I am a big fan of science fiction and science fiction as well. At one time I read a lot, now much less because of the invention of the Internet and lack of time. While preparing the next post, I came across this rating. Well, I think I’ll run now, I probably know everything here! Aha! No matter how. I haven't read half of the books, but that's okay. I hear some authors almost for the first time! Wow, how it is! And they are CULT! How are you doing with this list?
Check...
1. Time Machine
A novel by H.G. Wells, his first major science fiction work. Revised from the 1888 story "The Argonauts of Time" and published in 1895. The Time Machine introduced the idea of time travel and the time machine used for this into fiction, which were later used by many writers and created the direction of chrono-fiction. Moreover, as Yu. I. Kagarlitsky noted, both in scientific and world outlook Wells “... in a certain sense anticipated Einstein", who formulated special theory relativity ten years after the release of the novel
The book describes the journey of the inventor of the time machine into the future. The plot is based on the fascinating adventures of the protagonist in a world 800 thousand years later, describing which the author proceeded from the negative trends in the development of contemporary capitalist society, which allowed many critics to call the book a warning novel. In addition, the novel for the first time describes many ideas related to time travel, which will not lose their attractiveness for readers and authors of new works for a long time.
2. Stranger in a foreign land
A fantastic philosophical novel by Robert Heinlein, awarded the Hugo Award in 1962. In the West, it has a "cult" status, being considered the most famous of fantasy novels ever written. One of the few science fiction books included in the Library of Congress list of books that have shaped America.
The first expedition to Mars disappeared without a trace. The Third World War pushed back the second, successful expedition for a long twenty-five years. New researchers made contact with the original Martians and found out that not all of the first expedition died. And they bring to earth "Mowgli of the space age" - Michael Wallentine Smith, brought up by local intelligent beings. A man by birth and a Martian by upbringing, Michael bursts into the habitual everyday life of the Earth as a bright star. Endowed with the knowledge and skills of an ancient civilization, Smith becomes the messiah, the founder of new religion and the first martyr for his faith...
3. Saga of the Lensmen
The Lensman saga is the story of a million-year confrontation between two ancient and powerful races: the evil and cruel Eddorians, who are trying to create a giant empire in space, and the inhabitants of Arrisia, the wise patrons of young civilizations emerging in the galaxy. In time, the Earth will enter this battle with its mighty space fleet and the Lensman Galactic Patrol.
The novel instantly became incredibly popular among fans of science fiction - it was one of the first major works, the authors of which ventured to push the action beyond solar system, and since then, Smith, along with Edmond Hamilton, is considered the founder of the space opera genre.
4 Space Odyssey 2001
"2001: A Space Odyssey" - revised into a novel literary script movie of the same name (which in turn is based on early story Clark "Sentinel"), which has become a classic of science fiction and is dedicated to the contact of mankind with an extraterrestrial civilization.
The film "2001: A Space Odyssey" is regularly included in the list of "greatest films in the history of cinema." It and its sequel 2010: Odyssey Two won the Hugo Awards in 1969 and 1985 for best fantasy films.
The influence of the film and book on modern culture is enormous, as is the number of their fans. And although the year 2001 has already arrived, "Space Odyssey" is unlikely to be forgotten. She continues to be our future.
5. Fahrenheit 451
The dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 by the famous American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury has become, in a sense, an icon and a guiding star of the genre. It was created on a typewriter, which the writer rented from public library and was published for the first time in parts in the first issues of Playboy magazine.
The epigraph of the novel states that the ignition temperature of paper is 451 °F. The novel describes a society that relies on popular culture and consumer thinking, in which all books that make you think about life are to be burned; possession of books is a crime; and people who can think critically are outlawed. The protagonist of the novel, Guy Montag, works as a "fireman" (which in the book means burning books), confident that he is doing his job "for the benefit of mankind." But soon he becomes disillusioned with the ideals of the society of which he is a part, becomes an outcast and joins a small underground group of outcasts, whose supporters memorize the texts of books in order to save them for posterity.
6. "Foundation" (other names - Academy, Foundation, Foundation, Foundation)
A science fiction classic that tells of the collapse of a great galactic empire and its rebirth with the help of the "Seldon Plan".
In later novels, Asimov connected the world of the Foundation with his other cycles of works about the Empire and about positronic robots. The combined cycle, which is also called "Foundation", covers the history of mankind for over 20,000 years and includes 14 novels and dozens of short stories.
