LOOKING FOR THE FANTASTIC TO FIND THE REAL

literary dilemmas in modernity

Abstract

This article is divided into two main parts: in the first one, we seek to analyze literature as a human phenomenon, and define it based on theorists such as Eagleton, Culler and Compagnon. In addition, we start from the principle that, as art, it can constitute a form of knowledge of reality, in general (Lukács, Goldman, Candido), and of historical reality, in particular (LaCapra and Ferreira), although not simple and crystalline form. In the second part, we discuss the difficulties of the so-called realism, as a literary movement that aims to portray reality as it is (Jakobson and Jablonka), as well as the worsening of this problem at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. The changes resulting from the new discoveries in science and technology, as well as the impact of the First World War and the other catastrophes that followed it, bequeathed to intellectuals the idea that reality is absolutely implausible and, therefore, in-transmissible (Benjamin). Therefore, in order to transmit the real and, at the same time, be persuasive (White), it was necessary for many literati to embrace the fantastic genre, like the Englishman J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), considered the creator of modern fantastic fiction.