Fantasy

A fantastic assumption , or a fantastic idea, is a basic element of the science fiction genre. It consists in introducing into the work a factor that is not found or impossible in the real world in which the reader lives, or the heroes of the work (“assuming” its existence in the setting of the work). A fantastic assumption is contrasted with a realistic assumption : fiction, not contradicting the possible, which is used in realistic fiction. At the same time, the rest of the elements - the problems, literary techniques, plotting - in fantastic works do not fundamentally differ from realistic ones. A fantastic assumption is used to more fully reveal the problems of the work, the characters' characters, by placing them in non-standard conditions; for proposing scientific and non-scientific hypotheses; to create an exotic setting.

This definition is shared by many science fiction writers and literary critics. The Strugatsky brothers proposed the definition of fiction as a branch of literature "characterized by a specific literary device: the introduction of an extraordinary element" ^{[5] [6]} . According to the definition of Oleg Ladyzhensky and Dmitry Gromov (G. L. Oldie), “fiction is literature plus a fantastic assumption” ^[1] . According to A. Shalganov, science fiction is a kind of "parallel literature" in which all genres and all directions exist, but only with an additional element of invariance ^{[7] [8]} . According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia , "its <fiction> initial ideological and aesthetic attitude is the dictates of imagination over reality" ^[9] .

Gromov and Ladyzhensky offer the following classification of assumptions ^[1] :

• Sci-fi - an introduction to the work of scientific innovation. There are two types:
  • Natural science - technical inventions, discoveries of new laws of nature. Characteristic for solid NF.
  • Humanitarian and scientific - assumption in the field of sociology, history, politics, psychology, ethics, religion. The introduction of new models of society or consciousness. It is characteristic of utopia, dystopia, social fiction.
• Futurological assumption - transferring action to the future. Typical of most types of science fiction .
• Folklore assumption (fabulous, mythological, legendary) - an introduction to the work of creatures, objects, phenomena from human mythology (assumption of their real existence). Characteristic of fantasy , " urban fantasy ."
• A peacemaking assumption is the transfer of action to a completely fictional world (assuming the existence of such a world). Typical of traditional types of fantasy.
• A mystical assumption is an introduction to a work of a fantastic factor that is not given a rational explanation. Characteristic of the genres of mysticism and horror .
• A phantasmagoric assumption is the introduction of a factor that contradicts any common sense and is not capable of having any logical basis. This often includes entertaining fiction (black humor, superheroes, various Japanese manga, etc.).

Yuri Zubakin divides the assumptions simply into sci-fi (not contradicting science and the laws of nature) and unscientific-fiction (contradicting them). Dmitry Tarabanov identifies alternative history , alternative arithmetic, alternative religion, alternative evolution, alternative mineralogy and alternative geography ^[10] . Different types of assumptions can be combined in the same work.

In English, there is no exact equivalent to the Russian word "fiction." Similar terms are sometimes used to translate it, such as “fantastic” (“fantastic”) or “speculative fiction” (“speculative fiction”); it is sometimes translated by a combination of “fantasy and science fiction”. Moreover, in many other languages, the terminology is closer to Russian. The concepts of “fantastique” in French and “Phantastik” in German have a meaning close to Russian “science fiction”.

The origins of fiction

The origins of fiction are in the post- mythological folklore consciousness ^[11] , primarily in a fairy tale .

Fiction stands out as a special kind of art as the folklore forms move away from the practical tasks of mythological understanding of reality (the oldest cosmogonic myths are essentially non-fiction ^[12] ). The primitive understanding of the world is confronted with new ideas about reality, the mythical and real plans are mixed, and this mixture is purely fantastic ^[13] . Fiction, in the words of Olga Freidenberg , is “the first offspring of realism ”: a characteristic sign of the invasion of realism in myth is the appearance of “fantastic creatures” (deities combining animal and human features, centaurs , etc.) ^[14] . The primary genres of science fiction, utopia and science fiction travel were also the oldest forms of narration as such ^[15] , primarily in Homer 's Odyssey ^[16] The plot, images and incidents of the Odyssey are the beginning of all Western European fiction.