According to rumors, Asimov's novel made a huge impression on Osama bin Laden and even influenced his decision to create the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden likened himself to Gary Seldon, who rules the society of the future through pre-planned crises. Moreover, the Arabic translation of the novel's title is Al Qaida and thus may have given rise to the name of bin Laden's organization.
7. Massacre Number Five, or The Children's Crusade (1969)
Kurt Vonnegut's autobiographical novel about the bombing of Dresden during World War II.
The novel was dedicated to Mary O'Hare (and Dresden taxi driver Gerhard Müller) and was written in a "telegraphic-schizophrenic style", as Vonnegut himself puts it. Realism, grotesque, fantasy, elements of madness, cruel satire and bitter irony are closely intertwined in the book.
The protagonist is American soldier Billy Pilgrim, a ridiculous, timid, apathetic man. The book describes his adventures in the war and the bombing of Dresden, which left an indelible imprint on the Pilgrim's mental state, which has not been very stable since childhood. Vonnegut introduced a fantastic element into the story: the events of the protagonist's life are viewed through the prism of post-traumatic stress disorder, a syndrome characteristic of war veterans that crippled the hero's perception of reality. As a result, the comical "tale about aliens" grows into some coherent philosophical system.
Aliens from the planet Tralfamador take Billy Pilgrim to their planet and tell him that time does not really "flow", there is no gradual random transition from one event to another - the world and time are given once and for all, everything that has happened and will happen is known . About someone's death, the Trafalmadorians simply say: "Such things." It is impossible to say why or why something happened - such was the "structure of the moment".
8. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Legendary ironic sci-fi saga by Douglas Adams.
The novel tells about the adventures of the unfortunate Englishman Arthur Dent, who, with his friend Ford Prefect (a native of a small planet somewhere near Betelgeuse, working in the editorial office of the Hitchhiker's Guide), escapes death when the Earth is destroyed by a race of Vogon bureaucrats. Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ford's relative and President of the Galaxy, accidentally saves Dent and Ford from death in outer space. Also aboard Zaphod's improbable-powered ship, the Heart of Gold, are the depressive robot Marvin, and Trillian, aka Tricia MacMillan, whom Arthur once met at a party. She is, as Arthur soon realizes, the only human left alive besides himself. The heroes search for the legendary planet Magrathea and try to find a question that fits the Ultimate Answer.
9. Dune (1965)
Frank Herbert's first novel in the Dune Chronicles saga about the sandy planet Arrakis. It was this book that made him famous. Dune won Hugo and Nebula Awards. Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels of the 20th century.
This book raises many political, environmental and other important issues. The writer managed to create a complete fantasy world and cross it with philosophical novel. In this world, the most important substance is spice, which is needed for interstellar flights and on which the existence of civilization depends. This substance is found only on one planet called Arrakis. Arrakis is a desert inhabited by huge sandworms. The Fremen tribes live on this planet, in whose life water is the main and unconditional value.
10 Neuromancer (1984)
A novel by William Gibson, a cyberpunk canon that won the Nebula (1984), the Hugo (1985) and the Philip Dick Prize. This is the first Gibson novel to open the Cyberspace trilogy. Published in 1984.
This work deals with concepts such as artificial intelligence, a virtual reality, Genetic Engineering, transnational corporations, cyberspace (computer network, matrix) long before these concepts became popular in popular culture.
11. Do androids dream of electric sheep? (1968)
Science fiction novel by Philip Dick written in 1968. Tells the story of "bounty hunter" Rick Deckard, who goes after androids - creatures almost indistinguishable from humans, outlawed on Earth. The action takes place in the radiation-poisoned and partially abandoned San Francisco of the future.
Along with The Man in the High Castle, this novel is Dick's most famous work. This is one of the classic science fiction works that explores the ethical issues of creating androids - artificial people.
In 1982, based on the novel, Ridley Scott made the film Blade Runner with Harrison Ford in leading role. The script, which Hampton Fancher and David Peoples created, is quite different from the book.
12. Gate (1977)
science fiction novel American writer Frederick Paul, published in 1977 and won all three major American genre awards - Nebula (1977), Hugo (1978) and Locus (1978). The novel opens the Heechee cycle.
