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Journal home page:
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Fantasy genre and its scientific interpretation in
theoretical views
Dilshod NASRIDDINOV
1
Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received January 2023
Received in revised form
10 January 2023
Accepted 25 February 2023
Available online
15 March 2023
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.
2181-3663
/©
2023 in Science LLC.
https://doi.org/10.47689/2181-3701-vol1-iss2-pp56-62
This is an open-access article under the Attribution 4.0 International
(CC BY 4.0) license (
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.ru
Keywords:
fantasy,
fiction,
science fiction,
myth,
romance,
fairy tale,
image.
Fentezi janri va nazariy qarashlarda uning ilmiy talqini
ANNOTATSIYA
Kalit so
‘
zlar:
fentezi,
fantastika,
ilmiy fantastika,
mif,
ritsarlik romanlari,
ertak,
obraz.
Ushbu tadqiqotning maqsadi adabiyotda fentezi janrining
yangi termin sifatida paydo bo
‘
lishi bilan bog
‘
liq ilmiy tahlilarni
taqdim qilishdir. Har bir mamlakat yangi terminlarni va adabiy
janrlarni uzining adabiyotiga olib kiradi va keyinchalik
o
‘
zining madaniyatiga uyg
‘
unlashtiradi. Bugungi kunda jahon
adabiyotida fentezi janri o
‘
zining hech narsaga teng
kelmaydigan maqomiga egadir. Ushbu tadqiqot fentezini
adabiyotda juda muhim adabiy janr sifatida aniqlaydi hamda bir
necha ilmiy qarashlar bilan uning dolzarbligi tahlilga tortilgan.
Shuningdek, u fantastik va fentezi janrlarining o
‘
ziga xos
xususiyatlarini tekshirib chiqadi va ularning o
‘
zaro bog
‘
liqligini
ilmiy isbotlaydi.
1
Associate professor, PhD.
“
Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers
”
National
Research University. E-mail: dilshodnasr@gmail.com
Xorijiy lingvistika va lingvodidaktika
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57
Жанр фэнтези и его научная интерпретация
в теоретических взглядах
АННОТАЦИЯ
Ключевые слова:
фэнтези,
фантастика,
научная фантастика,
миф,
романтика,
сказка,
образ.
Целью данного исследования является академический
анализ появления в литературе жанра фэнтези как нового
литературного термина. Каждая страна вводит в свою
литературу новые термины и литературные жанры,
осознает ее сущность, а затем пытается примирить ее со
своей культурой. Фэнтези как литературный жанр не может
сравниться с его статусом в современной мировой
литературе. В этом исследовании, фэнтези определяется как
самый важный вымышленный художественный жанр в
литературе и анализируется его важность с помощью
нескольких научных подходов. Также рассмотрены
характеристики современных жанров фантастики и фэнтези
и определена их взаимосвязь на основе научных данных.
INTRODUCTION
The word
“
fantasy
”
is used in modern science fiction with two intersecting
meanings. In a narrower sense, fantasy includes adventures in the prose genre of great
mythology, usually characters, in the late XIX
–
first half of the XX century. Since the mid-
20th century, closely parallel phenomena have existed in the literary processes of
Germany and the Scandinavian countries. Develop the original version of the same genre.
Within this framework, the narrower term ‘genre fantasy’ is defined.
This most massive
and market-demanding direction more or less articulates the themes and storylines of
early fantasy classics. The pattern is usually J.R.R. Tolkien
’
s (1892
–
1973)
“
Lord of the
Rings
”
(1954
–
1955)
–
the so-called epic fantasy, and his R.I. Howard (1906
–
1936)
–
“Heroic Fantasy”. The broader sense of the word “fantasy” includes all directions of
“unscientific” fiction, such as the powerful currents of mystical prose and “horror” (fear)
dating back to the Romantic era.
Objectives of the Study
We will conduct our study with the following objectives analyzing these goals:
–
to analyze the phenomenon of fantasy and its origins.
–
to identify the features and commonalities of fantasy and fiction.
–
to study the primary and the secondary world fantasy works.
–
to analyze the image system in fantasy works.
The result of the study will be beneficial for the World literature department and
English Literature teachers in general.
METHOD
There are used hermeneutical, comparative analysis methods in the article. In the
hermeneutical method, a scientific analysis of the fantasy genre and issues related to its
evolution was carried out.
The method of comparative analysis compares the genres of fantasy and fiction and
their specific aspects in them. The scientific and theoretical views corresponding to each of
the presented methods were confirmed by various examples. Fantasy remains a puzzling
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problem for scientists who don’t need solid solutions.
