Fantasy is a type of fiction that includes imaginary or magical elements, such as made-up worlds and creatures that do not exist in real life.
This genre began in books and plays that featured magical stories. Starting in the 20th century, fantasy stories spread to other forms of media, such as movies, TV shows, comic books, Japanese comics, animated shows, and video games.
Some critics refer to this genre as "fantastic literature." An older way to spell the word is "phantasy."
Fantasy is usually different from science fiction and horror because it does not focus on science or scary, dark themes, though these can sometimes appear. In popular culture, fantasy stories often take place in worlds that are similar to our real Earth but have a different, magical feel.
Characteristics
Fantasy stories often include magic or other supernatural elements as important parts of the story, themes, or settings. Magic, people who use magic (like sorcerers or witches), and magical creatures are common in many fantasy worlds.
A key feature of fantasy is that the story can include elements that do not need to follow real history or natural laws to make sense. This is different from realistic fiction, which must follow real history and natural rules. When writing fantasy, authors create imaginary worlds, characters, and situations that might not exist in real life.
Many fantasy writers use real stories, myths, or legends from different cultures as inspiration. While magic is a common part of fantasy, it is not always required.
Fantasy is often compared to science fiction and horror because they are all types of speculative fiction. Fantasy is different from science fiction because fantasy stories do not need to be scientifically possible, even though they might seem unlikely. Science fiction stories are based on logical scientific or technological ideas, even if they are not real. To write good fantasy stories, authors rely on readers being willing to believe in impossible or unbelievable things for enjoyment. Although both fantasy and horror use supernatural ideas, they are different. Horror stories focus on creating fear by showing characters' weaknesses or their inability to face dangers.
History
Fantasy elements have been part of literature since its beginning. These elements also appear in ancient religious texts, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Enûma Eliš, an ancient Babylonian creation story, describes the god Marduk defeating the goddess Tiamat. This story shows a battle between good and evil, a theme common in modern fantasy. Ancient Egypt also had stories with fantasy and romantic elements. The Tales of the Court of King Khufu, found in the Westcar Papyrus and written around 1800 BC, includes stories mixing history, fantasy, and humor. Egyptian funerary texts include myths, such as the stories of Osiris and his son Horus.
In ancient Greece, stories with fantasy elements were popular for adults. The plays of Aristophanes, like The Birds, include fantasy, such as a man convincing birds to build a city in the clouds, challenging Zeus’s power. Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Apuleius’s The Golden Ass helped shape the fantasy genre by combining myths with personal stories. These works show people turning into animals or objects. Ideas from Plato and early Christian writers also influenced modern fantasy. Plato used stories to explain his ideas, and early Christians used parables in the Bible to teach spiritual lessons. This practice of finding meaning in non-literal stories became the basis for modern fantasy.
Fantasy also appears in Islamic, Hindu, and Chinese traditions. The One Thousand and One Nights (also called The Arabian Nights) is a famous collection of stories from the Islamic world. Characters like Aladdin and Sinbad became well-known in Western culture. Hindu myths, based on earlier Vedic stories, include many fantasy tales, such as those in the Indian epics. The Panchatantra used animal fables and magic to teach lessons about politics. Chinese traditions influenced the fantasy style called Chinoiserie, which inspired writers like Ernest Bramah and Barry Hughart.
Beowulf, a famous Old English story, has greatly influenced the fantasy genre. Writers like John Gardner retold its story in Grendel. Norse mythology, found in the Elder Edda and Younger Edda, includes gods like Odin, dwarves, elves, dragons, and giants. These elements appear in many fantasy works. The folklores of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland have been used in "Celtic" fantasy stories. The Welsh tradition, linked to the legend of King Arthur and the Mabinogion, has been especially influential.
Some works make it hard to tell if they are fantasy or other genres. For example, did writers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight believe the magical events could happen? This uncertainty makes it difficult to say when modern fantasy began.
Modern fantasy is often said to start with George MacDonald, a Scottish writer who wrote Phantastes (1858) and The Princess and the Goblin (1872). These were the first fantasy novels written for adults. MacDonald influenced authors like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Another important writer was William Morris, who wrote The Wood Beyond the World (1894) and The Well at the World’s End (1896).
Fantasy fiction became more popular in the 20th century. Lord Dunsany helped make fantasy stories widely known. Authors like H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, and Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote fantasy around this time. They helped create the "lost world" subgenre, which was popular in the early 1900s. Classic children’s stories like Peter Pan and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz were also published then.
Fantasy for adults was less accepted than stories for children. Writers who wanted to create adult fantasy often used forms meant for children. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote fantasy in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, but his adult works only slightly touched on fantasy. Books like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and later works like The Lord of the Rings were often classified as children’s literature.
Political and social changes can affect how a society views fantasy. In early 20th-century China, the New Culture Movement criticized traditional fantasy stories, calling them superstitious. After the Communist Party took power, stories with the supernatural were also banned. Fantasy in China only became popular again after the Cultural Revolution ended.
