How does Attebery (1980) define Fantasy? Find at least five definitions.
"an overt violation of what is generally accepted as possibility...Whatever the material, extravagant or seemingly commonplace, a narrative is a fantasy if it presents the persuasive establishment and development of an impossibility, an arbitrary construct of the mind with all under the control the control of logic and rhetoric" (W.R. Irwin) Attebery uses this as a means to locate how fantasy can be qualified as fantasy. He later goes on to state "Any narrative which includes as a significant part of its make-up some violation of what the author clearly believes to be natural law-this is fantasy" (Attebery p,3). He also alter states that Fantasy can be made up of "magical objects: rings, hats, or castles possessing wills, voices, mobility and other attributes inanimate objects do not, in our experience, possess" (Attebery p,3). This tells me that Fantasy in basic terms involves the unreal becoming real, in a matter of any object like the ones he mentioned above or has he states it, "...that violate fundamental assumptions about matter and life." (Attebery p,3). He then puts it plainly that "By demanding a straightforward treatment of impossibly characters, objects, or events, we can distinguish between fantasy and related genres" (Attebery)
REFERENCES
W.R. Irwin, The Game of the Impossible: A Rhetoric Of Fantast (Urbana, Ill.:University of Illinois Press, 1979), P.4.
Attebery, B. The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980, 1-10
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