Near Venus, people have found an artificial asteroid built by an alien race called the Heechee. Spaceships were found on the asteroid. People figured out how to navigate the ships, but they couldn't change their destination. Many volunteers have tested them. Some returned with discoveries that made them rich. But most returned with nothing. And some didn't come back at all. The flight on the ship was like Russian roulette - you could get lucky, but you could also die.
The main character is a lucky explorer. He is tormented by remorse - from the crew, which had good luck, only he returned. And he is trying to figure out his life, confessing to a robot psychoanalyst.
13 Ender's Game (1985)
Ender's Game won the Nebula and Hugo Awards for best novel in 1985 and 1986 - one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the realm of science fiction.
The novel is set in 2135. Mankind survived two invasions of the alien race "buggers" (English buggers), only miraculously survived, and is preparing for the next invasion. To search for pilots and military leaders who can bring victory to the Earth, a military school is being created, to which the most talented children are sent from early age. Among these children is the title character of the book - Andrew (Ender) Wiggin, the future commander of the International Earth Fleet and the only hope of mankind for salvation.
14. 1984 (1949)
In 2009, The Times listed 1984 as one of the 60 best books published over the past 60 years, and Newsweek ranked the novel second in its list of the 100 best books of all time.
The title of the novel, its terminology, and even the name of the author subsequently became a household name and are used to refer to a social structure reminiscent of that described in "1984" totalitarian regime. Repeatedly became both a victim of censorship in the socialist countries, and the object of criticism from leftist circles in the West.
George Orwell's fantasy novel 1984 tells the story of Winston Smith, who is rewriting history based on partisan interests during the reign of a totalitarian junta. Smith's mutiny leads to dire consequences. As the author predicts, nothing can be worse than total lack of freedom...
This work, which was banned in our country until 1991, is called a dystopia of the twentieth century. (hatred, fears, hunger and blood), a warning against totalitarianism. The novel was boycotted in the West due to the similarity between the ruler of the country, Big Brother, and the real heads of state.
15. Brave New World (1932)
One of the most famous dystopian novels. A sort of antipode of Orwell's 1984. No torture chambers - everyone is happy and satisfied. The pages of the novel describe the world of the distant future (the action takes place in London), in which people are grown in special embryorium plants and in advance (by influencing the embryo at various stages of development) are divided into five castes of different mental and physical abilities, which perform different work. From "alphas" - strong and beautiful mental workers to "epsilons" - semi-cretins who can only do the simplest physical work. Babies are brought up differently depending on the caste. So, with the help of hypnopedia, each caste is brought up with reverence for more high caste and contempt for the lower castes. Costumes for each caste of a certain color. For example, alphas go in gray, gammas go in green, deltas go in khaki, epsilons go in black.
In this society, there is no place for feelings, and it is considered indecent not to have regular sexual intercourse with different partners (the main slogan is “everyone belongs to everyone else”), but pregnancy is considered a terrible shame. People in this "World State" do not age, although the average life expectancy is 60 years. Regularly, in order to always have a good mood, they use the drug "somu", which has no negative effects ("soma grams - and no dramas"). God in this world is Henry Ford, they call him “Our Lord Ford”, and the chronology comes from the creation of the Ford T car, that is, from 1908 AD. e. (in the novel, the action takes place in the year 632 of the "era of stability", that is, in 2540 AD).
The writer shows the life of people in this world. The main characters are people who cannot fit into society - Bernard Marx (a representative of the upper class, alpha plus), his friend the successful dissident Helmholtz and the savage John from the Indian reservation, who all his life dreamed of getting into beautiful world where everyone is happy.