However, the clash of mimesis with myth, which produces the effect of science fiction, has so far been involuntary. The first one who pushes them intentionally, and, therefore, the first conscious science fiction is Aristophanes ^[17] .

Science Fiction

In the era of Hellenism , Hekatey Abdersky , Eugémer , Yambul combine the genres of fantastic travel and utopia in their compositions.

In Roman times, the moment of socio-political utopia inherent in Hellenistic pseudo-travels was already weathered; there was only a series of fantastic adventures in different parts of the globe and beyond - on the Moon, combined with the theme of a love story. This type includes " Incredible Adventures on the Other Side of Tula " by Anthony Diogenes .

In many ways, the continuation of the fantastic travel tradition is also the novel of Pseudo- Kallisfen's “ The Story of Alexander the Great ”, where the hero finds himself in the field of giants, dwarfs, cannibals, freaks, in a place with strange nature, with unusual animals and plants. Much space has been devoted to the miracles of India and its "naked sages," the brahmanas. The mythological prototype of all these fabulous wanderings, visiting the blessed country is not forgotten.

Science fiction is archaic in the novel of metamorphoses (the unreserved “Metamorphoses” by Lucius of Patra, “The Lucius, or the Donkey” by Pseudo-Lucian, “Metamorphoses, or the Golden Donkey” by Apuleius ). The latter is a “fantastic story, where the history of the soul is clothed in the form of a story about the history of the body” ^[18] .

The satirical fragment of Petronius ' Satyricon (a description of the city of Croton , inhabited by childless testators and inheritance seekers "catching them"), ascending to the mime , anticipates some satirical-fantastic images in the last part of Gargantua and Pantagruel's Swift . The satirical fiction in this episode contrasts with the naturalistic grotesque in the scenes of the Feast of Trimalchio and in some other episodes.

Science fiction abounds in the popular ancient Christian novel of the 2nd century - the so-called “ Clementines ” (named after one of the main characters in Clement, on behalf of whom the story is being told). Among the characters - the apostle Peter , Simon Magus , his companion Elena the Beautiful (the same one from the Iliad ), Faust appears for the first time there - the prototype of a later character.

Already from the V century BC. e. interest in the miraculous arises and grows. His expression was a special genre of non-fiction prose - paradoxography . Of the few surviving works of this kind, from the point of view of science fiction, the “Amazing Stories” by Phlegont of Thrall (2nd century AD) deserve attention, who were particularly attracted to ghost reports.

Fiction in medieval literature

In the early Middle Ages, from about the 5th to the 11th century, there occurs, if not rejection, then at least the suppression of the miraculous, basis of the fantastic ^[19] . In the XII-XIII centuries, according to Jacques Le Hoff , "there is a genuine invasion of the miraculous in the scientific culture." At this time, one after another, the so-called “books of miracles” appeared ( Gervasius of Tilbury , Marco Polo , Raimund Lullius , John Mandeville and others), reviving the genre of paradoxography.

Starting from the XII century, the motifs of fairy tales (derived from Celtic myths ) penetrate into the fading heroic epic ^[20] (especially in such late poems as “ Oberon ” or “Tristan de Nantale” ^[21] ), and into the emerging chivalrous novel , becoming its figurative basis is from Perceval, or The Story of the Grail (circa 1182 ) by Chretien de Troyes to the Death of Arthur ( 1469 ) by T. Mallory . "Until the 15th century and even later, the novel remains the main refuge of all that is wonderful and strange." ^[22] The celtic legend about the court of King Arthur became the frame of fantastic stories. Irish science fiction of another world with difficult crossings there, with dangerous trials, but also with eternal youth, abundance, etc., colors many episodes in almost all Chretien's novels and sequels of Perceval. At the same time, the miraculous is intertwined with the ordinary, the knightly world itself is in complex interaction with a fantastic fairy-tale country where knights go in search of adventure. The very appeal to Celtic fairy-tale mythological science fiction is somehow connected with a certain discrepancy between the enriching spiritual world of the gradually emancipated personality and the narrow framework of the Catholic Catholic canonical worldview precisely in the 12th century. In “ Tristan and Isolde ” or in the novels of Chretien de Troyes, we, in essence, deal not with new religious searches, but with the well-known freedom of creative imagination, with new individual psychological and moral experience that does not fit into the framework of canonical church representations.