Fantasy became a major part of pulp magazines in the West. The first all-fantasy magazine, Weird Tales, was published in 1923. Magazines like The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF), started in 1949, helped spread fantasy to a wide audience. These magazines also helped science fiction gain popularity, and the two genres became linked.
By 1950, "sword and sorcery" stories, like Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian and Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, became more popular. However, the rise of "high fantasy"—especially J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—made fantasy mainstream. Other series, like C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea, helped fantasy gain even more popularity.
Fantasy remains a popular genre today. Best-selling series like J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire show how much fantasy continues to influence readers worldwide.
Media
Several fantasy films have become very successful, including The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson and the Harry Potter films, which are two of the most successful movie series in history.
Fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) appear in many types of media. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was the first tabletop RPG, and it is still the most popular and influential. A 1999 survey in the United States found that 6% of people aged 12 to 35 had played RPGs. Of those who play regularly, two-thirds play D&D. In 2005, more than 50% of all RPG products sold were branded as Dungeons & Dragons.
The science fantasy RPG series Final Fantasy has become a major icon in the video game industry. As of 2012, it remained one of the top ten best-selling video game franchises. The first collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering, has a fantasy theme and is also a leading product in its industry.
Classification
Fantasy includes many types of stories that are defined by specific themes, settings, or overlaps with other kinds of fiction. These types include the following:
In her book Rhetorics of Fantasy (2008), Farah Mendlesohn created a system for classifying fantasy stories. She based this system on "how the magical or impossible elements are introduced into the story." She also noted that some fantasy stories do not fit into any of these categories. The system includes the following classifications:
Subculture
People who work in publishing, editing, writing, art, and research who are interested in fantasy stories meet every year at the World Fantasy Convention (WFC). At this event, the World Fantasy Awards are given to winners. The first WFC took place in 1975, and it has happened every year since then, in different cities each time.
Other science fiction events, like Florida's FX Show and MegaCon, also attract fans of fantasy and horror stories. Anime events, such as Ohayocon and Anime Expo, often show fantasy, science fantasy, and dark fantasy movies and TV shows. Examples include Majutsushi Orphen (fantasy), Sailor Moon (urban fantasy), Berserk (dark fantasy), and Spirited Away (fantasy). Many science fiction/fantasy and anime events also focus on smaller groups within the larger fan communities.
According to 2013 data from the fantasy publisher Tor Books, men make up 67% and women make up 33% of writers who create historical, epic, or high fantasy stories. In contrast, among writers of urban fantasy or paranormal romance stories, women make up 57% and men make up 43%.
Analysis
Fantasy is studied in many areas, such as English and language studies, cultural studies, comparative literature, history, and medieval studies. Some works show connections between medieval themes and modern popular culture, including politics, history, and literature.
The French literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov says the fantastic is a middle area between reality and the supernatural. In this space, strange or magical elements appear in a story, but people are unsure if these elements are real. However, this exact idea is not widely used in English literature. Instead, the French term fantastique is used to describe a different idea than the English word fantastic, which is another name for fantasy. Differences in how countries define the fantastic have caused debates, such as the one started by Stanislaw Lem.
Rosemary Jackson writes about the fantastic in her book Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion (1981). She agrees with some parts of Todorov’s ideas but also challenges them. Jackson does not think fantasy is only about escaping reality or imagining better worlds. Instead, she believes fantasy is closely connected to real life, especially the social and cultural situations in which stories are written. She explains that the strange or magical parts of fantasy stories are created by comparing them to the rules of the time they were written in. These strange parts help people see the hidden limits of those rules and change how society is organized, making it seem "strange" and "new." Jackson says the fantastic shows people’s unspoken wishes for changes in society. She also thinks Todorov’s ideas are too narrow because they focus only on how fantasy works in stories. Jackson expands Todorov’s ideas to include how fantasy relates to culture and society. She argues that fantasy is not a genre but a type of storytelling that mixes realistic and supernatural elements to create uncertainty. Jackson also suggests that fantasy can be studied using ideas from psychology, especially those from Sigmund Freud about the unconscious mind.
There are many ways to understand the fantastic, and these views often depend on the time and society in which they are written. In their book The Female Fantastic: Gender and the Supernatural in the 1890s and 1920s, Lizzie Harris McCormick, Jennifer Mitchell, and Rebecca Soares describe how the social changes in the 1890s and 1920s influenced a new kind of fantasy writing. During this time, women were gaining more freedom and becoming more equal in society. People’s fears about these changes, along with women’s growing roles, led to new kinds of stories that mixed the supernatural with the everyday. The fantastic, like the changing roles of women, exists between two ideas: the supernatural and the ordinary. At the time, women’s roles in society were unclear, just as the rules of the fantastic genre are not always clear. This situation helped create a type of fantasy that is not fully supernatural or completely realistic. Similarly, women were not fully equal but were not completely controlled by old rules. The female fantastic shows that both the genre and women’s roles in the 1920s were uncertain. Many women began to challenge the idea that gender is only male or female, allowing for more ways to understand identity. This change is reflected in fantasy stories, where the line between the supernatural and the real is unclear, making it hard for readers to know if the story is truly supernatural.