Fantastique
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| - | "[[Warum kann ich mich an deinen sonderbaren phantastischen Blättern nicht sattsehen, du kecker Meister !]]"--''[[Fantasy Pieces in Callot's Manner]]''--''[[Fantasy Pieces in Callot's Manner]]'' (1814) by E. T. A. Hoffmann | + | "[[Why can't I get enough of your weird fantastic pages, you cheeky master!]]"--"Jaques Callot"'' in Fantasy Pieces in Callot's Manner'' (1814) by E. T. A. Hoffmann |
| - | |} | + | |
| - | [[Image:Le Voyage dans la lune.jpg|200px|thumb|right|This page '''{{PAGENAME}}''' is part of the [[fantasy]] series.<br><small>Illustration: Screenshot from ''[[A Trip to the Moon]]'' ([[1902]]) [[Georges Méliès]]</small> | + | |
| <hr> | <hr> | ||
| - | See also: ''[[fantastic art]], [[fantastic literature]]'']] | + | "The metaphysicians of Tlön do not seek for the [[truth]] or even for [[verisimilitude]], but rather for the astounding. They judge that [[metaphysics]] is a branch of [[fantastique|fantastic literature]]." --"[[Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius]]" by Borges |
| + | <hr> | ||
| + | |||
| + | ""[[Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter|Schalken]]" conforms more strictly to my own ideals. It is indeed one of the best of [[Sheridan Le Fanu|Le Fanu]]'s good things."--introduction to ''[[Ghosts and Marvels]]'' (1924) by [[M. R. James]] | ||
| + | |||
| + | |} | ||
| + | [[Image:Du fantastique en littérature.jpg |thumb|200px|[[Du fantastique en littérature]]]] | ||
| + | [[Image:Le Voyage dans la lune.jpg|200px|thumb|right|This page '''{{PAGENAME}}''' is part of the [[fantasy]] series.<br><small>Illustration: Screenshot from ''[[A Trip to the Moon]]'' (1902) by Georges Méliès</small>]] | ||
| [[Image:Bomarzo turtle by Bartholomeus Breenbergh.jpg|thumb|200px|Turtle from the ''[[Gardens of Bomarzo]]'' by Bartholomeus Breenbergh]] | [[Image:Bomarzo turtle by Bartholomeus Breenbergh.jpg|thumb|200px|Turtle from the ''[[Gardens of Bomarzo]]'' by Bartholomeus Breenbergh]] | ||
| [[Image:La main de gloire.JPG|thumb|200px|''[[Hand of Glory]]'', anonymous]] | [[Image:La main de gloire.JPG|thumb|200px|''[[Hand of Glory]]'', anonymous]] | ||
| - | [[Image:Last Judgement.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''[[The Last Judgment (Bosch triptych fragment)]]'' by [[Hieronymus Bosch]]]] | ||
| - | [[Image:Blemmyes (legendary creatures).jpg|thumb|right|200px|[[Blemmyes (legendary creatures)|Blemmyes]] from [[Hartmann Schedel]]'s ''[[Nuremberg Chronicle]]'' ([[1493]])]] | ||
| - | [[Image:Joos de Momper.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''[[Winter]]'', one of the ''[[The Four Seasons (Joos de Momper)|The Four Seasons]]'' (early [[17th century]]) by [[Joos de Momper]]]] | ||
| {{Template}} | {{Template}} | ||
| - | '''The fantastique''' is a term for a [[literary genre|literary]] and [[Film genre|cinematic genre]] the parent category of which is [[speculative fiction]]. | + | '''The fantastique''' is a term for a [[literary genre|literary]] and [[Film genre|cinematic genre]] of fiction, the parent category of which is [[speculative fiction]]. |
| - | In French criticism, the term was first widely used to describe the work of [[German Romanticism]], especially [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]], after [[Jean-Jacques Ampère]]'s 1829 translation of Hoffmann's ''[[Fantasy Pieces in the Manner of Callot]]'' (1814). | + | Authors such as [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]], [[Charles Nodier]], [[Honoré de Balzac]], [[Prosper Mérimée]], [[Gérard de Nerval]], [[Théophile Gautier]], [[Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam]], [[Guy de Maupassant]], [[Walter Scott]], [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]], [[Edgar Allan Poe]], [[Ambrose Bierce]], [[H. P. Lovecraft]], [[Robert Louis Stevenson]], [[Jorge Luis Borges]] and [[Julio Cortázar]] have been put in this category. |
