Theoretical challenges in the study of the fantastic literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/2617-3921.2024.26.192-203Keywords:
science fiction, fantasy, the fantastic, generic criticism, intergeneric boundaries, structuralismAbstract
The article is intended to outline the critical interest in the literature of the fantastic in two ways: by outlining the challenges in a theoretical understanding of its generic specificity in the wider field of literature by exemplifying analytic approaches to the study of the fantastic. Some of them are traditional and connected with the body of SF scholarship, inasmuch they have greatly helped in forming critical opinions. Another way is to highlight not so much a genre of the fantastic, but controversial theses that emerged within a new critical direction concerning the “moments of truth” found in fantastic writings that emerged with New Wave and encouraged the dynamics of critical awakening. It is noticeable that critics of the fantastic move away from the criterion of reality, then return to it again as a saving milestone. The goal of the article is not so much to name any of them as the most correct and comprehensive but to consider some of the many challenges that pertain to the criticism of the fantastic and that are still left unanswered in Western mainstream criticism. Critics, like E. Rabkin, N. Ruddick, H. Bretnor, L. Fiedler, T. Todorov, S. Lem, B. Aldiss, espoused a new vision of the fantastic not only within a historical context and generic variety of the precursors of the fantastic genre as an area of active artistic consciousness but also as a reader’s experience of the fantastic. As the title implies, the article describes how the study of the fantastic elucidates authoritative judgments on challenging issues and the most unexpected solutions, inasmuch since discussions on the definition and designation of genres of fantastic literature can be endless. The variety of emerging modifications of the fantastic is just as limitless. In addition, some new theoretical challenges are visible as a consequence of this study. The science-centrism is largely discredited now, and the process of the birth of new fantastic genres is underway in critical assessment.
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