The Fantastic

The Fantastic

Author: Tzvetan Todorov

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 1975

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780801491467

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In The Fantastic, Tzvetan Todorov seeks to examine both generic theory and a particular genre, moving back and forth between a poetics of the fantastic itself and a metapoetics or theory of theorizing, even as he suggest that one must, as a critic, move back and forth between theory and history, between idea and fact. His work on the fantastic is indeed about a historical phenomenon that we recognize, about specific works that we may read, but it is also about the use and abuse of generic theory. As an essay in fictional poetics, The Fantastic is consciously structuralist in its approach to the generic subject. Todorov seeks linguistic bases for the structural features he notes in a variety of fantastic texts, including Potocki's The Sargasso Manuscript, Nerval's Aurélia, Balzac's The Magic Skin, the Arabian Nights, Cazotte's Le Diable Amoureux, Kafka's The Metamorphosis, and tales by E. T. A. Hoffman, Charles Perrault, Guy de Maupassant, Nicolai Gogol, and Edgar A. Poe.


The Italian Gothic and Fantastic

The Italian Gothic and Fantastic

Author: Francesca Billiani

Publisher: Associated University Presse

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9780838641262

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Meanwhile, by assimilating the Other into our own modes of representation of reality and imagination, twentieth-century female writers of the fantastic show how alternative identities can be shaped and social constituencies can be challenged."--BOOK JACKET.


Basic Categories of Fantastic Literature Revisited

Basic Categories of Fantastic Literature Revisited

Author: Joanna Matyjaszczyk

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-11-19

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1443871435

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A unique collection of essays on selected aspects of science-fiction, fantasy and broadly understood fantastic literature, unified by a highly theoretical focus, this volume offers an overview of the most important theories pertaining to the field of the fantastic, such as Tzvetan Todorov's definition of the term itself, J.R.R. Tolkien's essay 'On Fairy Stories,' and the concept of 'Gothic space'. The composition and order of the chapters provide the reader with a systematic overview of major...


Exploring the Fantastic

Exploring the Fantastic

Author: Ina Batzke

Publisher: transcript Verlag

Published: 2018-03-31

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 3839440270

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The fantastic represents a wide and heterogeneous field in literary, cultural, and media studies. Encompassing some of the field's foremost voices such as Fred Botting and Larissa Lai, as well as exciting new perspectives by junior scholars, this volume offers a mosaic of the fantastic now. The contributions pinpoint and discuss current developments in theory and practice by offering enlightening snapshots of the contemporary Anglophone landscape of research in the fantastic. The authors' arguments and analyses thus give new impetus to the field's theoretical and methodological approaches, its textual materials, its main interests, and its crucial findings.


The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha

The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha

Author: Laura Feldt

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-10-14

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1317543831

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha argues that perspectives drawn from literary-critical theories of the fantastic and fantasy are apt to explore Hebrew Bible religious narratives. The book focuses on the narratives' marvels, monsters, and magic, rather than whether or not the stories depict historical events. The Exodus narrative (Ex 1-18) and a selection of additional Hebrew Bible narratives (Num 11-14, Judg 6-8, 1 Kings 17-19, 2 Kings 4-7) are analysed from a fantasy-theoretical perspective. The 'fantasy perspective' helps to make sense of elements of these narratives that - although prominently featured in the stories - have previously often been explained by being explained away. These case studies can illuminate Hebrew Bible religion and offer wider perspectives on religious narrative generally. In light of the fantasy-theoretical approach, these Hebrew Bible stories - with the Exodus narrative at the centre - read not as foundational stories, affirming triumphantly and unambiguously the bond between the deity, his people, and their territory, but rather as texts that harbour and even actively encourage ambiguity and uncertainty, not necessarily prompting belief, orientation, and a sense of meaningfulness, but also open-ended reflection and doubt. The case studies suggest that other religious narratives, both in and beyond the Judaic tradition, may also be amenable to interpretation in these terms, thus questioning a dominant trend in myth studies. The results of the analyses lead to a discussion of the role of ambiguity, uncertainty, and transformation in religious narrative in broader perspective, and to a questioning of the emphasis in the study of religion on the capacity of religious narrative for founding and maintaining institutions, orienting identity, and defending order over disorder. The book suggests the wider importance of incorporating destabilisation, disorientation, and ambiguity more strongly into theories of what religious narrative is and does.


On the Uses of the Fantastic in Modern Theatre

On the Uses of the Fantastic in Modern Theatre

Author: I. Eynat-Confino

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2008-11-24

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 0230616968

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The book reveals how the fantastic is used in modern theatre as a manipulative device to encode the unspeakable and control audience response, challenging conventional readings of all authors who use the fantastic.


Space and the Postmodern Fantastic in Contemporary Literature

Space and the Postmodern Fantastic in Contemporary Literature

Author: Patricia Garcia

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-04-24

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1317581326

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Arising from the philosophical conviction that our sense of space plays a direct role in our apprehension and construction of reality (both factual and fictional), this book investigates how conceptions of postmodern space have transformed the history of the impossible in literature. Deeply influenced by the work of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, there has been an unprecedented rise in the number of fantastic texts in which the impossible is bound to space — space not as scene of action but as impossible element performing a fantastic transgression within the storyworld. This book conceptualizes and contextualizes this postmodern, fantastic use of space that disrupts the reader’s comfortable notion of space as objective reality in favor of the concept of space as socially mediated, constructed, and conventional. In an illustration of the transnational nature of this phenomenon, García analyzes a varied corpus of the Fantastic in the past four decades from different cultures and languages, merging literary analysis with classical questions of space related to the fields of philosophy, urban studies, and anthropology. Texts include authors such as Julio Cortázar (Argentina), John Barth (USA), J.G. Ballard (UK), Jacques Sternberg (Belgium), Fernando Iwasaki (Perú), Juan José Millás (Spain,) and Éric Faye (France). This book contributes to Literary Theory and Comparative Literature in the areas of the Fantastic, narratology, and Geocriticism and informs the continuing interdisciplinary debate on how human beings make sense of space.


Fantastic Four Masterworks Vol. 2

Fantastic Four Masterworks Vol. 2

Author: Stan Lee

Publisher: Marvel Entertainment

Published: 2009-07-08

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 0785182365

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Celebrate Marvel's 70th anniversary by experiencing the tales of the world's most-famous super heroes from the very beginning! The Marvel Masterworks have brought readers deluxe hardcover collections of Marvel's classics from the Golden Age, Atlas Era, and the mighty Marvel Age, and now you can join in the Masterworks excitement with Marvel's new, monthly Marvel Masterworks trade paperbacks. While testing an experimental spacecraft Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and Sue and Johnny Storm were exposed to a bombardment of mysterious cosmic rays. Upon their return to Earth, they found that they had gained wondrous abilities, the likes of which had never been seen before. That voyage was the first of many extraordinary adventures for these friends, who became known to the world as: Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, The Human Torch, and The Invisible Girl - The Fantastic Four! Collects Fantastic Four #11-20 and Annual #1.


Fantastic Four Masterworks Vol. 1

Fantastic Four Masterworks Vol. 1

Author: Stan Lee

Publisher: Marvel Entertainment

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 0785170529

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

While testing an experimental spacecraft Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and Sue and Johnny Storm were exposed to a bombardment of mysterious cosmic rays. Upon their return to Earth, they found that they had gained wondrous abilities, the likes of which had never been seen before. That voyage was the first of many extraordinary adventures for these friends, who became known to the world as: Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, The Human Torch, and The Invisible Girl - The Fantastic Four! Collects Fantastic Four (1961) #1-10.