| - | [[Roger Caillois]]'s defines the fantastique in ''[[Au cœur du fantastique]]'' as "always a break in the acknowledged order, an irruption of the inadmissible within the changeless everyday legality" (tr. Richard Howard). | + | The term entered the French language via [[Walter Scott]] who in "[[On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition]]" (1827), his assessment of the work of E. T. A. Hoffmann, uses the term ''[[fantastic]]'' to refer to a "mode of writing, in which the most wild and unbounded license is given to an irregular fancy", a sensibility Scott most readily perceives in the work of Hoffmann. |
| + | |||
| + | This essay was translated into French as "[[Sur Hoffmann et les compositions fantastiques]]" (1832) by François-Adolphe Loève-Veimars upon which the notion of the fantastique was further entrenched in French. But even before that Charles Nodier had written the critical piece "[[Du fantastique en littérature]]" (1830), the first text to trace the ''fantastique'' sensibility retro-actively. | ||
| + | |||
| + | In 1863 the term ''fantastique'' with reference to Hoffmann appears in the ''[[Dictionnaire de la langue française]]'' by Littré. | ||
| + | |||
| + | In 1940 ''[[The Book of Fantasy]]'', an anthology curated by Borges, Casares, and Ocampo, is released in Spanish. | ||
| + | |||
| + | [[Roger Caillois]]'s defines the fantastique in ''[[Au cœur du fantastique]]'' (1965) as "always a break in the acknowledged order, an irruption of the inadmissible within the changeless everyday legality" (tr. Richard Howard). | ||
| + | |||
| + | The term was particularly popular in the 1960s and 1970s; with the magazine ''[[Midi Minuit Fantastique]]'' (1962-1970) and the book series ''[[Marabout Fantastique]]'' (1969 - 1977). | ||
| + | |||
| + | When Todorov publishes ''[[The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre]]'' (1970), he sets somewhat of a standard in the historiography of the genre. | ||
| ==Definition== | ==Definition== | ||
| What is distinctive about the ''fantastique'' is the intrusion of [[supernatural]] phenomena into an otherwise [[realism (arts)|realist]] narrative. It evokes phenomena which are not only left unexplained but which are inexplicable from the reader's point of view. In this respect, the ''fantastique'' is somewhere between [[fantasy]], where the supernatural is accepted and entirely reasonable in the imaginary world of a non-realist narrative, and [[magic realism]], where apparently supernatural phenomena are explained and accepted as normal. Instead, characters in a work of ''fantastique'' are, just like the readers, unwilling to accept the supernatural events that occur. This refusal may be mixed with doubt, disbelief, fear, or some combination of those reactions. | What is distinctive about the ''fantastique'' is the intrusion of [[supernatural]] phenomena into an otherwise [[realism (arts)|realist]] narrative. It evokes phenomena which are not only left unexplained but which are inexplicable from the reader's point of view. In this respect, the ''fantastique'' is somewhere between [[fantasy]], where the supernatural is accepted and entirely reasonable in the imaginary world of a non-realist narrative, and [[magic realism]], where apparently supernatural phenomena are explained and accepted as normal. Instead, characters in a work of ''fantastique'' are, just like the readers, unwilling to accept the supernatural events that occur. This refusal may be mixed with doubt, disbelief, fear, or some combination of those reactions. | ||
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| The ''Fantastique'' is often linked to a particular ambiance, a sort of tension in the face of the [[impossible]]. There is often a good deal of fear involved, either because the characters are afraid or because the author wants to provoke fright in the reader. However, fear is not an essential component of ''fantastique''. | The ''Fantastique'' is often linked to a particular ambiance, a sort of tension in the face of the [[impossible]]. There is often a good deal of fear involved, either because the characters are afraid or because the author wants to provoke fright in the reader. However, fear is not an essential component of ''fantastique''. | ||
| - | |||
| - | == Liste of titles from the [[Marabout Fantastique]] collection== | ||
| - | * 109. ''Tous les contes'' par [[Edgar Allan Poe]] | ||
| - | * 114. ''Les 25 meilleures histoires noires et fantastiques'' par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 142. ''[[Malpertuis]]'' par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 166. ''[[Les Derniers Contes de Canterbury]]'' par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 172. ''La Cave aux crapauds'' par [[Thomas Owen]] | ||
| - | * 182. ''[[Dracula]]'' par [[Bram Stoker]] | ||
| - | * 197. ''[[Le Carrousel des maléfices]]'' par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 203. ''[[Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne|Frankenstein]]'' par [[Mary Shelley]] | ||
| - | * 208. ''Les Contes noirs du golf'' par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 215. ''[[La Malvenue]]'' par [[Claude Seignolle]] | ||
| - | * 223. ''La Cité de l'indicible peur'' par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 230. ''Histoires maléfiques'' par [[Claude Seignolle]] | ||
| - | * 234. ''Sortilèges'' par [[Michel de Ghelderode]] | ||
| - | * 237. ''Les Contes du whisky'' par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 242. ''Cérémonial nocturne'' par [[Thomas Owen]] | ||
| - | * 244. ''Contes macabres'' par [[Claude Seignolle]] | ||
| - | * 247. ''[[Le Livre des fantômes]]'' par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 248. ''Les Mémoires du diable'' T.1 par [[F. Soulie]] | ||
| - | * 249. ''Les Mémoires du diable'' T.2 par [[F. Soulie]] | ||
| - | * 250. ''Hugues-le-loup'' par [[Erckmann-Chatrian]] | ||
| - | * 257. ''L'Aventure impersonnelle'' par [[Marcel Bealu]] | ||
| - | * 259. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.1 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 264. ''Aurélia et autres contes fantastiques'' par [[Gérard de Nerval]] | ||
| - | * 265. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.2 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 266. ''La Maison au mille étages'' par [[Jan Weiss]] | ||
| - | * 267. ''[[Le Moine]]'' par [[Matthew Gregory Lewis]] | ||
| - | * 269. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.3 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 270. ''Nouvelles du grand possible'' par [[Marcel Thiry]] | ||
| - | * 275. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.4 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 279. ''Melmoth, l'homme errant'' par [[Charles Robert Maturin]] | ||
| - | * 282. ''Les Récits cruels'' par [[Claude Seignolle]] | ||
| - | * 283. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.5 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 292. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.6 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 300. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.7 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 306. ''Le Musée des diables'' par [[Carlos Esteban Deive]] | ||
| - | * 309. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.8 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 314. ''L'Oreille de la chouette'' par [[Erckmann-Chatrian]] | ||
| - | * 320. ''[[Avatar (nouvelle)|Avatar]]'' par [[Théophile Gautier]] | ||
| - | * 322. ''Les Drames de la mort'' par [[Paul Féval]] | ||
| - | * 324. ''La Guerre des salamandres'' par [[Karel Čapek]] | ||
| - | * 334. ''L'Araignée'' par [[Hanns Heinz Ewers]] | ||
| - | * 337. ''[[Elle (roman)|She]]'' par [[Henry Rider Haggard]] | ||
| - | * 347. ''La Nuit des mutants'' par [[Jean Sadyn]] | ||
| - | * 354. ''Aux portes de l'épouvante'' par [[Robert Bloch]] et [[Ray Bradbury]] | ||
| - | * 358. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.9 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 363. ''Les Épées de l'effroi'' par [[Vernon Lee]] | ||
| - | * 364. ''[[L'Étrange Cas du docteur Jekyll et de M. Hyde]]'' par [[Robert Louis Stevenson]] | ||
| - | * 367. ''Soleil des loups'' par [[André Pieyre de Mandiargues]] | ||
| - | * 368. ''Le Meneur de loups'' par [[Alexandre Dumas]] | ||
| - | * 369. ''Le Démon de février'' par [[Gérard Prévot]] | ||
| - | * 371. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.10 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 374. ''Les Escales de la haute nuit'' par [[Marcel Brion]] | ||
