the conflict between people and technology)
• Time travel
• Apocalypse
• Parallel worlds and universes
• Lost Worlds and Pioneers (Discovery of New Worlds)
• First contact (meeting of people with extraterrestrial civilizations)
• Utopia and dystopia (description of a world with ideal or totalitarian laws)
• Historical fiction (set in the past)
• Alternative history (what would have happened if events had unfolded from a different angle)
• Children's fiction (designed for children and teenagers)

How to avoid mistakes and boredom in science fiction?

• Don't explain in detail how blasters, communications, etc. work unless it's directly relevant to the plot.
• Make sure that all areas of technology are developed at approximately the same level. If your ships fly at the speed of light, then communication should be at the same level.
• Aliens must be different from earthlings - in facial expressions, slang, etc.
• Alien measures of weights, time and length must be different.
• Don't call ordinary things with alien words.
• Every Evil must have a motive.
• If you're writing medieval fantasy, research that era thoroughly.
• Calculate the strength of heroes and animals - everyone needs sleep, rest and food.

Science fiction and fantasy stamps:

• The hero does not remember his parents. It is then revealed that they were kings, presidents or wizards. The hero is informed that he is the chosen one, spoken of in an ancient prophecy. And in the end it turns out that the Main Villain is the father of the main character.
• The hero woke up and realized that the exciting adventure was just a dream or a video game.
• No one can save the world from terrible disaster except for the main character.
• The hero goes back in time to fix the future, and ends up making things even worse.
• Before the appearance of the hero, the inhabitants of Planet X were complete ignoramuses. And then HE appears...
• The aliens' only goal is to destroy the Earth. Just like that, without a motive.
• Aliens self-destruct from contact with earthly air, shampoo, etc.
• Computers or robots caught the virus and went crazy.
• The hero and heroine are constantly fighting. Then they save each other, and then the love affair begins...
• The hero gets into strange world and discovers that this is our Earth - this is the future.
• The entire planet is inhabited by people of one nationality, there is one large city, one culture and religion.
• The villain subjugates the whole world, but at the same time kills his assistants left and right. Well, soon he will become the king of himself...
• The villain kills the hero's parents. He grows up - and his revenge is terrible.
• The hero single-handedly easily deals with an entire battalion of enemy armed forces.
• A magical artifact that will solve all problems.
• Evil has broken free, covered the whole world in darkness and will soon come to us. Why?
• The villain unfairly offends his comrade - and he goes over to the side of Good.
• The Hero's best friends are an elf and a dwarf.
• The battle location is labyrinths, cliffs, steep cliffs, etc.
• Heroes hide in mines and sewers or in abandoned subways and underground catacombs.
• The villain laughs sinisterly and wears a black cloak with a hood.
• The villain dreams of marrying a princess who hates him.
• The hero easily penetrates the enemy computer (headquarters, etc.) and finds out all the plans ahead.

How to choose a title for fantasy and science fiction?

• Take famous name and rewrite it by replacing one or two words.
• Add pathos and big words: Eternity, Infinity, Evil, Darkness.
• Try to use everyday symbols. There are not so many of them: Sword, Dragon, Blade, Old Tavern, Galaxy, Star, Overlord, Overlord, Blood, Love, Castle, Guardians, Fighters.
• Beware of modest and boring names.
• Let the reader know that he is about to meet the Incredible. Use paradox phrases.
• If you don’t have enough words, come up with new ones or use beautiful, incomprehensible ones.
• It’s not a bad idea to name a book with one, but very clever word. It should not be related to the plot, nor should it be mentioned. For example: “Premorbid”, “Absorbent”, “Promiscuity”, “Flatulence”.
• Take the word “Chronicles” or “World” and the first half of the title is complete.

You can also use combinations:

• accomplishing + something (“The Conquest of Mirus”, “The Overthrow of Lebon”, “The Retribution of the Dwarf”)
• do + something (“Love a Vampire”, “Kill Symbosium”, “Defeat Ramossura”)
• someone + so-and-so (“Demons of the Underworld”, “Stones of the Red River”, “Elves of the Mountains of Eratus”)
• what + wow effect (“Doomed to Live”, “Torn by Oath”, “Insulted by the Undead”)
• “who” (“Bogur the Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, “Rosemary the Elven Witch”)
• sign + someone (“Under the flag of Rogus”, “In the name of Ipalanthus”)
• this + that (“Arpodigus and the Minotaur”, “Libom and the Sword of Glory”)
• date + someone's (“The Hour of Asgard”, “The Year of Rokus”, “One Day of Bizim”)
• a figure of something there ("Conqueror of Edarmheish", "Charter of Swords", "Conqueror of the Magi")
• “a thing of someone there” (“The Dark Master’s Talisman”, “Emori’s Step”, “The Void of Nordarm”)
• adjective + noun ("Crimson Gate", "Cursed Gift", "Hard Beam")
• noun + adjective (“The Victorious Gift”, “The Sophisticated Road”)