HENK0386HU English - Free topic 10: Literature of the Fantastic (exam form C)

The course offers a historical survey of fantasy and fantastic literature. The fantastic has always been popular with readers, although it was for a long time considered to be substandard literature. Since J.R.R. Tolkien, however, it has become a major publishing phenomenon. We will examine the history and conventions of fantastic writing through discussions of notable examples of the genre, from the writing down of the fairy tales to Alice in Wonderland, and from Edgar Allen Poe to Game of Thrones. We will chart the fantasy subgenres (such as gothic fantasy, lost-world fantasy and portal fantasy), while exploring a range of seminal critical approaches to the fantastic. A general question we will raise with many of the texts is how the uses of the fantastic can be seen as a reflection of historical preoccupations and cultural unease.