| - | * 385. ''L'Élixir de longue vie'' par [[Honoré de Balzac]] | ||
| - | * 387. ''[[Le Golem (Meyrink)|Le Golem]] par [[Gustav Meyrink]] | ||
| - | * 389. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.12 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 392. ''Le Pentagramme'' par [[Vladimir Colin]] | ||
| - | * 393. ''Le Fantôme de Canterville'' par [[Oscar Wilde]] | ||
| - | * 394. ''La Truie'' par [[Thomas Owen]] | ||
| - | * 396. ''Le Charretier de la mort'' par [[Selma Lagerlöf]] | ||
| - | * 398. ''L'Homme vert'' par [[Kingsley Amis]] | ||
| - | * 400. ''Han'' par [[Jean Paul Raemdonck]] (prix Jean Ray 1972) | ||
| - | * 402. ''Mémoires de l'ombre'' par [[Marcel Béalu]] | ||
| - | * 404. ''[[L'Autre Côté (roman)|L'Autre Côté]]'' par [[Alfred Kubin]] (sans les illustrations) | ||
| - | * 406. ''Le Dernier Démon'' par [[Isaac Bashevis Singer]] | ||
| - | * 408. ''Le Chevalier Ténèbre'' par [[Paul Féval]] | ||
| - | * 412. ''[[Le Tour d'écrou]]'' par [[Henry James]] | ||
| - | * 416. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.13 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 419. ''Histoires vénéneuses'' par [[Claude Seignolle]] | ||
| - | * 422. ''La Nuit aveuglante'' par [[André de Richaud]] | ||
| - | * 425. ''Parlez-moi d'horreur'' par [[Robert Bloch]] | ||
| - | * 428. ''Le Tambour d'angoisse'' par [[B. R. Bruss]] | ||
| - | * 433. ''Myrtis'' par [[Daniel Mallinus]] (prix Jean Ray 1973) | ||
| - | * 437. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.14 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 441. ''Celui qui venait de partout'' par [[Gérard Prévot]] | ||
| - | * 445. ''[[Le Roi au masque d'or]]'' par [[Marcel Schwob]] | ||
| - | * 448. ''Pitié pour les ombres'' par [[Thomas Owen]] | ||
| - | * 451. ''[[La Nuit de Walpurgis (Meyrink)|La Nuit de Walpurgis]]'' par [[Gustav Meyrink]] | ||
| - | * 454. ''La Vieille Fille blanche'' par [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] | ||
| - | * 456. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.15 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 459. ''Tribulat Bonhomet'' par [[Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam|Villiers de l'Isle-Adam]] | ||
| - | * 462. ''La Colère végétale'' par [[Monique Watteau]] | ||
| - | * 464. ''Contes fantastiques complets'' par [[Guy de Maupassant]] | ||
| - | * 465. ''Contes sorciers'' par [[Claude Seignolle]] | ||
| - | * 469. ''Cimetière de l'effroi'' par [[Donald Wandrei]] | ||
| - | * 472. ''Nous avons tous peur'' par [[B. R. Bruss]] | ||
| - | * 474. ''Le Temps mort'' par [[René Belletto]] (prix Jean Ray 1974) | ||
| - | * 476. ''La Maison des sorcières'' par Evangeline Walton | ||
| - | * 479. ''Aycha'' par [[Henry Rider Haggard]] | ||
| - | * 484. ''La Nuit du nord'' par [[Gérard Prévot]] | ||
| - | * 486. ''Lucifer et l'Enfant'' par [[Ethel Mannin]] | ||
| - | * 488. ''[[Harry Dickson]]'' T.16 par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 490. ''Les Pourvoyeurs'' par [[Kurt Steiner]] | ||
| - | * 495. ''Le Pantacle de l'ange déchu'' par [[Charles-Gustave Burg]] | ||
| - | * 500. ''Bestiaire fantastique'' par [[Jean Ray (écrivain)|Jean Ray]] | ||
| - | * 504. ''Le Peuple blanc'' par [[Arthur Machen]] | ||
| - | * 511. ''Le Fantôme dans le miroir'' par [[Patricia Squires]] | ||
| - | * 515. ''Le Rat Kavar'' par [[Thomas Owen]] | ||
| - | * 519. ''La Femme de Putiphar'' par [[Gaston Compère]] (prix Jean Ray 1975) | ||
| - | * 520. ''Toby Jugg, le possédé'' par [[Dennis Wheatley]] | ||
| - | * 538. ''Le Gnome rouge'' par [[Frank Belknap Long]] | ||
| - | * 543. ''Quatre histoires de zombi'' (ouvrage collectif) | ||
| - | * 548. ''Huit histoires de Cthulhu'' (ouvrage collectif) | ||
| - | * 553. ''Le Spectre large'' par [[Gérard Prévot]] | ||
| - | * 558. ''L'Envers du masque'' par [[Kurt Steiner]] | ||
| - | * 560. ''Appelez-moi un exorciste'' par [[Jerome Bixby]] | ||
| - | * 564. ''[[Le Portrait de Dorian Gray]]'' par [[Oscar Wilde]] | ||
| - | * 567. ''[[Le Docteur Lerne, sous-dieu|Le Docteur Lerne]]'' par [[Maurice Renard (écrivain)|Maurice Renard]] | ||
| - | * 574. ''La Baronne trépassée'' par [[Ponson du Terrail]] | ||
