In the West, "fantasy literature" is a literary style with a long tradition and rich connotations. As a stylistic concept, the radiation of fantasy literature is very wide, and it can include almost all fantasy literary works, including fairy tales, legends, fantasy novels, Gothic novels, science fiction and many other categories. It is precisely because fantasy literature is not an exclusive genre of children's literature, and adult literature also has a place in fantasy literature. At the end of the 1990s, fantasy literature was introduced by Chinese scholars from abroad and underwent a process of absorption and transformation, which was eventually named children's fantasy novel.
The concept and boundaries of fantasy literature
Just when the introduction of Western fantasy literature in large quantities and the emergence of "big fantasy literature" in China, Wu Qinan threw out the view that "fantasy literature is a pseudo-concept", which aroused great concern and heated discussion in the academic circles. Wu Qinan believes that fantasy is a kind of subconscious of people, an important psychological activity for the creation of literary works, and also the source of artistic techniques. In fairy tales, myths, and all categories of non-realistic literature, fantasy is a necessity. Therefore, he pointed out, it is wrong to "turn a question that belongs to the image of art and the way of creating an artistic image into a problem of creative thinking." In other words, it is illogical to replace a literary category with a technique, theme, or creative psychology. To discern the truth or falsity of this concept, it is necessary to delve into the inner mechanism of the concept to discern the legitimacy of fantasy literature. From the perspective of internal mechanisms, fantasy literature has opened up a different path from "depiction" and "reflection" realism while fully mobilizing the function of fantasy. This boundary is set apart from fantasy literature and realist literature. However, this is not enough to complete the logic of self-consistency in the definition of concepts. Because even realism cannot get rid of the elements of fiction or fantasy. In order to further clarify the concept of fantasy literature, it is also necessary to dig deep into the relationship between reality and fantasy, and gain insight into the relationship between the order and weight of the combination of reality and fantasy.
Etymologically, fantasy is not the full meaning of fantasy literature, it also contains a profound philosophical and worldview. The Japanese scholar Noriko Jodo believes that Chinese fantasy literature sets an internal "fantasy" entity, which is quite different from the so-called "language of the night" by mainstream Western scholars. Therefore, for writers, trust in the world they have constructed is particularly important. Of course, this does not mean that fantasy is absolutely free, and the activation of fantasy power still depends on the reaction force of the base of reality. Tolkien's "second world" theory also focused on the connection between the fantasy world and the real world, and the inherent truth of the "second world" stemmed from the rich and self-consistent logical rules between reality and fantasy. This inevitably requires the writer to devote energy to the realization of the "true inner consistency" of the two worlds in the process of thinking. Influenced by Western fantasy literature ideas and works, the Chinese children's literature community has also focused on restarting the other wing of "fantasy literature" in addition to the "realism" wing. Whether it is Peng Yi's "two-dimensional element" or Ban Ma's "illusion" or "psychedelic", they all focus on the basis of the unity of reality and fantasy world to create a "Chinese-style" fantasy story.
The stylistic qualities of fantasy novels
From this point of view, fantasy literature is not equal to "fantasy + literature", nor is it a fantasy out of thin air that is divorced from reality, but a bridge of integration between reality and fantasy. This kind of integration is first reflected in the mixture of styles. Fantasy fiction is not the same as fairy tales, nor is it a novel in the ordinary sense. As early as 1929, Zhao Jingshen discussed the relationship between fairy tales and novels, arguing that "fairy tales are the last form of mythology, the initial form of novels." Lu Xun also defined Bantailayev's children's novel "Table" as a "novella fairy tale". Ye Shengtao's "Scarecrow" is a typical fairy tale novel, it is quite different from the general fairy tale or novel, "adult sadness" intervention adds a thick background to the fantasy of fairy tales, "two sets of pen and ink" break the inertia of the single style, thus obtaining a two-way view of space from the perspective of children's literature or adult literature. The distinction is for the purpose of construction, and the "fairy tale novel" has the main elements of the children's fantasy novel, and is no longer a single "fairy tale" or "novel". This form of fiction that combines reality and fantasy seems to have stylistic misalignment, but in essence it has an inherent unity.
