Fantastická literatura v českém kontextu jako výzva literární vědě
Fantasy literature in the Czech context as a challenge to literary studies

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this study is to characterize fantastic literature in a broader context and to sketch out two types of fantastic, taking into account the approach towards fantasy elements and the extratextual context. After sketching out the complications associated with attempts to define fantastic literature it delineates the fantastic from the historical and personal (hallucinatory) standpoints, as well as in relation to mythic and religious texts, in order to ultimately present a definition of the intuitive method, making use of Wittgensteins’s family resemblances. The subsequent division into the pure fantastic and the fantastic as a mean of expression is illustrated by the use of fantastic elements by authors both associated with the fantastic fan community and outside it, pointing out the cognitive extratextual criteria that play a prominent role in the evaluation of fantastic works, as well as the unstable boundary between both categories. Ultimately it examines the relations between the fantastic and fiction from the viewpoint of the theory of the fantastic, pointing out in this context the frequent undervaluation of fantastic literature as a transcription of reality. Fantasic literature is presented as a complex phenomenon within fiction and not as a narrow literary genre destined for very specific readers.

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