The further transformation of these plots is represented by monumental-fiction, almost completely lost the historical and epic foundation of the Renaissance poems “ Roland in Love ” by Boyardo , “ Frantic Roland ” by L. Ariosto , “ Liberated Jerusalem ” by T. Tasso , “ Fairy Queen ” by E. Spencer . A milestone in the development of the fantastic allegory created by Ovid was the 13th Century Rose of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Men.

Tales of “A Thousand and One Nights ” are not rich in fiction, because “the role of the magic element in Arabian tales is very limited” ^[23] . A peculiar literary remelting of folk tales, legends and beliefs are many works of Japanese (for example, the genre of “a story about a terrible and extraordinary" - kaydan ) and Chinese science fiction (a collection of "Tales of Miracles from the Cabinet of Liao" by Pu Songlin , summing up the entire Chinese novelistic tradition , including her characteristic fiction).

Renaissance fiction

The development of science fiction during the Renaissance was completed by Don Quixote by M. Cervantes - a parody of the fantasy of knightly adventures and at the same time the beginning of a realistic novel, and Gargantua and Pantagruel by F. Rabelais , using the profane language of a chivalrous novel to develop a humanistic utopia and humanistic satire. In Rabelais, we find (chapters on Thelemic Abbey ) one of the first examples of the fantastic development of the utopian genre, although it is originally uncharacteristic: after all, among the founders of the genre, T. Mora ( 1516 ) and T. Campanella ( 1602 ), utopia gravitates to a didactic treatise and only in " New Atlantis " F. Bacon is a sci-fi game of imagination. An example of a more traditional combination of science fiction with the dream of a fairy-tale kingdom of justice is W. Shakespeare's Storm.

To a lesser extent than ancient mythology and folklore, religious and mythological images of the Bible stimulated science fiction. The largest works of Christian science fiction - " Paradise Lost " and " Returned Paradise " by J. Milton - are based on apocrypha . This, however, does not detract from the fact that the works of European science fiction of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, as a rule, have a secondary, ethical Christian coloring or represent a game of fantastic images in the spirit of Christian apocryphal demonology . Beyond fiction are the lives of the saints , where miracles are fundamentally highlighted as extraordinary incidents. Nevertheless, the Christian-mythological consciousness contributes to the flourishing of a special genre - fantasy visions. Starting with the apocalypse of St. John the Evangelist, “visions” or “revelations” become a full-fledged literary genre: different aspects of it are represented by the “Vision of Peter Pachar” ( 1362 ) by W. Langland and the “ Divine Comedy ” by Dante . The idea of ​​"revelation", in contrast to life, is the opposition of earthly reality to a different, supernatural plan of existence.

The poetics of religious "revelation" defines W. Blake's visionary fiction: his grandiose "prophetic" images are the last peak of the genre.

Fiction in the 17th and 18th Century

By the end of the 17th century, mannerism and baroque , for which science fiction was a constant backdrop, an additional artistic plan (at the same time there was an aestheticization of the perception of science fiction, the loss of a living sensation of the miraculous), was replaced by classicism , which was essentially alien to science fiction: its appeal to myth was completely rational.

The 17th-century French " tragic stories " draw material from chronicles and draw fatal passions, murders and cruelties, an obsession with the devil , etc. These are the distant forerunners of the works of the Marquis de Sade, the novelist and the " black novel " in general, combining a paradoxical tradition with narrative fiction . Infernal themes in a pious setting (the story of the struggle against terrible passions on the path of serving God) appear in the novels of Bishop Jean-Pierre Camus .

