"Within and Without": Exploring the Mind in the Novels of George MacDonald

<p>George MacDonald‟s first published novel, Phantastes, is the story of a young man who enters and must negotiate his way through a fantasy landscape. This landscape, it is suggested, is one of the mind, and Anodos‟ journey through it one of self-exploration and discovery. The sustained metaphor of the mind as a territory to be actively explored through the medium of the physical world, furthermore, is argued to be the basis of several of MacDonald‟s novels. While for Anodos the mind is all, forming as it does the basis of the entire fantasy world of Fairy Land, in the author‟s numerous realist texts the interest emerges in more varied ways, including for example, portrayals of depression, madness, and drug (ab)use. While this significant and unifying feature of MacDonald‟s novels has been at times observed by critics with regard to some individual texts, it has not been directly confronted in terms of an inclusive study of his oeuvre. What this thesis demonstrates is firstly the overwhelming significance of the mind as a focal point for MacDonald‟s novels, as represented by six central texts: Phantastes, Adela Cathcart, Wilfrid Cumbermede, Malcolm, Donal Grant, and The Flight of the Shadow. It is suggested that such a consistent prioritising of the mind over the physical body lies in the author‟s own experience of ongoing physical illness and resulting confrontation with mortality. The mind becomes, for MacDonald, a means of negotiating the relationship between the realms of the physical and the spiritual. In Phantastes, for example, Anodos‟ physical experience (achieved through the genre of fantasy) of his own mind in Fairy Land, concludes with reference to the afterlife. The mind in this (and MacDonald‟s other novels) provides the means by which transcendence is achieved.</p>

PARADIGM TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE VAMPIRIAD OF THE END OF THE XX – THE BEGINNING OF THE XXI CENTURY IN THE DILOGY “EMPIRE‘’V’” – “BATMAN APOLLO” BY VICTOR PELEVIN

The modern vector of transformations of the artistic image of a vampire is of special interest and agrees with what we have seen since the end of the XX century – the tendencies of consistent sympathy of writers to legendary-mythological images with traditionally negative symbolic meaning. V. Pelevin’s dilogy “Empire ‘V’” – “Batman Apollo” is organic to the tendencies of the modern world vampiriad and reflects the paradigmatic changes of this corpus of interpretations. The purpose of our article is for the first time to define the paradigmatic transformations of the artistic vampiriad of the end of the XX – the beginning of the XXI century and to determing of their reflection in the dilogy “Empire ‘V’” – “Batman Apollo” by V. Pelevin. Also we identify two interrelated basic clusters in the evolution of the vampire image for the first time: the justification and exaltation of this image in the literature, and the embodiment of aspects of national identity in it. V. Pelevin combines artistic and documentary discourses, in his fantasy world he paradoxically synthesizes historiosophical reflections on the fate of the people and appeals to various moments in the history and modernity of his country. The novelty and politicization of the Pelevin’ text is an innovation for the vampiriad, although in the fantasy genre the reception of national social realities is now becoming typical.

"Within and Without": Exploring the Mind in the Novels of George MacDonald

<p>George MacDonald‟s first published novel, Phantastes, is the story of a young man who enters and must negotiate his way through a fantasy landscape. This landscape, it is suggested, is one of the mind, and Anodos‟ journey through it one of self-exploration and discovery. The sustained metaphor of the mind as a territory to be actively explored through the medium of the physical world, furthermore, is argued to be the basis of several of MacDonald‟s novels. While for Anodos the mind is all, forming as it does the basis of the entire fantasy world of Fairy Land, in the author‟s numerous realist texts the interest emerges in more varied ways, including for example, portrayals of depression, madness, and drug (ab)use. While this significant and unifying feature of MacDonald‟s novels has been at times observed by critics with regard to some individual texts, it has not been directly confronted in terms of an inclusive study of his oeuvre. What this thesis demonstrates is firstly the overwhelming significance of the mind as a focal point for MacDonald‟s novels, as represented by six central texts: Phantastes, Adela Cathcart, Wilfrid Cumbermede, Malcolm, Donal Grant, and The Flight of the Shadow. It is suggested that such a consistent prioritising of the mind over the physical body lies in the author‟s own experience of ongoing physical illness and resulting confrontation with mortality. The mind becomes, for MacDonald, a means of negotiating the relationship between the realms of the physical and the spiritual. In Phantastes, for example, Anodos‟ physical experience (achieved through the genre of fantasy) of his own mind in Fairy Land, concludes with reference to the afterlife. The mind in this (and MacDonald‟s other novels) provides the means by which transcendence is achieved.</p>

