Introduction

Abstract

In 1984, Ann Swinfen published a detailed study of English and American fantasy literature titled In Defence of Fantasy. Her brief in defending fantasy is to take ‘… a wide-ranging and comprehensive view of fantasy — what it is, what it tries to achieve, what fundamental differences distinguish it from the realist novel’ (Swinfen 1). It is an odd notion that any literary genre needs defence, although definition and application are always useful in an area of study. If there is any aversion to fantasy, it arises, as Geoffrey Summerfield points out, from the change in the western world view in the eighteenth century, when ‘the old pre-empirical, pre-rational versions of “reality” became more and more the preserve of uneducated “superstitious” adults, and of children’ (xii). He adds

Empiricism and the protestant work-ethic have bitten deep into our collective psyche…

Fantasy, in our culture, tends to be associated with the ‘pleasure-principle’, and with the self-indulgent gratification, albeit vicarious, of rather disreputable desires: the satisfaction of selfish wishes, rather than the answering to natural needs. Growing up, conversely, seems to necessitate the increasing dominion of the ’reality principle’, of duly wincing, and being seen to wince, when we bruise our toe on stones too heavy for us to kick… (xiii)