source http://t0p-10.ru
And by literary theme, let me remind you what it was and what it was The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -
chief hallmark fantastic work is a fantastic assumption that completely determines the development of the plot. It may be another world that exists according to other laws of physics or in another time; the level of technological development, which is absent in reality; special, superhuman properties of characters; the presence of magic or creatures that do not exist in reality. Modern includes many genres, the two main among which are scientific fantastic. Scientific fantastic(science fiction, SCI-FI) describes events taking place in the real world, but having at least one significant difference from modern or historical reality. It can be technical, social, historical or physical, but never magical. For the most part, works of science fiction consider the impact of scientific and technological inventions on the life of society. The action can take place both in the distant future and in other (parallel) worlds, but these worlds are never supernatural. The most common plots in science fiction are flights to other planets, socio-political in technogenic world, robotics, unexpected scientific discoveries. Fantasy, as a rule, assumes the existence of magic and supernatural phenomena in the described world and the absence of a technological civilization in it. In its spirit, the fantasy style is close to the traditional epic with its heroes of “sword and magic”, the global scale of events and the chain of numerous feats and adventures. The basis of the plot and its main thread is usually the special mission of the protagonist and his friends, which continues throughout the book, and often a number of volumes.Modern fantastic includes many subgenres related to science or fantasy direction. SCI-FI literature can be divided into genres such as hard science fantastic(hard SF), post-apocalyptic fantastic, dystopia, space opera, cyberpunk, post-cyberpunk, spacepunk, social, alternative history. The fantasy style is characterized by genres: fantasy epic, heroic fantasy, lyrical fantasy, humorous fantasy, techno-fantasy, fantasy-Darkness and much more.
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Surely you have already heard about test-tube meat, which is grown in the laboratory. Scientists offer all new ideas and technologies for cultivating meat. In this case, we are talking about the production of chicken, beef and pork on a large scale, without the participation of the animals and birds themselves. Does it still feel like science fiction to you?
Leaders Western countries and representatives of the United Nations (UN) are seriously concerned about what humanity will eat in twenty years, because the state of the environment and the economic situation around the world leave much to be desired. Meat in the next few years may become a real expensive delicacy, available only to wealthy people. Therefore, researchers began to look for a cheaper replacement.
According to scientists, cultured meat obtained artificially is much more environmentally friendly and much cheaper, so it will be available to many citizens. Meat is a fundamentally new and additional source of protein that can prevent human infections and ensure the safety of animals.
Scientists remove stem cells from the stem cells and place them in a special nutrient, where they begin to grow and develop rapidly. Most big size grown meat - with a contact lens, while containing millions of stem cells. It is expected that by the end of 2012 there will be the first hamburger with meat from. According to scientific researchers, such a product is in no way inferior to natural meat in its properties. And the production is absolutely harmless to the environment than traditional livestock breeding.
New artificial meat - originally not traditional, red. To give it a familiar shade, you can use an appropriate and safe one, so that this problem quite solvable. Due to the conditions of the rapid growth of the population of our planet, the emerging technology of growing meat from a test tube is more than ever welcome, perhaps it will be able to meet the growing needs of people in food.
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Definition genre changed in different times. Now this word is used to call the union works of art into groups by common features or its correlation with other works on the same grounds. Every art form has different genres.
Instruction
Genres of literature, especially popular: fantasy, science fiction, detective, drama, tragedy, comedy.
Fantasy and sci-fi are related
Greek phantastike - the art of imagining) - a form of reflection of the world, in which, based on real ideas, a logically incompatible picture of the Universe is created. Common in mythology, folklore, art, social utopia. In the XIX - XX centuries. science fiction develops.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
FANTASTIC
Greek phantastike - the art of imagining), a kind of fiction where fiction receives greatest freedom: the boundaries of fiction stretch from the depiction of strange, unusual, fictional phenomena to the creation own world with special patterns and possibilities. Fantasy has a special type of imagery, which is characterized by a violation real connections and proportions: for example, the severed nose of Major Kovalev in N.V. Gogol's story "The Nose" itself moves around St. Petersburg, has a rank higher than its owner, and then miraculously finds itself again in its place. At the same time, the fantastic picture of the world is not pure fiction: the events of reality are transformed and raised to the symbolic level in it. Fiction in a grotesque, exaggerated, transformed form reveals to the reader the problems of reality and reflects on their solution. Fantastic imagery is inherent in a fairy tale, epic, allegory, legend, utopia, satire. A special subspecies of science fiction is science fiction, in which imagery is created by depicting fictional or real scientific and technological achievements of a person. Artistic originality fiction consists in opposing the world of fantasy and the real, so each work of fiction exists, as it were, in two planes: the world created by the author's imagination somehow correlates with reality. The real world is either taken out of the text ("Gulliver's Travels" by J. Swift), or is present in it (in "Faust" by I.V. Goethe, the events in which Faust and Mephistopheles participate are contrasted with the lives of other citizens).
