This book offers a definition of the fantastic that establishes it as a discourse in constant intertextual relation with the construct of reality. In establishing the definition of the fantastic, leading scholar David Roas selects four central concepts that allow him to chart a fairly clear map of this terrain: reality, the impossible, fear, and language. These four concepts underscore the fundamental issues and problems that articulate any theoretical reflection on the fantastic: its necessary relationship to an idea of the real, its limits, its emotional and psychological effects on the receiver and the transgression of language that is undertaken when attempting to express what is, by definition, inexpressible as it is beyond the realms of the conceivable. By examining such concepts, the book explores multiple perspectives that are clearly interrelated: from literary and comparative theory to linguistics, via philosophy, science and cyberculture.
Offers for the first time an English translation of Roas' landmark work Tras los límites de lo real. Una definición de lo fantástico (2011)
Examines the works of some Spanish authors born between 1960 and 1975 in order to establish the poetics of the contemporary fantastic, as well as a series of figures from global media
Provides a concept of the fantastic as an aesthetic category that allows for a definition of a multidisciplinary nature which is valid for literature and film as well as theater, comics, videogames, or any other art form that reflects on the characteristic conflict within the fantastic between the real and the impossible