In the novels of the XVII- XVIII centuries, the motifs and images of fiction seemingly used to complicate the intrigue . Fantastic search is interpreted as erotic adventures (“fairy tales”, for example, “Akazhu and Zirfila”, 1744 , S. Duclo ). Fiction, having no independent significance, is an aid to the rogue novel (“The ” by A. R. Lesage , “The Devil in Love” by J. Cazot ), the philosophical treatise ( Voltaire's “ Micromegas ”), etc. In Travels Gulliver » J. Swift fiction in the spirit of Rabelais and Cyrano de Bergerac put at the service of ideological satire . The reaction to the dominance of enlightening rationalism came in the second half of the 18th century; Englishman R. Heard calls for a sensible study of science fiction ("Letters on Chivalry and Medieval Novels", 1762 ); in "The Adventures of Count Ferdinand Fatom" T. Smollett precedes the beginning of the development of science fiction XIX - XX centuries, the " Gothic novel " by H. Walpole , A. Radcliffe , M. Lewis , W. Beckford . By supplying accessories for romantic plots, science fiction remains on a supporting role: with its help, the duality of images and events becomes the pictorial principle of pre-romanticism .

Fiction in Romanticism

Among romantics, duality turns into a split personality, leading to the poetically beneficial "sacred madness." All the romantics sought refuge in the realm of fantasy: the Ienians fantasized, that is, the striving of the imagination in the transcendental world of myths and legends, was put forward as an introduction to higher insight, as a life program - relatively successful (due to romantic irony ) by L. Thick , pathetic and tragic in Novalis , whose “ Heinrich von Ofterdingen ” is an example of a renewed fantastic allegory, meaningful in the spirit of the search for the unattainable and incomprehensible ideal-spiritual world. The Heidelberg school used fiction as a source of stories that add extra interest to earthly events (for example, L. A. Arnima ’s Isabella of Egypt is a fantastic arrangement of a love episode from the life of Charles V ). ^[24] Such a pragmatic approach to F. turned out to be especially promising.

In an effort to enrich the resources of science fiction, German romantics turned to its primary sources - they collected and processed fairy tales and legends (“The Folk Tales of Peter Lebrecht ”, 1797 , edited by Thicke, “Children's and Family Tales” ( 1812 - 1814 ) and “German Traditions” ( 1816 - 1818 ) the Brothers Grimm ). This contributed to the formation of the genre of literary tales in all European literature, which remains to this day leading in children's science fiction. Its classic example is the tales of H.K. Andersen .

Romantic fiction was synthesized by the work of E. T. A. Hoffmann : here is a Gothic novel ("The Devil's Elixir "), and a literary fairy tale (" Lord of the Fleas ", " The Nutcracker and the Mouse King "), and enchanting phantasmagoria (" Princess Brambilla "), and a realistic story with a fantastic motive (“ Bride's Choice ”, “ Golden Pot ”).

Goethe 's Faust is an attempt to heal the attraction to science fiction as a "abyss of the other world "; using the traditionally fantastic motive of selling the soul to the devil , the poet discovers the futility of the wanderings of the spirit in the realms of the fantastic and as the ultimate value affirms earthly life activity that transforms the world (that is, the utopian ideal is excluded from the realm of fantasy and is 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 , where the epic- fairytale color of fantasy is especially important) and N.V. Gogol , whose fantastic images are organically integrated into the folk-poetic ideal picture of Ukraine ( Terrible Revenge , Wii "). His St. Petersburg science fiction ("Nose", "Portrait", "Nevsky Prospect"), extremely economical and "escheat", is differently due to the general picture of reality, the condensed image of which naturally gives rise to fantastic images (as in Pushkin’s “ Queen of Spades ” or in The Double by F. M. Dostoevsky ).

The gothic tradition of science fiction is developed by E. A. Poe (“ The Fall of the House of Asher ”, “ The Well and the Pendulum ”). However, he anticipated (" The Story of Arthur Gordon Pym ", "The Overthrow in Malstrom ", "The Extraordinary Adventure of a certain Hans Pfahal ") the emergence of a new branch of science fiction - science fiction .