Ideas expressed by various
researchers appear in the confusion inherent in the imagination. There are many
perspectives associated with the theory of fantasy. On the nature and content of fantasy,
scientists Tsvetan Todorov, Catherine Hume, Mark Bold, Rosemary Jackson, Ilenoush
Opatsky, Colin Menlaf, Jones D.V., Yakovenko O.K., Chernysheva T.O, Chepur E.A.,
Frumkin K., Stroeva K., Neelov EM., Laksman R., Krinitsyna O.P., Kovtun E.N., Kaplan V.,
Gopman V.L. Fantasy and fiction of Britikov A.F., Berezin V., Baturin D.A. [7], M.S. Galina [1]
and E.N.
Kovtun [2] describe fantasy as a ‘genre’ in A.
Called Karelin
–
“
subgenre
”
of
fiction [3], A.I. Osipov
–
“
direction
”
[4]. Such theoretical considerations continue to this day.
Instrument and analysis procedure
This study is mainly used as an introduction to the new term fantasy in Uzbek
literature and as a source of much theoretical knowledge about it. Also, reading fictional
books improves the reading skills of young people. Fan readers and students are
thoroughly familiar with the genre and find it more interesting to read the many works
written based on the fantasy genre. Uzbek literature only provides information about
fiction genres and their characteristics. This study is one of the major sources for
characterizing the genres of fantasy and science fiction. An understanding of the most
important aspects of these two genres is presented in tabular form for world literature
teachers to use as a primary guide in every lesson.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The origin of Fantasy genre (I)
Fantasy has been developing since the end of the 19th century. It is impossible to
put fantasy into an exact model of the system. We face with epics, myths, works in the
spirit of love, satire, historical works, utopian tales, folk tales and parables, which are
often found in fantasy. We can continue this list in more detail, but only they can serve as
the basis for our study of the historical stages of the development of fantasy. It is very
important to study them at the stage of development of modern fantasy literature. The
use of various small epic genres in modern fantasy creates means of enriching diversity
and imagination in it. This allows distinguishing it from traditional genres. However, it
did not develop as a clearly distinguishable term. Thus, the terms “fiction” and “fantasy”
have retained their interchangeable forms. This led to a controversy as to whether
fantasy literature matches the form of another genre.
In modern literature, this allows us to include in the concept of “fantasy” (first of
all, English -speaking literary critics) such phenomena as the direction of the implicitly
mystical prose of “Fantastique” or a variety of magical realism in French literature. In
Romanesque and Slavic countries, literary critics and critics, as a rule, use the term
fantasy only to fantasy in the narrow sense or even only to genre fantasy. Sometimes,
thereby consciously emphasizes its “alien” –
English
–
origin. On the other hand, the
tradition of calling works of fantastic literature in general
“
Fantasies
”
–
Fantasy
–
dates
back to the beginning XIX century after the isolation of science fiction by the beginning of
the XX century. The term was naturally inherited by the fiction of the
“
unscientific
”
in its
various hypostases. The closest analogue of the English Fantasy in this expansion sense is
the Russian
“
Literature of Fiction
”
.
J.R.R.
Tolkien dedicated the essay “On Magic Stories” (1947).
Tolkien has fantasy as
the ability to unlimited creative fiction-
a means of creating a “magical story”. Fantasy
leads a person out of everyday life to the vastness of a magical country, extravaganza.
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Creating a “magical story”, a person freely or involuntarily creates a whole “secondary
world”, inevitably similar to “primary”, but existing in his own, not at all rational laws.
This secondary world may well be placed somewhere in mythical
The world of “primary”, and even adjacent to it in the present –
as the world of
ancient fairy tales and a heroic epic.
“Magic story” is a way of liberation, escape from
dysfunctional reality. The escape (Escape) is a significant topic of both the mentioned
Tolkien essay and many works of both intercessors and critics of fantasy. Fantasy,
undoubtedly, is the literature
“
escapade
”
, challenging the current being.
“Magic stories”
Tolkien considered “serious”, adult literature. In his opinion, “childishness” and a naive
morality conjugated with it, coupled with excessive softness, are destructive for genuine
“magical history”.
By the way, he noticed that at the heart of "childhood" is a perspicuous
idea of
children’s tastes.
Be that as it may, i
t is here that the feature between the “magical
history” and “magical”, “fairing” fairy tale (Fairy
-Tale, Conte de Fee), usual for English
and French literature of the XIX-early XX century. The escapade nature of the fantasy in
this, “narrow” sense clearly
blocks it from the literature of horrors. Fantasy worlds, of
course, can be terrible and dangerous. But usually by themselves they are not called to
push away, but are obliged to attract, attract their reader. In addition, the horror
literature as a whole
should not deal with the “secondary”, but with our “primary” world,
in which incomprehensible, unnatural forces burst. This is a mystical feature fiction
(English Supernatural Fiction) in general. So, although the “border” works of fantasy and
horror account is considerable, distinguished in its pure form is quite simple.
