In class this week we were asked to define what Fantasy is, a task that proved, truly, to be more difficult than I had originally thought it would be. So what is Fantasy? And how do we classify something as Fantasy if we are unable to clearly tell you what it is? The best answer I can come up with is unsatisfying but will suffice enough: fantasy is a work of fiction that has a setting in a place not like our world (containing creatures that we would be very surprised to find as we live our mundane lives) and/or in a time, generally, somewhere in the past with a society that usually is medieval. As I said, not the best description but it will do for now.
Given the above as a starting ground we should now move on to the challenging task of sorting various readings into different genres. For this we may reach into the field of science and borrow their taxonomical procedures of identifying key features that a group has, and then place them with others like them. The four most prominent, I believe, are Fairy/Faerie-Story, Fable, fantasy, and Sci-fi. (though not fantastical as a norm it is often grouped with it). In order for us to sort them here we must also know a definition of each.
In Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories" he describes a Fairy/Faerie-Story as any that involved fairies or the land of Faerie itself, preferring the latter to the former. He states that stories about fairies would tend to be dull but that "most good 'fairy-stories' are about adventures of men in the Perilous Realm or upon the shadowy marches". Good or not though, a story about fairies is still a Fairy-story. He also says that "a 'fairy-story' is one which touches on or uses Faerie". This is a clear explanation for us, thus giving us a place to put stories such as Phantastes by George Macdonald and The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa.
Next we look at the definition of a Fable. These he tells us is "Near the borders of Faerie, but outside it". He refers to The three little pigs and Brer Rabbit. These tales are very much like fairy-stories and often are placed in the same genre, yet they are not quite in Faerie nor do they reference fairies often. They do however, have an element of the fantastical to them (I have yet to have a conversation with an animal where it speaks in any language spoken by man). What links the Fable together then? It is, I suppose, their inherent morality. While many other stories abound with morals, it is the main focus and purpose of these tales to teach us a lesson.
The next, fantasy, is-for better or worse- a hodgepodge. These stories will not quite fit into the Faerie Stories but they are also not Fables. They are fantastical throughout but do not belong in the Perilous realm. These would be stories like Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling and The Mercy Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs. Note these are usually set in a world and time very much like our own where fantastical creatures have been injected into the very fabric of our reality.
Finally, the last is Sci-fi or Science Fiction. These tales are generally based on future times and set in space (on planets or on ships) or a society that has yet to form. They may or may not have any element of the creatures we would expect to see in normal fantasy. Some examples of these would be The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins or The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey.
Knowing these four genres and where to sort the fantastical fiction we come across, will eventually be able to help us better define Fantasy as a whole. As with the scientific community we are able to better describe an organism when we know its taxonomical classification. What is a fox? It has four legs, fur, two eyes, one mouth, a nose, two ears, births its offspring and has mammary glands: it is a mammal. What is Lord of the Rings? It has orcs/elves/dragons/dwarves/etc., it is in the distant past, and it is in a different realm: it is a Fairy/Faerie-story and is Fantasy.
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