The cross-genre mix of fantasy novels stems from the tension between reality and fantasy, and the contrast between the two reflects the tension between the internal structure of fantasy novels, which also brings about the confusion of naming. Zhou Rui's "Chinese Rabbit German Grass" has been published by many magazines after publication, but different magazines have different definitions of their genres, some are "novels", some are "reportage", some are "prose", and some are "fairy tales", and Zhou Rui jokingly calls it "non-donkey and non-horse" things. Zhou Rui's fairy tale "Dance Earthquake" was classified in the "Novel" column when it was published in Tianjin Literature, and he explained it this way: "They are adult publications, and they are embarrassed to use the word 'fairy tale'. In fact, don't worry, since you can tolerate the 'small' of the novel, why do you care about the 'child' of the fairy tale? The reason for the dilemma of this kind of stylistic attribution is that fantasy literature gathers a variety of stylistic characteristics, and fantasy literature cannot be framed by stylistic boundaries. An Weibang, the Chinese translator of Naoko Amaterasu's "Balcony That No One Can See", believes that fantasy novels are a kind of "utopian story", and the intersection of reality and non-reality is its ontological feature. Zhu Ziqiang once used "novel fairy tales" to summarize the mixture of this fantasy novel genre. Zhang Lu also believes that fantasy literature is a genre between fairy tales and novels. It should be said that there is no lack of fantasy elements in fairy tales, myths, folk tales and other genres, but the emergence of fantasy novel imagination is inseparable from the intervention and reference of reality. In short, it is precisely because of the foundation of reality that there is a vast space for fantasy to germinate. From this point of view, for fantasy literature, how to deal with the relationship between reality and fantasy is a fundamental issue that must be faced squarely.
The complex relationship between reality and fantasy
For a long time, there was an idea in academia that fantasy was rooted in the transcendence or breakthrough of reality. Bashra elucidates the relationship between fantasy and reality from the perspective of "spatial poetics", saying that "dreams begin to work when reality is discontented." In the excavated land, fantasies are unrestrained." Bashra's fantasy view originally stems from the transcendence of reality - "dissatisfaction", this absolute "dichotomy" between reality and fantasy easily simplifies the connection between the two, and even places fantasy on the opposite side of reality, which is bound to break the tension structure of the two. In fact, fantasy literature does not appear as a rebellion against "reality" or the "spirit of reality." Fantasy literature can also have a strong spirit of realism, but it consciously bypasses the vulgar, gray, and stereotyped realist framework in the process of constructing imagination. The reason why fantasy literature raises the banner of "liberating fantasy power" stems from the premise that fantasy power is bound. Specifically, mechanical "teachingism" and "educationalism" are the main obstacles to inhibiting the emergence of illusions. Therefore, "returning fantasy to fantasy literature" is an imperative way to break through.
In addition to the mixture of naming, the dilemma of the development of Chinese fantasy novels is also reflected in the dilemma of nationality and cosmopolitanism, which is essentially the integration of internal and external ideological resources. Ancient China was not without fantasy resources, but under the influence of Confucian ideas of "gentleness and humility" and "tranquility", this fantasy tradition was not well inherited. The fantasy tradition that has long been hidden in the folk needs to be re-excavated and salvaged to provide national nourishment for the current creation of children's fantasy novels. Based on the fact that internal and external resources are unbalanced, Li Donghua once put forward a worrying conclusion: Chinese fantasy novels are "rootless" literature. "Rootless" means that one cannot confirm one's identity, and therefore the fantasy novel cannot take root in the soil of China. Indeed, if we only add some terms such as "magic", "wizard" and "vampire" to children's novels, and cannot be based on "Chinese childhood" to expand the imagination, then this random grafting is not only separated from Chinese children, but actually subverts the original spiritual meaning of foreign fantasy literature. When discussing the differences between Chinese and Western fantasy literature, Tan Fengxia pointed out that Chinese fantasy novels pursue a kind of "light fantasy" background, the rhyme is "light", and there are few "complicated" human entanglements in Western fantasy literature. In fact, the starting point of this light gesture of Chinese fantasy novels is to bypass the burden of harsh educationalism in order to protect and liberate the imagination. If this liberated fantasy power can be consolidated into the vast world of Chinese social reality and let the fantasy "fly close to the ground", then the Chinese fantasy novel will have more vitality.
When discussing the "fantasy" problem of fantasy novels, Cao Wenxuan believes that it is not a wild idea divorced from reality, but has "strong realistic thinking" and "realistic motivation" behind it. Illusions have limits, and fantasies that abandon reality will find it difficult to exert the power of its freedom. Cao Wenxuan's "returning fantasy to literature" is not a correction of boundless fantasy? When fantasy returned to the right path of "literature", fantasy fiction did not overflow the entire literary system. Similarly, when fantasy soars in reality, fantasy fiction does not become a "rootless" word game. Truly excellent fantasy novels should be rooted in childhood, with understanding childhood as the basis to explore the "spiritual culture of mankind". Only by letting reality and fantasy "dance with wings" can we drive China's children's fantasy novels to truly move towards children and the future.