Video Game Escapism During Quarantine

Video games, and especially roleplaying games offer a way for players to escape stress and cope with stressors. Video games are a new, and potentially unique, mechanism for telling stories. They allow a player to not only interact with a world, but to fully immerse themselves in a digital world. Being able to quite literally escape to a fantasy world where your actions matter, and you&rsquo;re given control can be a great form of self-therapy for players. This study aims to examine the results of a global pandemic and quarantine on player motivations and the reasons they play video games. The study collected detailed information on the video games genres and play time of each user and how it has been affected during self-isolation. Participants were also asked a series of questions that required them to evaluate their gaming habits both prior to and during the pandemic. This information was analysed to attempt to further understand players choices, in particular during a pandemic where there is an increased need to alleviate stress and experience a sense of escapism.

How Does Male Readership Impact Character Portrayals in Contemporary Young Adult Adventure Novels?

Adventure fiction has traditionally followed a male protagonist in their search for selfhood and saviorhood. In the case of contemporary adventure fiction, authors are likely to follow the conventions of the adventure story in order to fit the genre’s stereotypes, which in turn reinforce gender stereotypes. This research paper discusses how contemporary young adult adventure novels typically perform within society’s narrowly defined perception of male readership. While the novels attempt to perpetuate powerful female roles, the male characters fit the fantasy of traditional, male adventure stories. After analyzing traditional stories such as Paradise Lost and Beowulf and modern novels such as Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, I conclude that there are disparities between the portrayal of male and female characters: from the main hero to the minor characters to the antagonists, young adult adventure novels tend to follow traditional tropes in order to satisfy male readers. Even if the authors subvert the patriarchal tropes by adding female heroines or helpful minor characters, the overall work of literature creates a fantasy world that reinforces the traditional roles and desires expected of young boys. In time, these portrayals could encourage male readers to act patronizingly or dismissively toward girls and women.

Products of Counterfactual Imagination:The Healing Life of Literature

My papers investigates two of the latter volumes by Romanian author Monica Pillat, Invitație la vis (An Invitation to Dream, 2014), and Croitorul de cărți (The Book Tailor, 2019), in which the literary experience elevates and transcends life itself, as a form of rewriting/healing the past and, maybe, of projecting one’s dreams into the future. It relies on criticism of two stories from the respective volumes, which investigates the sites of memory, such as the family mansion, which is the central piece around which the fantasy world woven by the author gravitates. Since Monica Pillat descends from a whole line of literary masters, her gift for writing is in fact a form of recuperating and also compensating for the family past, in which especially her father (Dinu Pillat) was very much afflicted by political persecution during Communist times. In my paper, I will dwell upon the less factual connection between life and literature – that of a mutual mirroring and influencing – in the attempt to prove that the experience of writing can make up for the losses encountered in reality. In this sense, being a literary author may offer one the chance of re-inventing one’s self (or imaginatively amending the life of your loved ones) and – for Monica Pillat – it certainly offers the greatest reward of all: a continual dwelling inside the family lineage, in the company of the kindred spirits that have guided and protected her since she was born.

