(no subject)
In the September edition of "Locus", John Clute writes:
"For two or three years now, I've been using the term Fantastika, because I don't like 'the Fantastic,' partly because, for Anglophones, the term tends to exclude science fiction. In some European languages, fantastika designates science fiction and all the other literatures that SF shares significant characteristics with, so I'm just pulling that usage over to English. It does strike me that it is much more useful and enjoyable to think of how one models science fiction and defines it, in the same intellectual space as one's modelling of fantasy and horror. To make that tripartite modeling - which is obviously Procrustean, with regard to all the texts that have been created since maybe 1750 or 1760, when (in my view) Fantastika begins - does allow a lot of clarity .... Fantastika begins around the mid-18th century because time begins there, because history begins then, because the contemplation of Ruins and Futurity as a single topos begins then, because the world turns into a planet, because the French Revolution terrifies everybody by thinking that anything that used to be called substance can be turned into currency."
In some European languages - that's us! And probably most Slavic Eastern European languages, is it not so? I wonder about other languages.
snowflower_chan , how about Estonian? blodeuedd83 , Swedish? savepureness , Romanian, Italian, Spanish? Not sure about the French le fantastique, my dictionary does list it with the same kind of meaning that Clute refers to, but that may be another Procrustean stretch. There is a science fiction pronounced in a lovely French way, after all. Any idea? truehobbit , German? Let's see, who else is on my friend list... :)
On a different note: new musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber hits Covent Garden next March! And it's a sequel to the Phantom! Awwww, what should I do, what should I do...
"For two or three years now, I've been using the term Fantastika, because I don't like 'the Fantastic,' partly because, for Anglophones, the term tends to exclude science fiction. In some European languages, fantastika designates science fiction and all the other literatures that SF shares significant characteristics with, so I'm just pulling that usage over to English. It does strike me that it is much more useful and enjoyable to think of how one models science fiction and defines it, in the same intellectual space as one's modelling of fantasy and horror. To make that tripartite modeling - which is obviously Procrustean, with regard to all the texts that have been created since maybe 1750 or 1760, when (in my view) Fantastika begins - does allow a lot of clarity .... Fantastika begins around the mid-18th century because time begins there, because history begins then, because the contemplation of Ruins and Futurity as a single topos begins then, because the world turns into a planet, because the French Revolution terrifies everybody by thinking that anything that used to be called substance can be turned into currency."
In some European languages - that's us! And probably most Slavic Eastern European languages, is it not so? I wonder about other languages.
snowflower_chan , how about Estonian? blodeuedd83 , Swedish? savepureness , Romanian, Italian, Spanish? Not sure about the French le fantastique, my dictionary does list it with the same kind of meaning that Clute refers to, but that may be another Procrustean stretch. There is a science fiction pronounced in a lovely French way, after all. Any idea? truehobbit , German? Let's see, who else is on my friend list... :)
On a different note: new musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber hits Covent Garden next March! And it's a sequel to the Phantom! Awwww, what should I do, what should I do...