Fantasy Literature

Fantastic literature is based on a an aesthetic category of fiction that narrates the intrusion of the supernatural in a realistic world like the occurrence of unexplained facts, at least theoretically, in a context that is familiar to the reader. The fantastic is situated between a miraculous territory where the supernatural is accepted and justified and the strange, where the supernatural facts are accepted as normal. In both situations the hero of the story and the reader, as well, have the reaction to reject the supernatural deeds. This reaction might be accompanied by dubitative refusal, rejection or fear.

Fantastic atmosphere is often linked to a particular kind of reluctance in meeting with the impossible. Fear is also often present, either in the field of the hero or the author's desire to cause anguish to readers. However, it is not a condition 'sine qua non' of fantasy novels. According to literary theorists, fantastic deeds and actions would not only present hesitation in accepting the supernatural but the temptation to find a rational explanation to all of it. Fantasy would be then only a transition to establish a balance between the miraculous and strange.

Fantastic stories have abounded in the world’s literature and were, like, ever written, like the Grail story or fairy tales from the series 'One Thousand and One Nights.' However, the best fantasy novels were written in the nineteenth century. We should remember in these context Honore de Balzac, who used the miraculous in the fantastic category 'La Peau of chagrin,' Guy de Maupassant as he exorcises his demons with the fantastic in 'Le Horla', Jules Verne, explaining the supernatural with science 'Le Châteaudes Carpates', Oscar Wilde that integrates philosophical stories in 'the Portrait of Dorian Gray', Mary Shelley that resumes the Golem myth in 'Frankenstein' and the famous novel 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker.