The Realism of Magic in the Fantasy Tradition of William Morris

Abstract

Because realism has been such a pervasive narrative mode, other modes have had to find strategies for taking advantage of it in order to subvert or escape from it. Two of the commonest strategies of fantasy fiction are the use of plain diction and the use of transformation or metamorphosis scenes. Both are embedded in the tradition of romantic prose fantasy normally considered to have been established by William Morris. But Morris’s successors often have occasion to depart from one or both of these strategies. Constraints as well as advantages lie in their use, and many subsequent writers, lacking the philosophical and cultural values that predisposed Morris almost habitually to use them, found good reason at least occasionally to abandon them.