Fiction in Realism

In the era of realism, science fiction again found itself on the periphery of literature, although it was often attracted for satirical and utopian purposes (as in Dostoevsky ’s short stories “Bobok” and “The Dream of a Funny Man”). At the same time, science fiction itself is emerging, which in the work of the epigone of romanticism by J. Verne (“ Five weeks in a balloon ”, “ Journey to the center of the Earth ”, “ From Earth to the Moon ”, “ Twenty thousand leagues under the sea ”, “ Mysterious island ”,“ Robur the Conqueror ”) and the outstanding realist G. Wells fundamentally isolated from the general fantastic tradition; she paints the real world, transformed by science (for worse or for good) and in a new way opened to the researcher’s gaze. (True, the development of space fiction leads to the discovery of new worlds, which inevitably somehow correlate with the traditionally fabulous, but this is an incoming moment.)

Revival of interest in science fiction at the end of the 19th century

Interest in science fiction as such revives towards the end of the 19th century among neo-romanticists ( R. L. Stevenson ), decadents ( M. Schwob , F. Sologub ), symbolists ( M. Meterlink , A. A. Blok ), expressionists ( G. Meyrink ) Surrealists ( G. Cossack , E. Kreider). The development of children's literature gives rise to a new face of the fantasy world - the toy world: by L. Carroll , C. Collodi , A. Milne ; A. N. Tolstoy (The Golden Key), N. N. Nosov , K. Chukovsky . The imaginary, partly fairy-tale world creates with the motives and images of Western adventure literature A. Green . Germany of this period is represented by Kurd Lasswitz , after which we can talk about German science fiction.

Fiction in the XX — XXI centuries.

The beginning of the XX century. Science Fiction Formation

The first half of the 20th century was marked by the beginning of the heyday of science fiction. The key figure of this genre was the Englishman Herbert Wells , whose books (“ Time Machine ”, “ War of the Worlds ”, “ When the Sleeping One Wakes Up ”, “ Invisible Man ”) served as the basis for many imitations. Science fiction in this period sought to “predict”, anticipate the development of science and technology, especially space exploration. The action of the NF books was often placed in the future, and the heroes dealt with the latest discoveries, inventions, and unknown phenomena.

One of the founders of Polish science fiction literature, the Polish writer Jerzy уulawski became known for his decadent, fantastic “Moon trilogy” - “On the Silver Planet” (1901), “Winner” (1908), “Old Earth” (1910). One of the founders of the science fiction genre, French writer of Belgian origin, Joseph Henri Roni Sr. , author of novels and short stories: “Xipehuzy” - for the first time in world fiction, aliens are not presented anthropomorphically (1887), “ Fight for fire ” is a story about the search for fire, which is so necessary in primitive society (1909), “Star explorers” - an ancient civilization on Mars is slowly dying away, and protoplasmic “zoomorphs” are replacing it. The term astronautics (1925) was first used in this work. The German writer Hans Dominik is called the German Jules Verne, he is one of the most important pioneers of literature about the future in Germany. In the middle of the last century, Paul Eugen Sieg with his technical novels about the future is a widely read German author.

In the USSR, the most prominent followers of Wells were Mikhail Bulgakov ( Fatal Eggs , Dog’s Heart ), Alexander Belyaev ( Amphibian Man , The Struggle on Air , Professor Dowell ’s Head ), A. N. Tolstoy (“ Hyperboloid of engineer Garin "," Aelita ") and Vladimir Obruchev (" Sannikov Land "," Plutonium ").

The novel by Mikhail Bulgakov (The Master and Margarita) anticipates the main features of magical realism .

The period approximately covering the period from the late 30s to the 50s of the 20th century, when the genre of science fiction becomes very popular in English-speaking countries, when many classic works of the genre were first published, is called the Golden Age of science fiction . In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age goes after the era of the space opera pulp magazines of the 1920s-1930s and precedes a new wave of science fiction.

The first significant works of modern fantasy - fairy-tale medieval fiction - come from the pen of Robert E. Howard ("Conan"), John R. R. Tolkien ("The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings"), Clive S. Lewis (" Chronicles " Narnia "). In addition, horror literature is richly represented in Western literature at the beginning of the 20th century ( W. De la Mar ; G. F. Lovecraft , for example, “ Call of Cthulhu ”; J. Collier ).