The origin of the modern type fantasy in the UK is associated with the names of
G. Macdonald, (1824
–
1905) and W. Morris, (1834
–
1895). The first created a new
standard for a
children’s fairy tale, saturating it with epic pathos and philosophical
content. The trend of rapprochement between the “children’s” and “adult” literature was
further developed in the work of L. Carroll (1832
–
1898), J.M. Barrie, (1860
–
1937) and
other reli
gious Romans McDonald’s parables can be considered as one of the first
experiments of building the “secondary world”. Morris is the author of the epic series –
adventure novels whose action takes place in conditional the Middle Ages, which has
become a model for the later fantasy.
The next stage in the development of the British fantasy is represented by
Lord Dunsany, (1878
–
1957), W.H. Hodgson, (1877
–
1918), D. Lindsay, (1878
–
1945) and
nearby) and nearby) and nearby) other authors. Dunsany was the first to cast a genre in a
completely independent literary form, separating and from the literary fairy tale
addressed to children, and from a romantic pseudo -historical novel. The key innovation
was the creation of a “secondary world” completely autonomous from t
he well -known
historical and modern reality, with its own cosmology that exists in “its right”.
Hodgson
in the novel “The Night Land” (1912) first embodied the literary model of genre fantasy:
the hero’s quest against the background of the developed “secondary world” revealed
over the vicissitudes of the quest. In Lindsay’s novel “A Voyage to Arcturus” (1920) first
used
“
scientific
”
fantastic the eyeballs as a basis for own mythological and cosmological
constructions. This line
–
the conditional placement of the
“
secondary
”
mythological
worlds on a different planet
–
found a continuation in the work of E.R. Edson, (1882
–
1945). Edson’s novels, saturated by linguistic experimentation, original philosophical and
aesthetic ideas, had a noticeable effect on the final folding of fantasy standards.
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The latter is associated with the predominant names of J.R.R. Tolkien and
C.S. Lewis, (1898
–
1963)
–
members of the Oxfords of the literary circle
“
Inklings
”
.
Tolkien’s novel “The Lord of the Rings” was the first world be
stseller among the works of
the genre. The fantastic world of the Mediterranean, created by the author on the
material of the German-Scandinavian myths, was bred in it, has become a model for
thousands of imitations.
At the same time, in terms of developme
nt and “literary authenticity”, Tolkien’s
myth -making remains an unsurpassed peak of the genre. The works of Lewis became the
most noticeable in the XX century. The phenomenon of
“
Christian fantasy
”
, combining
elements of various fantastic genres, religious parables or even theological work. Among
the most prominent authors of the British fantasy of the middle of the XX century. It also
refers to M. Peake, (1911
–
1968), the author of the philosophical fantastic trilogy about
the castle of Gormengast. Of the later authors, R. Adams (1920), which combined the style
of fantasy with the images of a traditional animal fairy tale, can be distinguished.
The fantasy raises the storyteller L. Baum (1846
–
1915), the author of the Lake
Country, and the most popular pseudo-nuclear science fiction writer E.R. Burroughs,
(1875
–
1950) are considered. The latter was the forefront of the heyday in the United
States
“
heroic fantasy
”
, the most a noticeable representative of which was R.I. Howard.
Howard belonged to the literary circle of the “father” of the modern literature of
H.P. Lovecraft, (1890
–
1937). The gloomy phantasmagoria of Lovecraft significantly
influenced many authors of the early American fantasy: such S.A. Smith, (1893
–
1961),
F. Pratt (1897
–
1956), F. Leiber, (1910
–
1992).
Many of them are characterized by the use of “scientific” fantastic alien or
futurological settings. A. Van Vogt, (1912
–
2000), J. Vance also continued by Barrose.
(J. Vance, P. 1916), L. Brackett (1915
–
1978). Such a mixture of genres is called Science
Fantasy.
The ancestor of the “ironic fantasy”, using the genre for satire and parody itself, was
J.B. Cabell, (1879
–
1958). From the middle of the XX century. In the United States, the impact
of the British
“
epic fantasy
”
penetrates. Its influence was reflected in the fantasy work of
A. Norton (1912
–
2005), L. Alexander, (1924
–
2007), U. Le Guin, (1929), etc. Confirmed
thanks to Tolkien and Lewis in the middle of the XX century. In the genre fantasy
“conservatism” with clear criteria of morality, the opposition of good and evil, and Christian
allusions caused a protest in the form of the appearance of the so -called new wave.
The Anglo-American writer M. Moorcock, (1939) was its leader and theorist. In his
work, he resolutely mixes and revives the images of both epic and heroic fantasy. Already
in the 70s of the XX century. The production of fantasy is increasingly subordinate to the
laws of the market
–
the era of “commodity fantasy” begins (term U.
Le Guin). The vast
majority with the produced genre -based producing genre is consciously epigone
character, repeating the known samples. This does not exclude, of course, individual or
noticeable in literary terms, but new templates are usually quickly formed on the basis of
these phenomena. The latest example is the cycle of J. Rowling, (1965) about Harry
Potter. In Romanesque, Slavic and other literature, imitative fantasy develops. It borrows
from English-speaking samples often not only the construction of plots, but also specific
images dating back to German-Scandinavian mythology and folklore.
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Fiction and Fantasy (II)
As a community between science fiction and fantasy, we can point to the human
mind as the most fundamental factor. Because a person can discover any reality for
himself and unwittingly discover a new world rich in miracles. In fiction, a being that
arises in the human mind demonstrates reciprocity with fantasy. Today, the genre of
"fiction" and works based on it, play an important role in world literature. Scientists who
have studied the genre and its problematic aspects have linked its introduction to the
literary environment in connection with the term “fiction” with the arti
cle by Charles Nod
of 1830 “About Fantastic Literature”. In this article, Sh. Node interprets it under private
science fiction, as fictional or unreal content. Some researchers believe that Ts. Todorov
is one of the founders of the genre of fiction, a phenomenon between doubt and
supernatural concepts that can never be solved.
“In the universe, we know one thing:
there are no demons, effeminate creatures, or bloodthirsty creatures in the world; where
events are not explained by the same familiar laws of the universe. A person caught in a
whirlpool of events must choose one of two solutions. Let him become a victim of both
magic of feelings and a product of imagination
–
the laws of the universe are respected as
they are; In the end, the event does occur, it becomes an integral part of the being, but
after a while the being is controlled by unknown laws...”
[15].
In my opinion, Todorov in his description formed structural features in the text.
At the same time, the reader becomes indecisive. Todorov tries to solve the problem,
taking into account the doubts of the reader: “Fiction ... means immersing the reader in
the world of images.
This world is determined by the reader’s dubious assumptions
about the events being told. It should be noted that in our brain there is no active reader,
but the role of the reader in the text is noticeable” [15]
. Todorov cites two conditions for
a remarkable piece of fiction in his research. One of them is the general condition,
indicating a feature of work experience and expressing suspicion. Another
–
the reader
accepts the text and rejects allegory, as well as artistic interpretation. Although the
rejection of allegory (metaphor) was approved by some theoretical researchers,
Todorov’s opinion was not fully accepted.
This implies not only the adoption of a
metaphor, but also the interpretation of its full meaning by Todorov, emphasizing its
necessity.
According to French fiction, “Meaning of Fiction” by Roger Kayua “Fiction –
is
not a change in reality in a world without a miracle, but an influence on a circle that
contradicts the inevitable laws of some impossible creature” [16].
Researcher R.
Ibragimova said: “The fantastic theme is almost no different from the real one.
The difference between them is that we imagine that one and the same event really exists
or does not exist” [17]. Thus, the miracle of fiction is not to change the whole reality, but a
certain extent affects the laws of the existing universe. Fiction takes place in literature as
a genre, which, in turn, serves as the basis for small epic genres or elements in its
composition. For example, we also encounter various fabulous or mythological images or
plots in the genre of fiction that make up the composition of fantasy. It follows that the
combination of fiction and fantasy in terms of content creates aspects of mutual
similarity between the two genres.
CONCLUSIONS
Fantasy works that reflect Western culture have commented on various views on
their social life and structure of society. There are also scientific views on the use of
magic through various images in European medieval government and the formation of
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fantasy legends of King Arthur as a genre. By the twentieth century, attention has been
paid to the fantasy genre in world literature and general ideas about the features and
commonality of fiction and fantasy works written and being written on their basis. There
are also scientific hypotheses about the genre of fiction and its role in public life, and its
specific elements are explained sequentially. In addition, there are opinions based on the
scientific views of various foreign scientists who today conduct research in the genre of
science fiction.
Based on the scientific and theoretical analyses presented above, we have come to
the following conclusions.
1. The fantasy genre and its origin
–
it has its roots in the distant past. The fantasy
genre includes the following- myth, fairy tale and Chivalry Romani possess.
2. A huge number of works have appeared on Fantasy. However, we associate
fantasy
and all information about it with Tolkien’s work.
3. There are distinctive aspects between fantasy and fantasy works. Fiction
–
when
it is connected with reality, fantasy arises on the basis of abstraction.
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