Fantastyka jako spekulacyjne „laboratorium moralne”? Literacko-aksjologiczny aspekt poszukiwania wzorców tożsamości w ponowoczesnym świecie

Abstract

The subject of the article is fantasy as a speculative moral laboratory. The literary and axiological aspect of searching for patterns of identity in the postmodern world by young readers of this type of literature is a fundamental problem. The starting point are the questions of the young person present in this fantasy (Ursula K. le Guin, Philip Pullman, Andrzej Sapkowski). The article assumes a look at literary texts (science fiction and fantasy) in terms of their possible speculative functions. This function is seen as one of the potential dominant interpretative features appearing in the area of interaction with a virtual or real reader. We want to examine under which conditions literary fiction can be treated as a moral laboratory. The description of this function proposed by Paul Ricoeur has been extended in this paper on the basis of theoretical considerations of J.R.R. Tolkien. In such a spectrum, the literary ways of working of this function and their non-literary perspectives were presented. The analysis focuses on the most recent and slightly older texts to indicate the process of transformation of the dominant feature.