This bibliography, though not exhaustive, is intended to provide an introductory overview of contemporary critical approaches to fantasy and the fantastic. Certain texts, such as Todorov’s The Fantastic and Tolkien’s Tree and Leaf, have been included in recognition of their central influence on later theorists. In order to provide as broad a historical and theoretical overview as possible, the texts cited represent the work of both critics and authors over the past thirty years (with the exception of Tolkien’s writings, which are older) and incorporate a variety of theoretical frameworks. Certain works, such as the conference collections, may be of primarily historical interest, while others represent some of the most recent critical work in the field. I have also included a few useful reference and research tools, such as encyclopedias and bibliographies of fantastic literature. Several critics have described fantasy as a protean genre, and my hope is that this bibliography recognizes the protean nature of fantasy in providing a diverse, possibly eclectic, representation of critical approaches to the field.

Attebery, Brian. Strategies of Fantasy. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1992.

Brian Attebery, addressing the critical confusion around the term "fantasy," suggests that fantasy may be defined as a "fuzzy set" of those works which share, in greater or lesser degree, the characteristics of certain central fantasy texts. Using Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as a paradigmatic example of a work of fantasy, Attebery examines the characteristics and functions of fantasy, particularly in relation to the theoretical frameworks of reader-response theory, feminist theory, and post-structural theory. Attebery’s approach is relatively unique in that he explores his topic through an examination of contemporary non-canonical (in the sense of the academic literary canon) texts, such as John Crowley’s Little, Big, Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun and Suzette Haden Elgin’s Ozark trilogy.

Boyer, Robert H., and Kenneth J. Zahorski, eds. Fantasists On Fantasy: A Collection of Critical Reflections by Eighteen Masters of the Art. New York: Avon, 1984.

As suggested by the title, this collection consists of a series of reflections by "recognized writers of fantasy" (3) where fantasy is loosely defined as "literature in which non-rational phenomena play a significant part" (3). These reflections range widely in both time (the earliest is from 1893, the most recent from 1982), form (letters, essays, reviews and talks) and types of fantasy discussed (high fantasy, sword and sorcery, gothic fantasy and historical fantasy). As well as a general introduction, the collection introduces each writer’s reflection with a brief biographical entry. The primary concern in this collection is not to provide a theoretical definition of fantasy, but to allow prominent writers of fantasy to speak for themselves in their own words and from a diversity of viewpoints.

Brooke-Rose, Christine. A Rhetoric of the Unreal: Studies in Narrative and Structure, Especially of the Fantastic. New York: Cambridge UP, 1981.

Brooke-Rose both critiques and extends Tzvetan Todorov’s definition of the fantastic as the hesitation between the "uncanny" (rationalizing) and the "marvelous" (supernatural) explanation of apparently supernatural events within a narrative. Including and drawing on a broad overview of contemporary criticism, Brooke-Rose discards Todorov’s requirement that the fantastic must involve the supernatural, suggesting that the defining feature of fantasy is the hesitation itself, the unresolvable ambiguity of a text. Suggesting that this type of structural ambiguity may characterize the strategies of postmodernity, Brooke-Rose explores the implications of her theorizing in relation to works by Edgar Alan Poe, Henry James, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Thomas Pynchon, among others. Although one section examines the fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien (in order to dismiss it), the primary focus of this text is on the fantastic as a form of the postmodern, rather than an examination of "popular" or "genre" fantasy.

Clute, John, and John Grant, eds. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. London: Orbit, 1999.

This extensive reference work provides an overview of fantastic literature, film, authors, techniques and terms. Including extensive cross-referencing, the encyclopedia assumes Brian Attebery’s definition of fantasy as a "fuzzy set" of characteristics emerging from certain central works of the genre, such as Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This definition is not strictly exclusive, as the encyclopedia also includes entries for such topics as "magic realism," but most entries focus on authors and the various types and techniques of fantasy as they relate to Attebery’s definition.

Collins, Robert A. and Howard D. Pearce, ed. The Scope of the Fantastic: Theory, Technique, Major Authors. Westport: Greenwood, 1980.

Subtitled "Selected Essays from the First International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film," this collection includes a selection of essays divided into three broad sections. The first section, "Theoretical Approaches," explores the theoretical dimensions of the fantastic, both in terms of definition and in relation to various critical approaches. Essays in this section address, extend, and critique Todorov’s definition of the fantastic, as well as ranging more broadly into relations of the fantastic to modern physics, indeterminacy (in the sense of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle), and postmodernity. The second section, "Techniques of the Fantastic," proposes various characteristic techniques of fantasy and relates these techniques to specific texts. The third section, "Author Studies," examines particular authors of the fantastic and their strategies, strengths and weaknesses. Governed only by the topics presented at the conference, this collection does not present a unified approach to fantasy and the fantastic but does provide a useful overview of the various academic approaches at the time of the conference.

Hall, Hal W., ed. Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index, 1878-1985: An International Author and Subject Index to History and Criticism. 2 vols. Detroit: Gail Research Company, 1987.

---. Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index, 1985-1991: An International Author and Subject Index to History and Criticism. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited, 1993.

---. Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index, 1992-1995: An International Subject and Author Index to History and Criticism. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited, 1997.

Collectively, these four volumes provide over 45,000 bibliographic citations of both primary and secondary materials for the study of speculative fiction. Entries include all sub-genres of the "fantastic," which is "defined as including science fiction, fantasy, and horror/supernatural/weird fiction" (1878-1985 ix). Entries are given, separately, under both subject and author headings, and citation sources include SF industry magazines, fanzines, academic journals, and books. While not specifically focussed on fantasy, these reference volumes provide one of the most comprehensive bibliographic references available for the study of speculative fiction.

Irwin, W.R. The Game of the Impossible: A Rhetoric of Fantasy. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1976.

Irwin opens his argument by making a sharp distinction between "the fantastic" and "fantasy." The fantastic is embodied in the self-consciously anti-real, requiring the violation of accepted reality and nothing more. Fantasy, however, involves the rhetorical construction (in prose fiction) of an internally consistent extrapolation from one or more fantastic elements. In this conception, the internal consistency and rhetorical persuasiveness of a prose narrative are what make a "fantasy," whereas the anti-real alone engenders merely the "fantastic." Irwin explores this concept in relation to various literary and social theorists, particularly Johan Huizanga and Roger Callois’s theories of play as internally consistent, essentially human and non-real. Relating these assertions to texts from 1880 to 1957, Irwin explores the ramifications of his theory. Like Brian Attebery, Irwin does not propose an exhaustive theoretical definition of "fantasy," but rather proposes a set of distinctive characteristics which may be more or less present within a given work.

Jackson, Rosemary. Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. New York: Methuen, 1981.

Rosemary Jackson, like Christine Brooke-Rose, attempts to amend what she sees as the gaps and inconsistencies in Tzvetan Todorov’s theory of the fantastic. Jackson modifies Todorov’s terms, placing the "fantastic" in the indeterminate space between the "marvelous" and the "mimetic." Jackson characterizes this space as paradigmatically subversive, questioning culturally dominant notions of what is real; she then extends this notion of subversion in relation to both Marxist and psychoanalytic perspectives. In particular, Jackson equates the "fantastic" with the subconscious, that force which undermines or expresses those urges which are repressed by societal frameworks and restrictions. In consistency with her (and Todorov’s) definition, Jackson defines most popular fantasy, such as that of J.R.R. Tolkien and Ursula K. LeGuin, as "marvelous," rather than "fantastic" literature. Thus, Jackson examines texts by such authors as Kafka and Thomas Pynchon, rather texts than "popular" fantasy authors.

LeGuin, Ursula K. The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. Ed. Susan Wood. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1979.

In this collection of essays, LeGuin explores her own definitions, as a practitioner, of fantasy and science fiction. Topics range from the defining characteristics of fantasy and science fiction to the proper function and purpose of fantasy to the process of writing and creating worlds. One particular issue that LeGuin addresses is what she calls the "genrefication" of these modes, and the possibility of (and need for) character-driven (rather than idea-driven) science fiction and fantasy. These reflections are not works of academic criticism, but are a collection of essays, book introductions and talks from the perspective of a working writer.

Leonard, Elizabeth Anne. Ed. Into Darkness Peering: Race and Color in the Fantastic. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1997.

This collection of essays examines issues of race and colour coding in popular speculative fiction, loosely categorized as "the fantastic." The majority of the essays engage with science fiction, although the introduction and certain essays specifically engage with fantasy as a distinct genre. One of the basic premises underlying the collection is the suggestion that the popular fantastic presents an ideal space for engagement with questions of broad cultural assumptions (such as race) specifically because popular literature is consumed by a relatively large audience. Of particular concern is the common symbolic framework in popular fantasy (particularly in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis) in which darkness is "bad" and light is "good." Elizabeth Leonard asserts that, before this collection, "there has been no significant single volume work on race and the fantastic, [although] there have been several excellent articles" (11).

Manlove, C.N. Modern Fantasy: Five Studies. New York: Cambridge UP, 1975.

C.N. Manlove defines fantasy as "a fiction evoking wonder and containing a substantial and irreducible element of the supernatural with which the mortal characters in the story or the readers become on at least partly familiar terms" (1). This definition is based largely on Tolkien’s formulation of "fairy story" as proposed in Tree and Leaf, two crucial elements being the necessary evocation of "wonder" through the use of the supernatural and the irreducibility of the supernatural. That is, within a fantasy text, the supernatural must be irreducible to any rational explanation or framework, thus categorically denying Todorov’s definition of fantasy-as-uncertainty. Manlove examines the works of five fantasists (Charles Kingsley, George MacDonald, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Mervyn Peake) in detail, eventually concluding that true fantasy (according to his definition) cannot be satisfactorily achieved in a modern, secularized world. This impossibility is due to the fact that "the gap between the worlds [between mind and body] has grown too wide for more than an occasional vision . . . of its healing" (259).

---. The Impulse of Fantasy Literature. Kent, OH: Kent State UP, 1983.

In this text, Manlove maintains his definition of fantasy from Modern Fantasy and explores what he sees as the central thematic concern of fantasy: the "insistence on and celebration of the separate identities of created things . . . the sense of individuality that comes from making things strange and luminous with independent life in a fantastic setting" (ix). From this perspective, Manlove examines the strengths and weaknesses in the works of several fantasists, including Charles Williams, Ursula K. LeGuin, George MacDonald and T. H. White. The most typical failure of bad fantasy, Manlove suggests, arises from a lack of "restraint" (154) in this celebration of being, usually a manifestation of sentimentalism, resulting in an "anaemic" (127) or deficient sense of the independent reality of the created world.

Mathews, Richard. Fantasy: The Liberation of Imagination. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997.

Richard Mathews, although more concerned with a historical exploration of fantasy texts and tradition than the proposition of an abstract theoretical framework, suggests that fantasy "may be thought of as a fiction that elicits wonder through elements of the supernatural or impossible" (2). Opening with an extensive survey of fantasy from ancient to modern times, Mathews asserts, with Harold Bloom, that "fantasy forms the mainstream of Western literature until the Renaissance" (2). From the grounding of his historical survey, Mathews explores the development of the modern fantasy genre as represented in the works of five writers: William Morris, J. R. R. Tolkien, T. H. White, Robert E. Howard, and Ursula K. LeGuin. This text also includes an invaluable bibliographic essay surveying major reference and critical works in the study of fantasy and the fantastic.

Michalson, Karen. Victorian Fantasy Literature: Literary Battles With Church and Empire. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1990.

Karen Michalson explores the historical context and reception of fantasists and fantastic literature in Victorian England through the works of six writers: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Ruskin, George MacDonald, Charles Kingsley, Henry Rider Haggard, and Rudyard Kipling. Using "the nineteenth-century’s looser . . . understanding of fantasy literature as the stuff with magic and fairies and impossible occurrences in it" (2), Michalson is "primarily concerned with the historical forces which underlie fantasy’s critical neglect" (ii). Combining an examination of English Victorian history with her study of fantasists, Michalson suggests that the threefold influences of evangelical religion, education, and empire building contributed to a distinct anti-fantasy bias in Victorian culture, thus influencing the formation of the traditional literary canon. As well, Michalson suggests that Victorian fantasy consistently tends to question the received power structures and ideologies of the day, further contributing to its suppression by the agents of these same power structures.

Olsen, Lance. Ellipse of Uncertainty: An Introduction to Postmodern Fantasy. Westport: Greenwood, 1987.

Lance Olsen opens with a comprehensive survey of the critical histories of the two most crucial terms in his arguments: "postmodern" and "fantasy." In defining "fantasy," Olsen accepts Rosemary Jackson’s definition of fantasy as that mode which appears in the hesitation and confusion between the opposing poles of the marvelous and the mimetic. On the basis of this definition, Olsen argues that "postmodern fantasy becomes the literary equivalent of deconstructionism" (117). Accordingly, Olsen examines the work of eight writers (Kafka, Borges, Robbe-Grillet, Beckett, Fuentes, Pynchon, Marquez and Coetzee) "who have come to be considered postmodern" (23) in order to explore the manifestation of postmodern fantasy in their writing.

Pringle, David, ed. The St. James Guide To Fantasy Writers. New York: St. James Press, 1996.

This reference volume provides an index of fantasy texts (here seen as distinct from horror, ghost story, or gothic) by author. Each entry includes a brief biography of the author, a list of the author’s published works, as well as a signed critical essay and a listing of critical studies. While not expressly adopting a specific critical definition of fantasy, David Pringle characterizes the designation as "a perceived type of modern fiction, regarded by most readers as quite distinct from horror and science fiction" (viii). In addition to the author entries, a list of significant critical studies is given in a supplementary reading list.

Rabkin, Eric S. The Fantastic in Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1976.

Eric Rabkin defines fantasy in a formal sense as the "diametrical contradiction" of a set of given ground-rules, of "reality," whether that reality is defined inside or outside of the text. Taking Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland as the paradigmatic fantasy text, Rabkin asserts that a true fantasy (as opposed to a text which merely uses techniques of the fantastic as a non-central element) is a text which continually reverses its own internally established ground-rules. From this starting point, Rabkin develops extensive arguments relating fantasy to the study of world-view, genre criticism, and literary history, concluding that the study of the fantastic in literature may effectively complement and expand the study of literature from these various perspectives.

Sanders, Joe. ed. Functions of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Thirteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Westport: Greenwood, 1995.

This collection of essays from the 1992 International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts reflects the increasing diversity of approaches to fantasy and the fantastic. Opening with Jack Zipes’ essay on trends in the American fairy tale, closing with Brian Attebery’s examination of science fiction after 1960, and including papers from papers on such diverse subjects as CBS’s Beauty and the Beast television series and Jane Austen’s novels, the collection presents a snapshot of the academic study of fantasy and the fantastic in 1992. Ranging from the examination of the fantastic elements in the work of mainstream "literary" writers to manifestations of "popular" fantasy by popular writers, this collection demonstrates a growing openness to a variety of approaches in the academic study of fantasy and the fantastic.

Slusser, George Edgar, Eric S. Rabkin, and Robert Scholes, ed. Bridges to Fantasy. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1982.

This collection of thirteen essays from the Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy (1980), is intended to "demonstrate the variety of fantasy forms and their pervasiveness throughout the ages . . . [and to] stimulate further study of these forms in the broadest theoretical manner" (x-xi). The critics in this volume, including Harold Bloom, explore three general areas: the formal characteristics of fantasy, the various contexts in which fantasy is received or generated, and the thematic characterization (or lack thereof) of fantasy. Essays range from the broadly theoretical to the examination of specific texts and consider a broad range of authors, from Mark Twain to Ursula K. LeGuin. These essays, while primarily focussed on fantasy, also examine the relationship between science fiction and fantasy from diverse perspectives.

Spivack, Charlotte. Merlin’s Daughters: Contemporary Women Writers of Fantasy. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.

Charlotte Spivack examines the writing of ten female fantasists, seeking both to bring these critically neglected writers into the literary canon and to investigate the feminist perspectives and thematics of their writing. Spivack rejects the characterization of fantasy as a violation of reality, asserting that "to define fantasy in terms of the impossible is to define possibility in terms of scientific realism" (4), thus privileging scientific rationalism as the final arbiter of reality. Suggesting that fantasy’s persistent subversion and questioning of patriarchal power structures may contribute to its critical neglect, Spivack seeks out the ways in which these women fantasists develop and extend this questioning in particularly feminist ways. Some of the feminist strategies which she identifies are the use of circular narrative structures, the attempt to integrate with (rather than suppress) the Other, and the deconstruction of moral dualism (the complication of the good/evil binary).

Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Trans. Richard Howard. Cleveland: Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1973.

In this highly influential work, Tzvetan Todorov defines fantasy as the unresolved hesitation between the "marvelous" (supernatural) and "uncanny" (natural or rational) explanations of apparently supernatural occurrences within a narrative. Asserting that this "pure" fantasy existed in a relatively localized historical time frame (the eighteenth century), Todorov examines the formal characteristics of the fantastic from a structuralist perspective and concludes with an examination of the typical themes and concerns of the fantastic. While tremendously influential in subsequent critical study of the fantastic, Todorov’s definition may be seen as directly opposing J. R. R. Tolkien’s definition of fantasy or "Fairy Stories," and places those works colloquially referred to and marketed as "fantasy" solidly in the category of the "marvelous." Todorov’s study may also be seen as initiating one of the two main streams in the literary study of the fantastic. From the Todorovian perspective, the fantastic is seen as primarily concerned with unresolved ambiguity and uncertainty and tends to be characterized as a prototypically postmodern literary form.

Tolkien, J.R.R. Tree and Leaf; Smith of Wootton Major; The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth. London: Unwin, 1975.

Tree and Leaf, the first section of this omnibus edition, tends to be of central interest to those critics who study popular fantasy. Including an introductory note, the essay "On Fairy Stories," and the short story "Leaf by Niggle," Tree and Leaf encapsulates Tolkien’s understanding of fantasy (which he here calls "fairy stories"). In the essay, Tolkien proposes that fairy stories serve four primary functions: fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation. Of central importance for Tolkien are the production of wonder and the irreducibility of fantastic occurrences within the narrative to rational explanations. Unlike Todorov, Tolkien asserts that any hesitation or uncertainty as to the reality of events within a narrative ultimately destroys the proper functioning of fairy stories. The short story, "Leaf by Niggle," enacts Tolkien’s assertions regarding fantasy as enchantment and also demonstrates several other principles proposed in "On Fairy Stories."

Zipes, Jack. Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales. Austin: U of Texas P, 1979.

From a Marxist perspective, Jack Zipes explores the historical and material conditions accompanying the progressive transformation of folk tales into literary fairy tales into modern fantasy. Zipes sees folk tales as stories of and for the people, an oral tradition (progressively suppressed and erased) expressing the utopian impulse of the dispossessed and disenfranchised. With the production of the literary fairy tale and what he calls the "instrumentalization of fantasy," Zipes suggests that bourgeois interests and the culture industry have operated to contain and defuse the utopian impulse at the root of folk and fairy tales. Zipes suggests, however, certain ways in which fantasy and fairy tales continue to embody and enact this utopian impulse in resistance to this containment. Although he is not primarily concerned with fantasy, Zipes draws connections fantasy and fairy tales. In particular, he characterizes J. R. R. Tolkien’s writing as an example of the "utopian function of fairy tales and fantasy" in which the radical impulse manifests, if often on a covert, or even subconscious, level.

[This bibliography was compiled for a reading course, English 6105: Critical and Theoretical Approaches to Fantasy and the Fantastic, that Greg did with me in 2002. MJ]