Reading the Fantastic Imagination: The Avatars of a Literary Genre

Dana Percec

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Jun 26, 2014 - Literary Criticism - 296 pages

The purpose of Reading the Fantastic Imagination: The Avatars of a Literary Genre is the observation of the very hybridity of the fantastic genre, as a typical postmodern form. The volume continues an older project of the editor and a large number of the contributors, that of investigating the current status of several popular genres, from historical fiction to romance. The scrutiny continues in this third volume, dedicated to the fantastic imagination and the plethora of themes, moods, media, and formats deriving from it.

FanLit is surely trendy, even if it is not highbrow, despite its noble ancestry. This apparent paradox characterizes many of the literary genres en vogue today, from historical fiction to romance. This very contradiction forms part of the basis for this book. After the success of the previous book in the series dedicated to a “borderline” literary genre – Romance: The History of a Genre was declared by Cambridge Scholars Publishing as the Critics’ Choice Book of the Month in January 2013 – this collection of studies about the fantastic imagination takes a further step into completing a larger research project which seeks to investigate the varieties of popular fiction. Although all contributors in the series teach canonical literary texts, they did not hesitate to plunge into the opposite area of fictional work and, moreover, continued doing so even though such a project caused the “raise of a few (high)brows,” (Percec 2012, 232) as argued in the Endnote of Romance: The History of a Genre.

Contents

• PART II: 95
• PART III: 131
• PART IV: 199
• PART V: 241

About the author

Dana Percec (b. 1976) is Associate Professor at the University of the West, Timişoara, Romania. She has a BA in English, an MA in British and American Studies and a PhD in English Literature from the University of the West, Timişoara, Romania. Her main areas of interest are English literature, cultural studies, gender studies and language teaching. She has authored several books on Shakespeare and English culture, including The Body’s Tale: Some Ado about Shakespearean Identities; Shakespeare and the Theatre: An Introduction; Anglia elisabetană. Ghid de istorie culturală [Elizabethan England: A Cultural History Guide]; Drama and Culture in Shakespeare’s Age; and Anglia victoriană. Ghid de istorie culturală [Victorian England: A Cultural History Guide], and a collection of essays, titled De la Gargantua la Google [From Gargantua to Google], 2007. She has also co-authored two teaching practice guides and two collections of essays, edited two collections of essays about literary genres (O poveste de succes. Romanul istoric astăzi [A Success Story: The Historical Novel Today, and Romance: The History of a Genre]), and co-edited another collection of essays (Despre lux [On Luxury]).

Bibliographic information

• Title: Reading the Fantastic Imagination: The Avatars of a Literary Genre
• Editor: Dana Percec
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014
• ISBN: 1443862975, 9781443862974
• Length: 296 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Fantasy / General; Literary Criticism / General