MEANS OF IMAGINARY WORLD FORMATION IN FANTASY TEXTS

A textual world is a cognitive complex, which combines two elements: a text base, a textual material; a cognitive base – knowledge and ideas of the communiсators. A textual world is divided into a great deal of various imaginary worlds: the author’s world and the personages, which in its turn is subdivided into the world of ideas, the world of desires, knowledge and the world of obligations. By the way, a textual world can be real and unreal or imaginary (M. -L. Rayyan), deictic, attitudinal and epistemic (P. Vert).The purpose of this article is to single out means of formation of an imaginary world in fantasy texts by J. R. R. Tolkien.In this article such methods were used: descriptive, interpretative and textual analysis, component analysis.Results. Literary world is concretized primarily in connection with its subject and the form of its implementation. The imaginary world in fantasy texts is modeled on certain principles: the use of archetypal plots and images, the opposition of good and evil, organization of the plot in the form of a quest, the use of mythological creatures, imaginary time and space, magical objects – artifacts. Imaginary world in J. R. R. Tolkien’s texts is built on the basic ideas of English-speaking community about unreality and fantasy of the author. Indicators of the imaginary are divided into 4 thematic groups (imaginary creature, imaginary subject, imaginary space and imaginary time). An imaginary creature as a result of author’s fantasy is represented as supernatural being, real for fantasy world human or animal like hybrid with nature wishes, certain intellectual abilities and physical disabilities. The imaginary subject is depicted as a unique artifact, which is actualized in jewelry, weapons and various things with supernatural properties.The imaginary space and time are based on the real one, keeping all typologies (natural, artificial environment, linen, metric, circular time). But it differs in logical incompatibility with the facts of reality and the presence of fictional representatives of flora and fauna, which gives to imaginary space and time uniqueness, anomalies and unusualness. Conclusions. Descriptive, interpretative and textual analysis helps to single out a thematic dominant, which forms informative value of lexical and semantic field “Imaginary”. Arch lexeme imaginary expresses the whole meaning of the notion “imaginary”.Key words: imaginary space and time, imaginary subject, imaginary creature, imaginary world. Текстовий світ є складним когнітивним комплексом, що поєднує два елементи: текстову базу, тобто мовний матеріал, фіксований на тому чи іншому матеріальному носії; когнітивну базу – знання й уявлення комунікантів. У межах текстового світу виокремлюються різноманітні можливі світи: світ автора і світ персонажів, який своєю чергою поділяється на світ уявлень, бажань, світ знань, світ зобов’язань. До того ж світи бувають реальними та нереальними, або уявними (М.-Л. Райян), дейктичні, атитюдні та епістемічні похідні світи (П. Верт).Мета статті – виявити засоби створення уявного світу у фентезійних творах Дж. Р. Р. Толкіна.У ході розвідки використовувалися такі методи, як: дескриптивний метод; метод інтерпретаційно-текстового аналізу, метод компонентного аналізу.Результати дослідження. Художній світ конкретизується насамперед у зв’язку з його суб’єктом (художнім світом письменника) і формою втілення (світ художнього твору). Уявний світ у фентезійних творах є вторинним стосовно звичайного світу та моделюється за певними принципами: звернення до архетипних сюжетів та образів, протиставлення добра та зла, організація сюжету у формі квесту, використання міфологічних істот, уявного часу та простору, магічних об’єктів – артефактів. Уявне у творах Дж. Р. Р. Толкіна моделюється на основі уявлень англомовної спільноти про ірреальність та фантазій власне самого автора. Індикатори уявного можна розподілити на чотири тематичні групи (уявна істота, уявний предмет, уявний простір, уявний час). Уявна істота як плід фантазії автора постає як надприродна істота, реальний для світу фентезі людино- або твариноподібний гібрид з природними потребами, певними інтелектуальними здібностями та фізичними недосконалостями, яка має місію, переважно на стороні Зла. Уявний предмет зображено як унікальний артефакт, який актуалізується в коштовностях, зброї та різноманітних предметах з надзвичайними властивостями.Уявний простір і час засновані на реальному, зі збереженням усіх типологій (природне, штучне середовище; метричний, лінійний, циклічний час), однак його відмінність у творах Дж. Р. Р. Толкіна полягає у логічній несумісності з фактами дійсності та наявності вигаданих представників рослинного та тваринного світів, що надає уявному простору і часу унікальності, аномальності та незвичності. Висновки. Аналіз словникових дефініцій і контекстних експлікацій сприяли визначенню тематичних домінант, які утво-рюють інформативне наповнення лексико-семантичного поля «Уявне». Архілексема imaginary виражає значення усього уявного по своїй природі, а всі синоніми та похідні лексеми представляють ядерну зону зазначеного поля.Ключові слова: уявний простір і час, уявнийпредмет, уявна істота, уявний світ.

A Convergence of Filipino Worlds: An Onomastic Reading of Edgar Calabia Samar’s Janus Silang Novels

Edgar Calabia Samar’s Janus Silang book series is a significant body of contemporary young adult fantasy novels in the Philippines. Samar’s ambitious series that successfully melds alternate online tech-worlds, everyday Filipino life, and ancient supernatural, god-inhabited worlds, is worthy of study. In creating this fantasy world, the Janus Silang series underscores the richness of Filipino mythology and lore by cohesively layering these lived worlds by way of spatial and temporal play. This paper wishes to study the value of this “world(s)-building”, entering this by way of the study of onomastics, the study of proper names of all kinds and the origins of names. Using both toponomastics and anthroponomastics, or the study of place names and human naming, respectively, this inventive, powerful focus on naming solidifies the Janus Silang series’ development of unique Filipino characters and narratives and its reintroduction of the cultures of its imaginary worlds for young, contemporary Filipino and global readers