ENG 470: Fantasy
Fall 2009
Mondays 1-3:50
Stevenson 410
Dr. Karen Coats
Office Hours:
Mondays 10-12 and by appt.
Check here frequently for changes and updates in reading, assignments, due dates.
Required Texts:
Armitt, Fantasy Fiction: An Introduction
Jackson, Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion
Johansen, Quests and Kingdoms: A Grown-up's Guide to Children's
Fantasy Fiction
Jones, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
Mendlesohn, Rhetorics of Fantasy
Sandner, Fantastic Literature: A Critical Reader
Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre
Course Description:
Children’s fantasy has a rich and contested history, from Lockean injunctions against the use of old wives’ tales to keep children in line, to Sarah Trimmer’s expunction of any mention of the supernatural in texts for children, to the literary retellings of folk and fairy tales by d’Aulnoy, Andersen, and the Grimms, to the Golden Age of Ruskin, Kingsley, Ingelow, MacDonald, Carroll, and Pyle. Then came the dawn of the 20th century, with Nesbit, Barrie, Lagerlof, Grahame, de la Mare, and Baum; the war years, with Milne, Lofting, Potter, Travers, and TOLKIEN; the fifties, with Norton, Lewis, Jansson, Boston, Pearce, Eager; and the latter half of the 20th century, with Green, Sutcliff, Alexander, Garner, McKinley, L’Engle, Pierce….Hamilton, Moseley, Lester, Pratchett, Pullman, Whedon, Rowling. And besides the notable authors, there are the enduring stories – Arthur, Robin Hood, Cinderella, Tall John, Coyote, Anansi—until the progress of children’s fantasy begins to look like a history of children’s literature, culture, and ideology of childhood all by itself. Fantasy theory both maps and misses the specific nuances of children’s fantasy, so we’ll read critically and creatively until we have our own place in that conversation.
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