Initially, fantasy was associated with the embodiment of mythological images in literature: for example, ancient fantasy with the participation of gods seemed to be quite reliable for authors and readers (The Iliad, Odyssey by Homer, Works and Days by Hesiod, plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Euripides and etc.). Homer's Odyssey, which describes many amazing and fantastic adventures of Odysseus, and Ovid's Metamorphoses, stories of the transformation of living beings into trees, stones, people into animals, etc., can be considered examples of ancient fiction. In the works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, this trend continued: in the knightly epic (from Beowulf, written in the 8th century, to the novels of Chrétien de Troyes in the 14th century), images of dragons and wizards, fairies, trolls, elves and other fantastic creatures appeared. A separate tradition in the Middle Ages is Christian fiction, which describes the miracles of saints, visions, etc. Christianity recognizes evidence of this kind as genuine, but this does not prevent them from remaining part of the fantastic literary tradition, since extraordinary phenomena are described that are not characteristic of the usual course of events. The richest fantasy is presented in Eastern culture: Tales of the Thousand and One Nights, Indian and Chinese literature. In the Renaissance, the fantasy of chivalric romances is parodied in Gargantua and Pantagruel by F. Rabelais and in Don Quixote by M. Cervantes: Rabelais presents a fantastic epic that rethinks the traditional clichés of science fiction, while Cervantes parodies the passion for fantasy, his hero sees fantastic creatures everywhere, which does not exist, gets into ridiculous situations because of this. Christian fiction in the Renaissance is expressed in the poems of J. Milton " Lost heaven and Paradise Regained.
The literature of the Enlightenment and classicism is alien to fantasy, and its images are used only to give an exotic flavor to the action. A new flowering of fantasy comes in the 19th century, in the era of romanticism. Genres based entirely on fantasy appear, such as the gothic novel. Various forms of fantasy German romanticism; in particular, E. T. A. Hoffman wrote fairy tales (“Lord of the Fleas”, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”), Gothic novels (“Devil's Elixir”), enchanting phantasmagoria (“Princess Brambilla”), realistic stories with fantastic background (“ The Golden Pot", "The Choice of the Bride"), philosophical fairy tales-parables ("Little Tsakhes", " Sandman"). Fantasy in the literature of realism is also common: " Queen of Spades"A. S. Pushkin, "Shtoss" by M. Yu. Lermontov, "Mirgorod" and "St. the real world in the text, often the introduction of fantastic images requires motivation (Tatyana's dream in Eugene Onegin). However, the assertion of realism relegated fantasy to the periphery of literature. They turned to her to give a symbolic character to the images (“Portrait of Dorian Gray” by O. Wilde, “Shagreen Skin” by O. de Balzac). The gothic tradition of fiction is being developed by E. Poe, whose stories feature unmotivated fantastic images and collisions. The synthesis of various types of fantasy is represented by M. A. Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita.
Great DefinitionIncomplete definition ↓
Fantasy is a kind of fiction in which the author's fiction from the depiction of strange, unusual, implausible phenomena extends to the creation of a special - fictional, unreal, " wonderful world". Fiction has its own fantastic type of figurativeness with its inherent high degree of convention, frank violation of real logical connections and patterns, natural proportions and forms of the depicted object.
Fantasy as a field of literary creativity
Fantasy as a special area literary creativity maximally accumulates creative fantasy the artist, and at the same time the imagination of the reader; at the same time, this is not an arbitrary "realm of the imagination": in a fantastic picture of the world, the reader guesses the transformed forms of the real - social and spiritual - human being. Fantastic imagery is inherent in such folklore and literary genres as a fairy tale, epic, allegory, legend, grotesque, utopia, satire. The artistic effect of a fantastic image is achieved through a sharp repulsion from empirical reality, therefore, at the heart of any fantastic work lies the opposition of the fantastic and the real. The poetics of the fantastic is connected with the doubling of the world: the artist either models his own incredible world that exists according to its own laws (in this case, the real “reference point” is hidden, remaining outside the text: “Gulliver’s Travels”, 1726, J. Swift, “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man ”, 1877, F.M. Dostoevsky), or in parallel recreates two streams - real and supernatural, unreal being. In the fantastic literature of this series, mystical, irrational motives are strong, the carrier of fantasy here appears in the form of an otherworldly force interfering with fate central character, influencing his behavior and the course of events of the entire work (works of medieval literature, literature of the Renaissance, romanticism).
