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High Fantasy
C.W.Sullivan III
The literary or compound term ‘high fantasy’ is enormously evocative, and like most
evocative terms, it is pluralistic in meaning and, therefore, difficult to pin down with a
neat or precise definition. ‘High’ can refer to style, subject matter, theme, or tone. It can
also refer to the characters themselves—their elite or elevated social status or the moral
or ethical philosophies which they espouse or exemplify. It can even refer to the affective
level of the story itself. ‘Fantasy’, as a literary term, refers to narrative possibilities
limited, at least initially, only by the author’s own imagination and skill as a story-teller.
When combined, high fantasy identifies a literary genre which includes some of the most
universally praised books for young readers.
Fantasy, or the fantastic element in literature, has been most usefully defined by
Kathryn Hume. In her book, Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western
Literature, Hume argues that any work of literature can be placed somewhere on a
continuum one end of which is mimesis and the other fantasy. All literature, Hume
suggests
is the product of two impulses. These are mimesis, felt as the desire to imitate, to
describe events, people, and objects with such verisimilitude that others can share
your experience; and fantasy, the desire to change givens and alter reality—out of
boredom, play, vision, longing for something lacking, or need for metaphoric images
that will bypass the audience’s verbal defences.
Hume 1984:20Fantasy itself, she continues, ‘is any departure from consensus reality’ (21, italics in
original). The relative proportions of the two elements—mimesis and fantasy—in a
specific work will determine that work’s place on the continuum.
The departure from consensus reality, or the inclusion of what most critics have
referred to as the ‘impossible’, in high fantasy places books in that sub-genre quite close
to the fantasy end of Hume’s continuum, because high fantasy contains a great deal of
material which is not a part of contemporary consensus reality. Unlike science fiction,
however, which departs from contemporary consensus reality by extrapolating that
reality into the near or far future where it has been significantly changed by discovery,
invention, and development, high fantasy departs from contemporary consensus reality
by creating a separate world in which the action takes place. In Critical Terms for Science
Fiction and Fantasy: A Glossary and Guide to Scholarship, Gary K.Wolfe defines high