THE SACRED AND THE FANTASTIC
THE SACRED AND THE FANTASTIC

Summary/Abstract: Between the creative thinking of mankind and fantastic literature, there is an extremely strong connection that expresses the individual power to imagine and describe a multitude of possible worlds. This idea is analysed in the article named "The Sacred and the Fantastic". The sacred is like the beautiful, a complex category that evades the rational, it is "something ineffable" and unspeakable. There are numerous similarities between the ways of perceiving the sacred analysed by Rudolf Otto in his studies "Sacred" and "About Numinous", and the object of fantastic literature. Firstly, the common element is the attempt to present another reality with rational and linguistic means, so, in other words, with the relative means of the universe in which we live. The fantastic and the sacred belong to another reality, which is precisely the reason why it arouses great interest. The sacred is inexpressible, incomprehensible, with the analytical means of reason, but at the same time, it offers order and balance. The fantastic turns out to be an ineffable category, it is the character and the abstract reader`s hesitation between the strange and the miraculous at the same time, between a possible deception of the senses, a product of the imagination, a situation in which the laws of the world remain what they are, and the situation in which the event really happened, it is an integral part of reality, a reality governed by laws which are unknown to men. Hence, the hesitation between the strange and the miraculous is the one that gives birth to fantastic literature. Another important element is the need of mankind to escape from everyday life through art to banish the unsettling feeling of the end.

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