Abstract
In an essay which has become something of a Credo for modern fantasy writers, Ursula Le Guin asks, ‘why are Americans afraid of Dragons?’ Her question addresses the inherent resistance to fantasy literature felt in American and indeed in other Western societies, especially by adults. That resistance is due, simply, to the sophistication of our highly technologised, competitive and politicised societies which blinds us to, or at least leaves us too busy for, psychological and spiritual insight. Le Guin writes:
… fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it, too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phoney, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living. (44)
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© 1991 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Filmer, K. (1991). Introduction. In: Filmer, K. (eds) The Victorian Fantasists. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21277-4_1
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