Dragons are a universal phenomenon and have fascinated humans since the dawn of time. Yet whereas we have numerous studies into the origins of these fantastic creatures, there have been very few attempts at discussing their appearance, function and development within literary texts. The eighteen essays collected in this volume (8 in French, 6 in German and 4 in English) – written by an international cast of scholars – try to fill this gap by looking at dragons in literature East and West, contemporary and past.
The Fantastic is a universal aspect of humanity, with no single culture monopolizing its diverse forms and interpretations. Cultural representations of the Fantastic vary significantly, as does the definition of what constitutes it across different societies. Europe is often seen as the birthplace of modern fantastic literature, featuring the Gothic novel, epic fantasy in England, German fairy tales, and realistic fantastic tales in France. European authors and artists frequently draw from their own myths, histories, and landscapes, alongside their cultural and literary traditions, often using cultural stereotypes for artistic purposes. This European tradition has influenced and blended with other cultural versions of the Fantastic, fostering an intercultural dialogue. The second volume of Fastitocalon delves into these themes, featuring contributions from various scholars. Roger Bozzetto discusses the Standard French Theory of the Fantastic, while Denis Mellier examines the poetics and politics within the genre. Michael Hemsley analyzes Arthurian poetry and painting, and Marie-Noëlle Biemer explores William Morris's contributions. Other contributors include Marcin Rusnak on humor in death-related issues in Pratchett and Gaiman’s works, Dimitra Fimi on Greek fairy tales, Antje vom Lehn on the bestiary tradition in Harry Potter and Spiderwick, and Kuniko Uemura on the robot fantasy in Osamu Tezuka's work.
Inspired by a universal, cross-cultural vision, this book provides a comparative analysis of the rhetorical and stylistic features in fantastic literature effortlessly crossing the boundaries of cultures, languages and epochs to explore their literary manifestations of the unknown. According to the author, fantastic literature conveys a form of storytelling whose poeticization bridges the known and the unknown realms (in Gilbert Durand’s mythocritical, transcendental sense). The author’s scope ranges from ancient myths to contemporary literature and addresses developments in Chinese literature and the Greco-Roman fantastic tradition as well as English, French, German and Hispanic literatures. The encyclopaedic breadth and depth of her work responds to the long-felt need for a comparative approach to fantastic literature, bridging Eastern and Western traditions.