| - | * 578. ''Le Chemin des abîmes'' par [[Michel Treignier]] (prix Jean Ray 1976) | ||
| - | * 589. ''[[Le Roi en jaune|Le roi de jaune vêtu]]'' par [[Robert Chambers]] | ||
| - | * 596. ''[[Confession du pécheur justifié]]'' par [[James Hogg]] | ||
| - | * 597. ''Le Joyau des sept étoiles'' par [[Bram Stoker]] | ||
| - | * 621. ''La Mante au fil des jours'' par [[Christine Renard]] | ||
| - | * 625. ''Celui qui pourrissait'' par [[Jean Pierre Bours]] (prix Jean Ray 1977) | ||
| - | * 628. ''Le Bourg envoûté'' par [[B. R. Bruss]] | ||
| - | * 631. ''Derrière le mur blanc'' par [[Eddy Bertin]] | ||
| - | * 634. ''Le Druide noir'' par [[Frank Belknap Long]] | ||
| - | * 636. ''L'Œil et le Doigt'' par [[Donald Wandrei]] | ||
| - | * 639. ''Kâ le terrifiant et autres nouvelles insolites'' (ouvrage collectif) | ||
| - | * 712. ''Le Pacte noir'' (ouvrage collectif) | ||
| - | * 713. ''Fureur noire'' (ouvrage collectif) | ||
| - | * 901. ''Contes fantastiques'' T.1 : ''Fantaisies à la manière de Callot - Contes nocturnes'' par [[Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann]] | ||
| - | * 902. ''Contes fantastiques'' T.2 : ''Contes des frères Sérapion (1)'' par [[Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann]] | ||
| - | * 903. ''Contes fantastiques'' T.3 : ''Contes des frères Sérapion (2) par'' [[Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann|Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann]] | ||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| ==References== | ==References== | ||
| *[[French Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Pulp Fiction ]] by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier | *[[French Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Pulp Fiction ]] by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier | ||
| - | *[[The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre]] | + | *''[[The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre]]'' (1970) by Todorov |
| - | *[[Itinéraires sémantiques : les avatars du mot "fantastique"]] by Jean-Louis Backès | + | ==Anthologies== |
| + | *''[[Demons of the Night]]'' (1995) by Joan C. Kessler | ||
| + | *''[[Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature]]'' (1984) by Alberto Manguel | ||
| + | *''[[La grande anthologie du fantastique - Tome 1 ]]'' (1996) | ||
| ==See also== | ==See also== | ||
| + | *[[Fabulation]] | ||
| + | *[[Fairy tale]] | ||
| *[[Fantasy]] | *[[Fantasy]] | ||
| + | *[[Fantasy literature]] | ||
| + | *[[Fantasy or fantastique?]]'' | ||
| *[[Fantastic art]] | *[[Fantastic art]] | ||
| - | *[[Science fiction]] | + | *[[Ghost story]] |
| - | *[[French literature]] | + | *[[Gothic fiction]] |
| - | *[[French science fiction]] | + | *[[Grotesque]] |
| - | *[[Gérard Lenne]] on le cinéma fantastique | + | *[[Leugenliteratuur]] |
| - | *[[List of writers of the "fantastique"]] | + | |
| *[[Midi Minuit Fantastique]] | *[[Midi Minuit Fantastique]] | ||
| - | *[[Fantastic literature]] | + | *[[Psychological horror]] |
| - | *[[Marabout Fantastique ]] | + | *[[Science fiction]] |
| + | *[[Supernatural fiction]] | ||
| + | *[[Unreliable narrator]] | ||
| + | *[[Weird fiction]] | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
Current revision
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"Why can't I get enough of your weird fantastic pages, you cheeky master!"--"Jaques Callot" in Fantasy Pieces in Callot's Manner (1814) by E. T. A. Hoffmann "The metaphysicians of Tlön do not seek for the truth or even for verisimilitude, but rather for the astounding. They judge that metaphysics is a branch of fantastic literature." --"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Borges ""Schalken" conforms more strictly to my own ideals. It is indeed one of the best of Le Fanu's good things."--introduction to Ghosts and Marvels (1924) by M. R. James |
Illustration: Screenshot from A Trip to the Moon (1902) by Georges Méliès
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Related e |
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Featured: |
The fantastique is a term for a literary and cinematic genre of fiction, the parent category of which is speculative fiction.