The pioneer of cinema science fiction was the French director Georges Méliès , who shot a number of science fiction films in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the famous Journey to the Moon . Science fiction was greatly developed in German cinema of the 1920s, in particular, the dystopian silent film “ Metropolis ” (1927) is recognized by many connoisseurs as one of the best science fiction films in history.

The second half of the XX century. New Directions of NF and Fantasy

In the middle of the 20th century, the traditional NF degenerated into the entertainment genre “space opera”. A new generation of NF authors was gradually disappointed in anticipating progress. Increasingly, anti-utopia warnings and social satire are published in the NF surroundings. Psychological and social dramas lie at the heart of science fiction writers in the third quarter of the 20th century: Ray Bradbury , Frank Herbert , Philip K. Dick , Isaac Asimov , Robert Heinlein , Clifford Saymak ^[25] .

The disappointment in progress and science gave impetus to the “literature of escape ”, a fantasy not related to reality. The second half of the XX century. experiencing a fantasy boom. Following Howard and Tolkien, many writers appear whose work is based on mythology, mysticism, medieval romance. These are Ursula Le Guin , Roger Zhelyazny , Paul Anderson , Michael Moorcock and others.

It should be noted the genre of humorous fiction, which developed in the second half of the XX century. The recognized master of such works is Sheckley , for example, “ Something for Free ,” “ Flight of the Dairy Van ,” “ Ticket to the Planet of Tranay .”

In the 20th century, science fiction ceases to be a purely literary genre. Fantastic films began to be shot at the very beginning of the 20th century. ( Journey to the Moon , 1902). In the second half of the century, cinema science fiction flourishes. The latest technologies made it possible to realize on the screen what was previously inaccessible: fantastic equipment, fictional creatures, decorations of other worlds. Cinema and television science fiction reaches a special scale in the USA, where famous films such as Robocop , Star Troopers , Terminator , The Fifth Element , The Matrix are shot, and a number of works grow into media franchises , for example, Star war ”,“ Star Trek ”,“ Star cruiser “Galaxy” ”,“ Stargate ”. Such directors and producers as James Cameron , Steven Spielberg , Peter Jackson , George Lucas , Tim Burton , Ridley Scott , Paul Verhoeven and John Carpenter became famous in the genre of cinema science fiction. In parallel with mass cinema science fiction, there is an elitist, experimental cinema, for example, films by Andrei Tarkovsky , Stanley Kubrick , Terry Gilliam .

Comics are becoming another popular form of science fiction, especially in the USA, France, and Japan. At first, these were entertaining comics about superheroes such as Superman , Batman , Spider-Man , Fantastic Four . In the second half of the XX century. more serious works by such comicists as Alan Moore , Frank Miller , Mark Millar , Neil Gaiman in the USA, Jean Giro , Alejandro Jodorowski , Enki Bilal in France appear.

The end of XX - beginning of XXI century. Mass Popularity and Postmodernism

At the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, science fiction is commercialized again. Teenage entertainment fiction is in great demand, for example, the Harry Potter series by Joan Rowling . First, board games and then computer games based on fiction survive the boom. Fantastic universes are part of the popular culture , embodied in literature, cinema, games, comics.

At the turn of the millennium, social and philosophical problems in science fiction become obsolete by repetition and begin to give way to experiments with style. Postmodern shades have the prose of Neil Gaiman , Chyna Mievilya , Neil Stevenson , Paul di Filippo . Very popular humorous fantasy Terry Pratchett .

The end of the 20th century is the era of the appearance of computer games, and the beginning of the 21st century is their heyday. In a huge number of games, the plot is built on the basis of science fiction - in almost any RPG game , a significant part of strategies , shooters , quests . Many games are based on universes, which are also used to create books, films, board games, and comics, such as Star Wars , Warhammer , Forgotten Realms, and Warcraft .

