The role of the imagination in fantasy is precisely why, for so many years, fantasy has had less critical and commercial success. The political realism of George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire is precisely why his dragons and magic have captured the imagination of so many despite their impossibility. However, we must not let this undermine the legitimacy of works of fantastic art. As Shakespeare noted in his magnificent work of fantasy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,/Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;/And as imagination bodies forth/The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen/ Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing/A local habitation and a name.” That is the role of the fantastic art: to express the great Mystery of life and this is nowhere more apparent than in Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus.
About the presenterMarilyn Roxin Stern
Marilyn Stern is a (newly retired) Professor of Literature and Film Studies. She has taught courses in Science Fiction & Fantasy and Graphic Novel to Film, and is Area Chair for SF & Fantasy for MAPACA. Her current scholarship has centered on the presence/absence of female empowerment imagery in contemporary fantasy.