Les réminiscences médiévales dans la fantasy

Abstract

Fantasy novels, the production of which is in full swing, are extremely frequently set in a medieval setting. Until now, recent research on this genre fiction have mainly examined its relations to medieval literature. That some authors have real knowledge of it is doubtless, however as often as not one can see that this setting relies less on a learned view of the period than on a stereotyped vision of it. This « middle » age, dark and full of wonders, is the result of a historiographical construction for which the Humanists are primarily responsible and which has taken on various shapes up to the present day. The particularity of fantasy is thas it uses and puts in a favorable light what had been previously been depreciated about the Middle Ages: it has become a historical parenthesis, a place of pure fiction which provides a privileged setting for the creation of imaginary worlds.