At the beginning of the XXI century, the genre of superheroes is experiencing a rise in popularity. Fantastic films based on the Marvel and DC superhero comics are released every year. They range from purely entertaining to more or less serious and of artistic value; So, the movie " Logan " was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay, and Heath Ledger received an Oscar for his role as the Joker in the movie The Dark Knight . Of particular popularity are the films of the Marvel cinema universe about heroes such as Iron Man , combining the features of superheroics, science fiction, fantasy and comedy.

The classification of fiction is a complex and controversial moment in science fiction. There is currently no generally accepted classification of fiction. The classification problem is related to the fuzziness of the term fiction itself. There are two approaches to the definition of fiction ^[6] . The first approach is that fiction is defined by the genre of literature and art. The second approach calls fiction an artistic device in literature and art ^[26] . A number of researchers are trying to combine both approaches. For example, Olga Chigirinskaya in her article “Science Fiction: Choosing a Genre, Choosing a Chronotope” notes the shortcomings of both approaches and suggests classifying fiction by a combination of specific chronotopes .

Science Fiction - A Genre in Literature and Art

Fiction Genres

One of the views on science fiction is that it is literature supplemented by a fantastic assumption ^{[6] [1]} . At the moment, there are the following main genres of science fiction - science fiction , fantasy , horror . They are also often referred to as their varieties or “subgenres” (such as an alternative story , cyberpunk or steampunk ). Fantastic genres, popular in the past, but rarely used by modern authors - a fantastic journey and utopia .

Fiction Forms

The style and genre forms of science fiction - grotesque , phantasmagoria and extravaganza - have become the traditional auxiliary means of satire: from Francois Rabelais to M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (" The History of a City ") and V. V. Mayakovsky ("Bedbug" and "Bath" ) Non-genre varieties of science fiction of the 20th century - fantastic realism , magical realism .

Science Fiction - Reception in Literature and Art

The application of this classification method began with drawing a line between “fiction proper” (“content fiction”) and “formal science fiction”. In the first case, we are talking about fiction, as a genre of literature, where a fantastic assumption is a structure-forming principle. In the second, we are talking about other genres of literature, where a fantastic assumption is an auxiliary element in the disclosure of the author’s intention ^[27] . Currently, science fiction has transcended its genre boundaries ^[28] . Fiction transcends the boundaries of not only genres (for example, fantastic detective and humorous fiction ) and types of literature (for example, fantastic poetry and fantastic drama ), but also for the kinds of art (for example, fantastic music ^{[29] [30] [31]} , cinema fiction , and fantastic painting ^[32] ). Therefore, at present, there are two approaches to the definition of fiction ^{[6] [33]} . The first traditional approach is that fiction is defined by the genre of literature and art. The second approach calls fiction an artistic device or method in literature and art ^[26] . This method consists in applying a special technique - a fantastic assumption. In some sources, science fiction is considered as a mega-genre in which there are all genres and all directions with an additional element of heterogeneity ^{[6] [8]} . According to authors such as Gromov and Ladyzhensky (Oldie), "fiction is literature plus a fantastic assumption" ^[1] . According to Boris Strugatsky, introducing an extraordinary element into a work makes science fiction a fantasy ^[6] . The typology problems of the fantastic mega-genre were considered at the All-Russian Scientific Conference “Fiction and Contemporary Mythmaking” ^[34] . The classification of fiction by reception is given in the book by George Gurevich “Conversations about science fiction. Fourth Conversation: On the Variety of Fiction. ” A number of researchers are trying to combine both approaches. For example, Olga Chigirinskaya in her article “Science Fiction: Choosing a Genre, Choosing a Chronotope” notes the shortcomings of both approaches and suggests classifying fiction by a combination of specific chronotopes .

• Fiction
• Fantastic music
• Fantastic painting
• Fantastic poetry
• Fantastic dramaturgy
• Fantastic detective
• Humorous fiction
• Fantasy
• Science fiction
• Science fiction
• Mystic
• Supernatural
• Imaginary
• Myth

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• MirF.ru - Magazine " Fantasy World "
• FantLab.ru - bibliographic site " Science Fiction Laboratory "
• www.rbg-azimut.com - Literary magazine of science fiction " RBZ Azimut "
• Rusf.ru - a site about Russian science fiction.