With the destruction of mythological consciousness and the growing desire in the art of the New Age to seek driving forces being in being itself, already in the literature of romanticism there is a need for fantastic, which in one way or another could be combined with a general setting for a natural depiction of characters and situations. The most stable methods of such motivated fiction are dreams, rumors, hallucinations, madness, plot mystery. Created new type veiled, implicit fantasy, leaving the possibility of double interpretation, double motivation of fantastic incidents - empirically or psychologically plausible and inexplicably surreal ("Cosmorama", 1840, V.F. Odoevsky; "Shtoss", 1841, M.Yu. Lermontov; "Sandy man”, 1817, E.T. A. Hoffmann). Such a conscious fluctuation of motivation often leads to the fact that the subject of the fantastic disappears ("The Queen of Spades", 1833, A.S. Pushkin; "The Nose", 1836, N.V. Gogol), and in many cases its irrationality is generally removed, finding prosaic explanation as the story progresses. The latter is characteristic realistic literature, where fantasy is narrowed down to the development of individual motives and episodes or performs the function of an emphatically conditional, naked device that does not pretend to create the illusion of trust in the reader in the special reality of fantastic fiction, without which fiction is most pure form unable to exist.
Origins of fiction- in the myth-making folk-poetic consciousness, expressed in a fairy tale and a heroic epic. Fiction is essentially predetermined by the centuries-old activity of the collective imagination and is a continuation of this activity, using (and updating) constant mythical images, motifs, plots combined with vital material of history and modernity. Fiction evolves along with the development of literature, freely combining with various methods of depicting ideas, passions and events. She stands out as special kind artistic creativity as we move away folklore forms from practical tasks of mythological comprehension of reality and ritual and magical influence on it. The primitive worldview, becoming historically untenable, is perceived as fantastic. characteristic feature The origin of fantasy is the development of the aesthetics of the miraculous, which is not characteristic of primitive folklore. A stratification occurs: the heroic tale and the tales of the cultural hero are transformed into heroic epic(folk allegory and generalization of history), in which the elements of the miraculous are auxiliary; the fabulously magical element is perceived as such and serves as a natural environment for a story about travels and adventures, taken out of the historical framework. Thus, Homer's Iliad is essentially a realistic description of the episode Trojan War(which does not interfere with the participation in the action of heroes-celestials); Homer's "Odyssey" is primarily a fantastic story about all kinds of incredible adventures(not related to epic story) one of the heroes of the same war. The plot, images and incidents of the Odyssey are the beginning of all literary European fiction. Approximately the same as the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Irish heroic sagas and the Voyage of Bran, son of Febal (7th century) correlate. The prototype of many future fantastic journeys was the parody " True story» (2nd century) Lucian, where the author for reinforcement comic effect strove to pile up as much as possible of the incredible and absurd, and at the same time enriched the flora and fauna of the "wonderful country" with many tenacious inventions. Thus, even in antiquity, the main directions of fantasy were outlined - fantastic wandering-adventures and fantastic search-pilgrimage (a characteristic plot is a descent into hell). Ovid in his Metamorphoses directed the original mythological plots of transformations (the transformation of people into animals, constellations, stones) into the mainstream of fantasy and laid the foundation for a fantastic-symbolic allegory - a genre more didactic than adventurous: "teaching in miracles." Fantastic transformations become a form of awareness of the vicissitudes and insecurity human destiny in a world subject only to the arbitrariness of chance or a mysterious higher will. A rich collection of literary processed fairy tale fiction give fairy tales "A Thousand and One Nights"; the influence of their exotic imagery affected European pre-romanticism and romanticism, fantastic images and echoes of the Mahabharata and Ramayana are saturated Indian literature from Kalidasa to R. Tagore. A kind of literary twist folk tales, legends and beliefs are many works of Japanese (for example, the genre of “a story about the terrible and extraordinary” - “Konjakumonogatari”) and Chinese fiction (“Stories about miracles from the Liao cabinet” by Pu Songling, 1640-1715).
