The Literary Fantastic (BA)

The Literary Fantastic –BA Lit Survey                                                                    lit., 2-3, core lect, survey, any course lecture, BAEN, BAAM, BAmin                      ANGBA31, ANGBA32, ANGBA71, AMEBA71, AMEBA33, AMEMIN111, ANGBAL81, YSE BTK 011-14

The course provides an overview of the literary-historical development and the manifold theoretical problematizations of Fantastic Fiction in English. We shall explore fantasy’s amazing variety of subgenres ranging from Gothic ghost stories to postmodern cyberpunk, discussing on our way Romantic tales, Victorian phantasmagorias, high fantasy legendarium, modernist de/mythologizations, magic/al ir/realism, urban fantasy, dystopia, science fiction, steampunk, dark fantasy, paranormal romance, feminist/queer revisions, heroic fantasies of history and religion, contemporary young adult and children’s quest fantasies, horror and body genres, and the filmic fantastic. Students will be familiarized with recurrent themes and critical-theoretical concerns of the fantastic mode such as worldmaking, rhetorics, topography, hesitation, subversion, metamorphosis, mirror images, multiplying selves, bodily disintegration, dis/enchantment, escapism, non-signification, etc. Authors covered include Shelley, Stoker, Stevenson, Wilde, Carroll, MacDonald, Poe, Woolf, Wells, Tolkien, Lewis, Lovecraft, Baum, Le Guin, Bradbury, Herbert, Rushdie, Morrison, Carter, Winterson, Atwood, Burgess, Dick, Adams, King, Rowling, Gaiman, Pratchett, Pullman, Miéville, Martin, Martel, Ness, Burton, Lynch, Miyazaki, etc.                                                                                Evaluation: final written exam. Max 6 absences allowed.

by clicking on the lesson titles below you can download the ppt slides/ summaries

(02.05.) Orientation

(02.12) Introduction to the Literary Fantastic: Historical Origins, Genres, Clusters, Rhetorics, Ways of Reading, Critical, Theoretical Approaches 

(02.19) The Romantic Fantastic, Gothic Origins_

(02.26) Victorian Phantasmagorias

(03.04) High Fantasy Legendarium

(03.11) Modernist (de)mythologizations

(03.25) Magic/al Ir/realism

(04.01.)Utopias, Dystopias, Urban Fantasy

(04.08) Science Fiction, Steampunk, Cyberpunk

(04.22) Dark fantasy, paranormal romance, feminist revisions

(04.29.) Quest narratives, Heroic fantasies of history and religion

(05.06.) Postmodern Young Adult fantasy, Contemporary children’s Gothic

(05.13.) Horror and Body Genres, Filmic adaptations of the fantastic from Méliès to Lynch

List of Compulsory Readings (pick 1 book of each topic)

1. VICTORIAN PHANTASMAGORIA

 

Recommended Secondary Literature

Tolkien. “On Fairy Stories”

CS Lewis. “Three ways of writing for children”

Chesterton. “The Ethics of Elfland”

 Literary Fantastic Key Terms 2018

 

A Select Bibliography of Further Recommended Secondary Readings

Anderson, Douglas A., ed. Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy. Random House, 2003.

Attebery, Brian. Strategies of Fantasy. Indiana UP, 1992.

Armitt, Lucie. Fantasy Fiction. An Introduction. New York: Continuum, 2005.

Bényei, Tamás. 1997. Apokrif Iratok. Mágikus realista regényekről. Debrecen: Kossuth.

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment. The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, 1976.

Botting, Fred. Gothic. London: Routledge, 1996.

—. Gothic Romanced. Consumption, Gender and Technology in Contemporary Fictions. Taylor and Francis, 2008.

Bowers, Maggie Ann. Magic(al) Realism. London: Routledge, 2004.

Brooke-Rose, Christine. A Rhetoric of the Unreal: Studies in Narrative and Structure, Especially of the Fantastic. CUP Archive, 1983.

Carroll, Noel. The Philosophy of Horror. Paradoxes of the Heart. Routledge, 1990.

Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice. Magical Realism and the Fantastic: Resolved Versus Unresolved Antinomy. New York: Garland, 1985.

Clute, John and John Grant, eds. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. 1997. Online edition

Coelsch-Foisner, Sabine György E. Szőnyi, Sarolta Marinovich-Resch, Anna Kérchy, eds. What Constitutes the Fantastic? Szeged: JATEPress, 2010.

Cornwell, Neil. The Literary Fantastic: From Gothic to Postmodernism NY: Harvester, 1990.

Hume, Kathryn. Fantasy and Mimesis. Responses to Reality in Western Literature. Methuen, 1984.

Hunt, Peter and Millicent Lenz. Alternative Worlds in Fantasy Fiction. New York: Continuum, 2001.

Jackson, Anna, Roderick McGillis, Karen Coats. The Gothic in Children’s Literature: Haunting the Borders. Routledge, 2007.

Jackson, Rosemary. Fantasy. The Literature of Subversion. London: Routledge, 1981.

James, Edward and Farah Mendlesohn. The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. Cambridge UP, 2012.

Jones, Diana Wynne. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Vista, 1996.

Kelleghan, Fiona, ed. Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. Pasadena: Salem, 2002.

Kérchy Anna, ed. Postmodern Reinterpretations of Fairy Tales: How Applying New Methods Generates New Meanings. Lewiston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2011.

Kérchy Anna. “Faraway, So Close. Towards a definition of Magical (Ir)Realism” in What Constitutes the Fantastic?

Kérchy, Anna. “Children and Young Adult Literature” The Routledge Companion to Media and Fairy Tale Cultures. Ed. Pauline Greenhill et al. New York: Routledge, 2018.

Kiss, Attila, Szőnyi György Endre, Baróti Gál Márta, eds. The Iconography of the Fantastic. Szeged: JatePress, 2002.

Lovecraft, H. P. Supernatural Horror in Literature. Dover Publications, 1973.

Martin, Philip. A Guide to Fantasy Literature. Thoughts on Stories of Wonder and Enchantment. Crickhollow, 2009.

Mathews, Richard. Fantasy: The Liberation of Imagination. Taylor & Francis, 2002.

Mendlesohn, Farah. Rhetorics of Fantasy. Wesleyan, 2008.

Mulvey-Roberts, Marie. Dangerous Bodies. Historicising the Gothic Corporeal, Manchester UP, 2015.

Prickett, Stephen. Victorian Fantasy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.

Punter, David. The Gothic. Blackwell Guide, 2004.

Rabkin, Eric. The Fantastic in Literature. Princeton, 1976.

Rieder, John, “What is SF? Some thoughts on Genre”

Rieder, John. “On-Defining-SF” Science Fiction Studies. Vol 37. No2. (2010 July): 191-209.

Sandner, David. Fantastic Literature: A Critical Reader. Praeger, 2004.

Siebers, Tobin. The Romantic Fantastic. Cornell UP, 1984.

Stableford, Brian. The A to Z of Fantasy Literature. Toronto: Scarecrow Press, 2009.

Tiffin, Jessica. Marvelous Geometry. Narrative and Metafiction in Modern Fairy Tale. Wayne State UP, 2009.

Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic. A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Trans. Richard Howell. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Monster and the Critics and Other Essays, HarperCollins, 2006.

Vint, Sherryl, ed. Science Fiction and Cultural Theory. Routledge,

Warner, Marina. Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors and Media into the Twenty-First Century. Oxford UP, 2006.

—. Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds. Oxford UP, 2004.

Zamora, Lois Parkinson and Wendy B. Faris eds. Magical Realism. Theory, History, Community. Durham: Duke UP, 1995.