Interaction of Fantasy and Literary Fairy Tale in British Children s Literature

Transcription

1 Viktorova 1 Interaction of Fantasy and Literary Fairy Tale in British Children s Literature From the second half of the 20 th century in children s literature a number of works with so called secondary worlds increases. And there is an up-to-date problem of differentiation of the genres of fantasy and literary fairy tale. The most popular children s fantasy writers and fiction are The Wierdstone of Brisingamen (1960) and The Moon of Gomrath (1963) by Alan Garner; The Dark is Rising ( ) by Susan Cooper; Redwall series ( ) by Brian Jacques; The Edge Chronicles ( ) by Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart; Broken Sky series ( ) by Chris Wooding; The Keys to the Kingdom series ( ) by Garth Nix. The Chrestomanci series ( ) by Diana Wynne Jones and Harry Potter books ( ) by J.K. Rowling cause more discussions, because their fiction can be considered as fantasy or as literary fairy tale dependent on what features of these genres dominate. The cause for the complexity of defining these features is there is no adequate term and its analogue in Russian literary criticism, and also because these genres are both quite young. In Western criticism the term fantasy characterizes fiction describing secondary worlds and containing the element of extraordinary, marvelous as fundamental, which is also typical for the literary fairy tale. The latter on is used as a literal translation of Russian notion literaturnaya skazka. There is also a term fantasy story. Some critics, for instance E. Kovtun, often compare fantasy not with fairy tale but with science fiction: fantasy is a kind of fantastic fiction (or fiction about extraordinary) based on the plot assumption of irrational nature. This assumption does not have logical motivation in the text and assumes the existence of facts and phenomena which cannot be explained rationally as opposed to science fiction. (Kovtun 2008, p. 96). We can divide the genre features into three groups.

2 Viktorova 2 The first group consists of the features which are common both for literary fairy tale and fantasy. Firstly, these books contain a lot of characters and are long; there are several series of adventures with one and the same characters. A significant part of the imaginative worlds and plots are built on archetypes. Fantasy hero, sometime together with friends, has to go on a quest, i.e. go through ordeals and adventures. He seeks for some magical object, place, person or knowledge: in this process he understands his own self and finds inner harmony. These assumptions are also true for the fairy tale. As for the language and style, literary fairy tale and fantasy are also quite diverse. Both genres are rich in allegory, allusions, reminiscence and word play etc... Therefore, we can note that fantasy and literary fairy tale are united by more formal features expressed in the presence or absence of the elements typical for fantastic literature. The second group consists of so called transitional elements. They are typical both for fantasy and fairy tale but in some fiction they are subject to changes and minor deviations from the traditional variants. Firstly, children are the main characters of children s fantasy and literary fairy tales. In literary fairy tale children or teenagers are quite often depicted with their shortcomings which are eradicated in the process of communication with the fairy nanny or participation in adventures that change their characters. This aspect is connected with the fact that fairy tale has a didactic and moralistic function. However, the use of a romantic hero, an outcast who resists multiple ordeals alone is typical for children s fantasy. In fantasy the hero either seeks to return the world to its familiar norm or makes an internal change of the character to adapt to its new state (Kovtun 2008, p. 120).

3 Viktorova 3 The second aspect of comparison is the nature of the conflict which lies in the opposition of good and evil. They are often replaced by the opposition of light and dark forces. But evil in fantasy fiction is embodied in the images of antagonists and presented in the most abstract forms, sometimes these evil wizards are not human beings at all, and typical for fantasy hero this fact does not exclude ability to feel firstly as a mankind representative while encountering the supernatural creatures (Ibid., p. 376). In contemporary literary fairy tales the main conflict is between people themselves. Despite the fact that the forces embodying evil are pictured as fantastic and irrational by the writers, in contemporary literature they become not only eternally existing and independent of anything but also are socially marked (Chernyavskaya 1979, p. 122). Therefore, the nature of the conflict and the images of characters can also cause confusion in the differentiation of the genres, but nevertheless can help in it, but the distinctions are blurred. The third group contains such features that help to draw a line between the genres. Any literary work has its own chronotope, so the first aspect of comparison is the model of the world represented in fantasy and literary fairy tale. Fantasy worlds lack geographical and temporal specificity events occur in relative reality, somewhere and at some time, it is more often a parallel world which partly resembles ours (Gopman 2001, p. 1161). Writers create two worlds in literary fairy tales: magical and real. The action starts in the real world and then is transferred to another world, or magical elements are introduced into everyday life. Based on this representation of world time, the concept of time is also different. Time in fantasy resembles mythological time, writers consider the past as the golden age of the humanity, they idealize it and quite often depict in fantasy such moments when this world is

4 Viktorova 4 shaken and threatened. British literary fairy tale always portrays the modernity, contains definite features of time and place of action, epoch, historical events, scientific inventions. Another distinction of the genres is expressed in the category of magic and extraordinary. Principal difference of fantasy miracles from fairy tale analogues is in the fact that they are considered the norm of the described world and act systematically like the laws of nature (Fantasy). In fantasy the ability to work magic and having supernatural powers is perceived as a given. In more modern fairy tales we see the introduction of magic (in the form of magic creatures, transformations and objects) into everyday life or transferring hero into magic world. Readers often are explained what to do to learn how to use magic gift. However some writers do not consider wonder as something serious, they use it only as a device for introducing moral aspect and they convince the readers in the fact that present day life gives a person so many valuable things that cannot exist in any fairy tale (Chernyavskaya 1979, p. 119). Therefore we see that many features of literary fairy tale and fantasy coincide, but spatiotemporal organization of the world and the category of magic point out some distinction of these genres. On the other hand there is an opinion that it is not always necessary to draw a clear line between these genres because we can notice mutual influence of fairy tale and fantasy on each other and their merging into one another. This process is expressed in the foreign terms fantasy novel or fantasy story applied to fiction to a greater or lesser degree. Works cited: Fantasy. 3 Aug <

5 Viktorova 5 Chernyavskaya, Irina. Some peculiarities of the contemporary literary fairy tale. (in Russian). Problems of children s literature. Ed. Irina S. Lupanova. Petrozavodsk Gopman, Vladimir L. Fantasy. (in Russian) Literary encyclopedia of terms and notions. Ed. A. N. Nikolukin. Moscow: Interlvak Kovtun, Elena N. Fiction in literature of the 20 th century: a handbook. (in Russian) Moscow: Vysshaya shkola Karavaeva 1, Natalia A. Interaction of Fantasy and Literary Fairy Tale in British Children s Literature. Proceedings of the XV All-Russian scientific-practical conference World Literature for and about Children (Moscow, Russia, 4-5 February 2010). Issue 15. Moscow. (2010): Published under the maiden name