Lesson 1: What is Fantasy? -- What is Epic Fantasy?
In this first lesson you will learn about the Fantasy genre and Epic Fantasy, the largest sub-genre of Fantasy Fiction.
What is Fantasy?
Welcome to Fantasy Fiction Appreciation. Let us begin our journey.
This first lesson section will introduce you to the Fantasy genre. It will answer the question: What is Fantasy? When this lesson is done, students should have a working idea of what the genre entails and the importance of the genre as entertainment and literature.
Reading is an important skill. It helps improve our minds, assists with work and provides pleasure. For every reader, there comes a time when you want something new and different, so you branch out into other areas of fiction. Trying a new genre can bring new ideas and entertainment to enjoy.
Fantasy is one of the many genres of fiction which include Mystery, Westerns, Mainstream, Romantic, Science Fiction, and so on. It is one of the oldest genres, going back at least to Hellenistic Greece. Most fantasy comes from the mythology of this and other ancient civilizations. Some of the first Fantasy stories are “Gilgamesh” from Babylon, the Iliad and Odyssey by Homer of Greece and the Aeneid by Virgil from the Roman Empire. The common patterns in these stories of quests, heroes, magic, gods, mythical creatures and adventure form the basis of the genre today.
The popularity of the blockbuster Fantasy movies, “Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring” and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” created a large interest in Fantasy books. In recent years the genre has grown so large that several different sub-categories now exist. Finding a Fantasy book in a bookstore to read can be daunting. First, Fantasy books are usually combined with Science Fiction, which is a different genre. Also, there are media tie-in books and books based on role playing game systems. These can be fun to read, but don’t have the depth or sense of wonder true Fantasy literature can provide.
Appreciation for Fantasy fiction comes from having a knowledge of the sub-categories in the genre. That knowledge begins with the question: What is Fantasy?
What is Fantasy?
The answer has been debated by literary scholars for years. There is no definite consensus. For purposes of this lesson, I’ll keep to a more general definition that most people can agree on.
Fiction is the main category of books that can be broken down into separate genres. Most people can agree that all Fiction is fantasy since all Fiction is made up stories about unreal characters. Fantasy is a commercial and literary genre of Fiction with its own themes and elements. It is a genre as old as civilization. Fiction has realistic plots and characters while Fantasy deals with the impossible.
Fantasy is a genre that has magic, secondary worlds, mythical creatures, quests, and great battles between good and evil in most of the books. Common elements in the genre are dragons, wizards, elves, trolls and other imaginary characters. Some books have minimal fantastic elements, but anything that is not possible in the real world is considered Fantasy.
Though very simplified, this is the working definition for this course.
Themes of Fantasy:
Almost every book of fiction possesses a plot, characters, setting and themes. Each genre has common themes unique to it. Fantasy is no exception. Some of its themes are:
- Quests, both internal and external.
- Struggles between good and evil, light and dark, or law and chaos.
- Coming of age.
- Heroism.
Quests help the characters to grow as they strive for an object or ideal. The struggles between opposing forces are to achieve or restore balance to the world. Themes of heroism and coming of age bring about growth in characters. Other themes appear in Fantasy but these are the major ones.
Importance of Fantasy:
Reading Fantasy is not about escapism. It doesn’t teach magic to people. Fantasy is a genre to gain insights about being human or exploring the human soul by taking us out of the real world. In Fantasy, through the threats of sorrow and failure readers get a fleeting glimpse of joy and discover truths and an underlying reality.
Fantasy author and scholar Jane Yolen states the importance of Fantasy best:
"In fantasy stories we learn to understand the differences of others, we learn compassion for those things we cannot fathom, we learn the importance of keeping our sense of wonder. The strange worlds that exist in the pages of fantastic literature teach us a tolerance of other people and places and engender an openness toward new experience. Fantasy puts the world into perspective in a way that 'realistic' literature rarely does. It is not so much an escape from the here-and-now as an expansion of each reader’s horizons."
Bibliography:
Homer. The Iliad.
-.The Odyssey.
Virgil. The Aeneid
“Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring”
“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”
