Microsoft Word final-current Developments at the Intersection of British Children-online-version doc

1.4.4
 
Varieties of fantasy 
Whereas in the Victorian Age, fantasy for children used to be marked by unspeakable 
taboos and a limit on its topics, range, literary techniques and styles, contemporary children’s 
fantasy has enlarged its horizon enormously. Postmodern narrative techniques and topics, for 
example historiographical metafiction, have found their way into contemporary British 
fantasy for children. Far from being a homogenous field, fantasy fans out into many different 
subgenres, covering a wide spectrum for almost any taste. In the following, the main 
discernible kinds of fantasy relevant to this work are presented.
29
28
Horstkotte’s claim that fantasy “floats free of all restraints of the real world” is not appropriate. Although “the 
reader’s disbelief in the story is suspended without questioning the narrative, even if it is obviously not true”, 
certain restraints of the real world like laws, hierarchical structures, interhuman communication and rules of 
conduct cannot easily be discarded, as fantasy requires structure and familiarity to at least some extent. See 
Martin Horstkotte. The Postmodern Fantastic in Contemporary British Fiction. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher 
Verlag Trier, 2004, p. 36. 
29 
For more extensive reading on subgenres of fantasy see for example David Pringle (Ed.) The Ultimate 
Encyclopedia of Fantasy: The Definitive Illustrated Guide
. London: Carlton, 1998; John Clute; John Grant 
(Eds.) The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. London: Orbit, 1997; Marcel Feige.Das neue Lexikon der Fantasy. Xena, 
Conan, Artus und der kleine Hobbit – Mythen, Legenden und Sagen der Fantasy
. Berlin: Schwarzkopf und 
Schwarzkopf, 2003
2
; Helmut Pesch. Fantasy: Theorie und Geschichte einer Literarischen Gattung. Köln: 
Dissertation Universität Köln, 1982. 

---

30