Fantastic fiction under the sign of "aesthetics of the miraculous" was the basis of the medieval knightly epic - from "Beowulf" (8th century) to "Perceval" (circa 1182) by Chretien de Troy and "The Death of Arthur" (1469) by T. Malory. The legend of the court of King Arthur, subsequently superimposed on a chronicle colored by the imagination, became the frame for fantastic plots. crusades. The further transformation of these plots is shown by the monumentally fantastic, which almost completely lost the historical epic basis, the Renaissance poems “Roland in Love” by Boiardo, “ Furious Roland"(1516) L. Ariosto, "Liberated Jerusalem" (1580) T. Tasso, "The Fairy Queen" (1590-96) E. Spencer. Together with numerous chivalric romances of the 14th-16th centuries, they constitute a special era in the development of fantasy. A milestone in the development of the fantastic allegory created by Ovid was the Romance of the Rose (13th century) by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. The development of Fiction during the Renaissance is completed by "Don Quixote" (1605-15) by M. Cervantes - a parody of the fantasy of knightly adventures, and "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (1533-64) by F. Rabelais - a comic epic on fantastic basis, both traditional and arbitrarily rethought. In Rabelais we find (chapter "Theleme Abbey") one of the first examples of the fantastic development of the utopian genre.
To a lesser extent than ancient mythology and folklore, stimulated fantasy religious mythological images of the Bible. The largest works of Christian fiction "Paradise Lost" (1667) and "Paradise Regained" (1671) by J. Milton are based not on canonical biblical texts, but on apocrypha. This, however, does not detract from the fact that the works of European fantasy of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as a rule, have an ethical Christian coloring or represent a play of fantastic images and the spirit of Christian apocryphal demonology. Outside of fantasy are the lives of the saints, where miracles are fundamentally singled out as extraordinary, but real events. Nevertheless, the Christian-mythological consciousness contributes to the flourishing of a special genre - visions. Starting with the "Apocalypse" of John the Theologian, "visions", or "revelations", become full-fledged literary genre: different aspects it is represented by "The Vision of Peter Plowman" (1362) by W. Langland and "The Divine Comedy" (1307-21) by Dante. (The poetics of religious "revelations determines W. Blake's visionary fiction: his grandiose "prophetic" images are the last pinnacle of the genre). By the end of the 17th century. mannerism and baroque, for which fantasy was a constant background, an additional artistic plan(at the same time, an aestheticization of the perception of fantasy took place, the loss of a vivid sense of the miraculous, characteristic of the fantastic literature of subsequent centuries), was replaced by classicism, which is inherently alien to fantasy: its appeal to myth is completely rationalistic. In the novels of the 17th and 18th centuries, the motifs and images of fantasy are casually used to complicate the intrigue. Fantastic search is interpreted as erotic adventures (“fairy tales”, for example, “Akazhu and Zirfila”, 1744, C. Duclos). Fiction, having no independent meaning, turns out to be an aid to a picaresque novel (“The Lame Demon”, 1707, by A.R. Lesage; “The Devil in Love”, 1772, by J. Kazot), a philosophical treatise (“Micromegas”, 1752, Voltaire). The reaction to the dominance of enlightenment rationalism was characteristic of the second half of the 18th century; the Englishman R. Hurd calls for a heartfelt study of Fiction ("Letters on Chivalry and Medieval Novels", 1762); in The Adventures of Count Ferdinand Fathom (1753); T. Smollett anticipates the beginning of the development of science fiction in the 1920s. gothic novel by H. Walpole, A. Radcliffe, M. Lewis. Supplying accessories romantic plots, fantasy remains in a subsidiary role: with its help, the duality of images and events becomes the pictorial principle of pre-romanticism.
