week 3~

How has fantasy as a genre been defined? Find at least five formative definitions in Attebery (1980).
What is fantasy? When someone mentioned fantasy, the first thing you bring up in your mind must be the elves, fairies, vampires, or the battle of two heroes, the fancy journeys……
I gave fantasy a easy definition: fantasy is a long narrative story, with unconstrained imagination.
In Attebery(1980), Attebery define fantasy is “any narrative which includes as a significant part of its make-up some violation of what the author clearly believes to be natural law”. It can use various ways to realize the nature: the impossible thing existence; the magical objects are revolved; or any other thing we can’t visualize.

Attebery also followed up with some definitions:
Tzvetan Todorov defined fantasy “the hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.” His fantasy is called “marvellous”, “in which characters are confronted with unquestionably supernatural happenings.”
Eric Rabkin defines fantasy a “limited” “equally subgroup”. He thought fantasy is not the accepted model of the world, but the “model generated within the story itself.”
E.M. Forster speaks to the readers to “pay something extra”. Here, the definition of fantasy becomes “a game of sorts, and it demands that one play whole-heartedly, accepting for the moment all rules and turns of games.” This is the extra payment, called “wonder”.
W.R.Irwin define fantasy “an overt violation of what is generally accepted as possibility.” In his description, fantasy is a narrative. It presents the “persuasive establishment and development of impossibility, an arbitrary construct of the mind with all under the control of logic and rhetoric.”
Last one is the definition of J.R.R.Tolkien, he said the fantasy “founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sum; on recognition of fact but not slavery to it.”

What are some archetypes (e.g. common character types) of fantasy fiction?

The Hero and heroine
Usually, in fantasy fiction, the hero or heroine always everyman. They don't have magic or good skills, like Harry potter. In the beginning, they don't know what will happen in their lives, they have a quiet life. But when they notice the big thing what will happened, they become strong, and finally get the last win.
Another kind of hero is just hero; he has become the hero in his tribe. The fantasy journey will happen after the disaster of the tribe. The hero begins his way to find new hopes.
Imagination character
Sometimes, elves and orcs, fairies and dryads, vampires and werewolves, are all the archetypes of fantasy fiction. In some science fiction, the alien is also the character the write descript.

Reference: Attebery, B. (1980). Locating fantasy. In The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guinn (pp.2-9). Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1980.