Authors such as E. T. A. Hoffmann, Charles Nodier, Honoré de Balzac, Prosper Mérimée, Gérard de Nerval, Théophile Gautier, Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Guy de Maupassant, Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar have been put in this category.
The term entered the French language via Walter Scott who in "On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition" (1827), his assessment of the work of E. T. A. Hoffmann, uses the term fantastic to refer to a "mode of writing, in which the most wild and unbounded license is given to an irregular fancy", a sensibility Scott most readily perceives in the work of Hoffmann.
This essay was translated into French as "Sur Hoffmann et les compositions fantastiques" (1832) by François-Adolphe Loève-Veimars upon which the notion of the fantastique was further entrenched in French. But even before that Charles Nodier had written the critical piece "Du fantastique en littérature" (1830), the first text to trace the fantastique sensibility retro-actively.
In 1863 the term fantastique with reference to Hoffmann appears in the Dictionnaire de la langue française by Littré.
In 1940 The Book of Fantasy, an anthology curated by Borges, Casares, and Ocampo, is released in Spanish.
Roger Caillois's defines the fantastique in Au cœur du fantastique (1965) as "always a break in the acknowledged order, an irruption of the inadmissible within the changeless everyday legality" (tr. Richard Howard).
The term was particularly popular in the 1960s and 1970s; with the magazine Midi Minuit Fantastique (1962-1970) and the book series Marabout Fantastique (1969 - 1977).
When Todorov publishes The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (1970), he sets somewhat of a standard in the historiography of the genre.
Contents |
[edit]
Definition
What is distinctive about the fantastique is the intrusion of supernatural phenomena into an otherwise realist narrative. It evokes phenomena which are not only left unexplained but which are inexplicable from the reader's point of view. In this respect, the fantastique is somewhere between fantasy, where the supernatural is accepted and entirely reasonable in the imaginary world of a non-realist narrative, and magic realism, where apparently supernatural phenomena are explained and accepted as normal. Instead, characters in a work of fantastique are, just like the readers, unwilling to accept the supernatural events that occur. This refusal may be mixed with doubt, disbelief, fear, or some combination of those reactions.
Literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov contends that the fantastique is defined by its hesitation between accepting the supernatural as such and trying to rationally explain the phenomena it describes. In that case, the fantastique is nothing more than a transitional area on a spectrum from magic realism to fantasy.
Fantastique literature is often erroneously considered close to science fiction. However, there is an important difference between the two: science fiction is situated in a different time and place than the reader, and irrational seeming events are actually held to be rational in the framework of future or perhaps alien science and technology.
The Fantastique is often linked to a particular ambiance, a sort of tension in the face of the impossible. There is often a good deal of fear involved, either because the characters are afraid or because the author wants to provoke fright in the reader. However, fear is not an essential component of fantastique.
[edit]
References
- French Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Pulp Fiction by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier
- The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (1970) by Todorov
[edit]
Anthologies
- Demons of the Night (1995) by Joan C. Kessler
- Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature (1984) by Alberto Manguel
- La grande anthologie du fantastique - Tome 1 (1996)
[edit]
See also
- Fabulation
- Fairy tale
- Fantasy
- Fantasy literature
- Fantasy or fantastique?
- Fantastic art
- Ghost story
- Gothic fiction
- Grotesque
- Leugenliteratuur
- Midi Minuit Fantastique
- Psychological horror
- Science fiction
- Supernatural fiction
- Unreliable narrator
- Weird fiction
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Fantastique" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