In modern times, the combination of fantasy with romanticism turned out to be especially fruitful. “Refuge in the realm of fantasy” (Yu.A. Kerner) was sought by all romantics: the “Ienese” fantasize, i.e. the aspiration of the imagination to the transcendent world of myths and legends, was put forward as a way of familiarizing with the highest insight, as a life program - relatively prosperous (due to romantic irony) by L. Tieck, pathetic and tragic by Novalis, whose “Heinrich von Ofterdingen” is an example of a renewed fantastic allegory, comprehended in the spirit of the search for an unattainable, incomprehensible ideal world. The Heidelberg romantics used Fantasy as a source of plots that give additional interest to earthly events (“Isabella of Egypt”, 1812, L.Arnima is a fantastic arrangement of a love episode from the life of Charles V). This approach to science fiction proved especially promising. In an effort to enrich its resources, german romantics turned to its primary sources - collected and processed fairy tales and legends ("Peter Lebrecht's Folk Tales", 1797, revised by Tieck; "Children's and family tales", 1812-14 and" German legends ", 1816-18 brothers J. and W. Grimm). This contributed to the formation of the literary fairy tale genre in all European literatures, which remains to this day the leading one in children's fiction. Its classic example of a fairy tale by H.K. Andersen. Romantic fiction is synthesized by the work of Hoffmann: here both the Gothic novel (“Devil's Elixir”, 1815-16), and literary tale(“Lord of the Fleas”, 1822, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, 1816), and enchanting phantasmagoria (“Princess Brambilla”, 1820), and a realistic story with a fantastic background (“The Choice of a Bride”, 1819, “The Golden Pot, 1814) . Faust (1808-31) by I. W. Goethe presents an attempt to heal the attraction to fantasy as to the “abyss of the otherworldly”: using the traditional fantastic motif of selling the soul to the devil, the poet discovers the futility of the wandering of the spirit in the realms of the fantastic and affirms the earthly as the final value. vital activity that transforms the world (i.e., the utopian ideal is excluded from the realm of fantasy and projected into the future).
In Russia, romantic fiction is represented in the works of V.A. Zhukovsky, V.F. Odoevsky, A. Pogorelsky, A.F. Veltman. A.S. Pushkin (“Ruslan and Lyudmila”, 1820, where the epic-fairy-tale flavor of fantasy is especially important) and N.V. Gogol turned to fantasy, whose fantastic images are organically merged into the folk-poetic ideal picture of Ukraine (“ Terrible revenge", 1832; "Viy", 1835). His St. Petersburg fiction (The Nose, 1836; Portrait, Nevsky Prospekt, both 1835) is no longer associated with folklore and fairy tale motifs and is otherwise conditioned big picture"escheated" reality, the condensed image of which, as it were, in itself generates fantastic images.
With the establishment of realism, fantasy again found itself on the periphery of literature, although it was often involved as a kind of narrative context, giving a symbolic character to real images (“Portrait of Dorian Gray, 1891, O. Wilde; “Shagreen Skin”, 1830-31 O. Balzac; works by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, S. Bronte, N. Hawthorne, Yu. A. Strindberg). The gothic tradition of fantasy is developed by E.A.Po, who depicts or implies the transcendent, otherworldly world as a realm of ghosts and nightmares that rule over the earthly destinies of people. However, he also anticipated (The History of Arthur Gordon Pym, 1838, The Thrown into the Maelstrom, 1841) the emergence of a new branch of Fantasy - scientific, which (starting with J. Verne and G. Wells) is fundamentally separated from the generally fantastic tradition; she draws a real, albeit fantastically transformed by science (for worse or for better), the world, a new view of the researcher. Interest in photography as such revived towards the end of the 19th century. neo-romantics (R.L. Stevenson), decadents (M. Schwob, F. Sologub), symbolists (M. Maeterlinck, A. Bely's prose, A. A. Blok's dramaturgy), expressionists (G. Meyrink), surrealists (G .Cossack, E. Kroyder). The development of children's literature gives rise to a new look fantasy world-world toy: L. Carroll, K. Collodi, A. Milne; in domestic literature - from A.N. Tolstoy ("Golden Key", 1936) N.N. Nosov, K.I. Chukovsky. An imaginary, partly fairy-tale world is created by A. Green.
In the second half of the 20th century fantastic start is realized mainly in the field of science fiction, but sometimes it gives rise to qualitatively new artistic phenomena, for example, the trilogy of the Englishman J.R. Abe Kobo, works of Spanish and Latin American writers (G. Garcia Marquez, J. Cortazar). Modernity is characterized by the above-mentioned contextual use of fantasy, when an outwardly realistic narrative has a symbolic and allegorical connotation and will give a more or less encrypted reference to a mythological plot (“Centaur”, 1963, J. Updike; “Ship of Fools”, 1962, K.A. Porter). The combination of various possibilities of fantasy is the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita" (1929-40). The fantastical-allegorical genre is represented in Russian literature by the cycle of “natural-philosophical” poems by N.A. Schwartz. Fiction has become a traditional auxiliary means of Russian grotesque satire: from Saltykov-Shchedrin (“History of a City”, 1869-70) to V.V. Mayakovsky (“Bedbug”, 1929 and “Banya”, 1930).
The word fantasy comes from Greek phantastike, what does it mean in translation- the art of imagining.
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