Fantasy and Children’s Literature in Britain at the Turn of the 21st Century
Keywords:
English literature, 20th/21st cent., children's literature, fantasy literature, fantastic novelAbstract
Feminist as well as gendered narratology, which benefited in many aspects from the former, have since the late 1990s transcended the binarism of gender differences and adopted the concepts of sex, gender and sexuality for the description of formal and structural aspects of narrative. Several narratologists have started to develop gender oriented analyses of narrative texts, explore specific narrative strategies (on story and discourse levels) and produce interpretations that examine narrative costructedness and instability of sexual identities, including in their research the production aspects and the variables of the reception process. – In my article I offer a brief overview of recent contributions to the field. Further, a combination of feminist, queer and gender-oriented narratological assumptions is put forward, thus advocating the stand that gender is constructed in narrative texts on the basis of textual markers, cultural clues, readers’ knowledge of the author’s sex, his or her other published texts, and readers’ general knowledge. – The aim of this article is to examine the interplay of narrative strategies and sex, gender and sexuality, and, specifically, to apply agents, narrator figures, focalization and other narratological categories to Slovenian gay, lesbian and other gender-conscious novels of the post-communist period, written by Suzana Tratnik, Brane Mozetič and Andrej Morovič. In dialogue with Susan Lanser, Monica Fludernik, Vera and Ansgar Nünning, Gaby Allrath, Marion Gymnich and other narrative theorists the article exemplifies an analytic approach to the central issue of the discussion: how could the gender-oriented narrative theory, or semantically roughly equivalent, genderized postclassical narratology, contribute to our understanding of the basic structural and formal aspects of different (male, female, homo-, hetero-, bi- and transsexual) narrative texts in general, particularly of the recent Slovenian gender-oriented novels under discussion, and their respective contexts.References
Armitt, Lucie. Theorising the Fantastic. London, Sydney, Auckland in New York: Arnold, 1996.
Attebery, Brian. Strategies of Fantasy. Boomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.
Belsey, Catherine. »Constructing the Subject, Deconstructing the Text.« Feminisms. Ur. R. R. Warhol in D. P. Herndl. New Brunswick in New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1997. 593–609.
Bertagna, Julie. Exodus. London, Basingstoke in Oxford: Young Picador, 2002.
Bould, Mark. »The Dreadful Credibility of Absurd Things: A Tendency in Fantasy Theory.« Historical Materialism 10.4 (2002): 51–88.
Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl. London: Penguin Books Limited, 2002 (2001).
Cornwell, Neil. The Literary Fantastic: From Gothic to Postmodernism. New York in London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990.
Deleuze, Gilles, in Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: The Athlone Press, 1999 (1987).
Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.
Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957.
Goh, Robbie B. H. »Consuming Spaces: Clive Baker, William Gibson and the Cultural Poetics of Postmodern Fantasy.« Social Semiotics 10.1 (2000): 21–39.
Hatlen, Burton. »Pullman’s His Dark Materials, a Challenge to the Fantasies of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, with an Epilogue on Pullman’s Neo-Romantic Paradigm of Paradise Lost.« His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays on Philip Pullman’s Trilogy. Ur. Millicent Lenz in Carole Scott. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005. 75–94.
Hunt, Peter. »Introduction: Fantasy and Alternative Worlds.« Alternative Worlds in Fantasy Fiction. Ur. Peter Hunt in Millicent Lenz. London in New York: Continuum, 2001. 1–41.
Huse, Nancy. »The Blank Mirror of Death: Protest as Self-Creation in Contemporary Fantasy.« The Lion and the Unicorn 12.1 (1988): 28–42.
Jackson, Rosemary. Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. London in New York: Methuen, 1981.
McCallum, Robyn. Ideologies of Identity in Adolescent Fiction. The Dialogic Construction of Subjectivity. New York in London: Garland Publishing, 1999.
Nicholson, William. The Wind Singer. London: Edgemont Books Limited, 2000.
Nikolajeva, Maria. »Fairy Tale and Fantasy: From Archaic to Postmodern.« Marvels and Tales: Journal of Fairy Tales Studies 17.1 (2003): 138–156.
– – –. »Harry Potter – A Return to the Romantic Hero.« Harry Potter’s World. Multidisciplinary Critical Perspectives. Ur. Elizabeth E. Heilman. New York in London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003. 125–140.
– – –. Time in Children’s Literature. Boston: Scarecrow Press, 2000.
Pullman, Philip. The Amber Spyglass. New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 2001 (2000).
– – –. The Golden Compass. New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1997 (1995).
– – –. The Subtle Knife. New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1998 (1997).
Rowling, J[oanna] K[athleen]. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury, 1998.
– – –. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000.
– – –. Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix. London: Bloomsbury, 2003.
– – –. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London: Bloomsbury, 1997.
– – –. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury, 1999.
Rumbold, Margret. »Taking the Subject Further.« Papers 7.2 (1997): 17–28.
Simoniti, Barbara. »Nonsens kot literarni pojav, njegovo ubesedovanje in prevajanje.« Književni prevod. Ur. Meta Grosman. Ljubljana: Znanstveni inštitut Filozofske fakultete, 1997. 75–88.
Stephens, John. »Maintaining Distinctions: Realism, Voice, and Subject Position in Australian Young Adult Fiction.« Transcending Boundaries: Writing for a Dual Audience of Children and Adults. Ur. Sandra L. Beckett. New York in London: Garland Publishing, 1999. 183–198.
Sullivan III, C. W. »High Fantasy.« International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature. Ur. Peter Hunt in Sheila Ray. London: Routledge, 1996. 303–313.
Trites Seelinger, Roberta. »The Harry Potter – Novels as a Test Case for Adolescent Literature.« Style 35.3 (2001): 472–485.
White Mooneyham, Laura. »Domestic Queen, Queenly Domestic: Queenly Contradictions in Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.« Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 32.2 (2007): 110–128.
