Проблема жанровой классификации фэнтези как вида приключенческой литературы

Abstract

The paper addresses the issue of genre attribution of today’s Russian fantasy literature. The author attempts to build a taxonomy of fantasy genres upon their subject or themes, and upon artistic functions as suggested by M.S. Kagan, with a focus on the flaws of these approaches. Instead, the author suggests to use genetic-typological method based on tracing the evolution of adventure fiction as a whole. Since fantasy comes as the newest stage in the evolution of adventure literature, such an approach is the most relevant. Making use of the works by A.Z. Vulis and D.D. Blagoy on the history and genre taxonomy of adventure novel, the author concludes that a large-scale adventure meta-genre must be recognized. Its theoretical conceptualization only begins in the 18th–19th centuries, with the coming of a new literary movement — that of realism. The first kind of novel which is considered to be true ‘adventure novel’ in the modern sense is the Robinsonade. Thus, the taxonomy of the meta-genre can be divided into two parts: historical (describing its evolution before Defoe) and typological (covering the fiction from the 19th to 21st centuries). While the first part is structured with the use of genetic approach, the approach for the second part is mainly thematic. Modern fantasy literature combines both key types of adventure, geographical and historical, conflating a ‘travel’ novel of the Robinsonade with a historical adventure novel. Fantasy literature thus ‘retracts’ the outgrown genre subtypes. This trend is exemplified by the following movements in contemporary Russian literature: ‘sword and sorcery’ fantasy (“The Keeper of Swords” by N. Perumov; “Wolfhound” by M. Semyonova); historical and pseudo-historical fantasy (“Heavens Rejoice” by A. Valentinov; “Gleams of Aeterna” by V. Kamsha); and ‘rogue’ fantasy (“Chronicles of Siala” by A. Pekhov) which is derived from picaresque novel and piracy novel. Romance gives birth to romantic fantasy (“Anachron” by V. Benkovskiy and E. Khaetskaya); the field of crime literature can be linked to the forming of detective fantasy (“Under the Sign of Manticore” and “The Mockingbird” by A. Pekhov). Gothic novel gives rise to all sorts of ‘dark’ fantasy (“Senor’s Wanderings” by A. Dashkov; “The Nightwatcher” by O. Divov) and science fiction to ‘science’ fantasy and steampunk (“The Clandestine City” by V. Panov). Finally, social adventure novel, with the introduction of mythopoeia, becomes what in modern publishing practice is known as urban fantasy (the “Watches” hexalogy by S. Lukyanenko). A typological approach reveals that true fantasy subgenres have little originality of their own: each proves to be nothing more than a recent stage in the evolution of some branch of the whole adventure fiction meta-genre. Most rapid development happens where mythopoeia as a speculative device is organic and integral. On the contrary, romance and crime story traditions are originally endowed with another set of intentions, which does not allow the fantasy elements to dominate without ruining the structure of suspense natural of this or that genre.