What is the difference between fantasy and science fiction and their common features. What is the difference between fantasy and science fiction

If you ask the first person you meet about this, then, most likely, he will answer that it is not important for him, the main thing is that the plot is interesting. If you ask this question to specialists of a narrow profile, then it will cause great amount emotions and the erupted debatable struggle for the right of this or that definition to be correct, and this question will generally be considered incorrect.

But for a wide range readers and viewers, science fiction and fantasy are fascinating literary genres in the spirit of an unusual, unrealistic, but surprisingly interesting idea. To figure out whether it is possible and necessary to compare them, let's start in order.

Fantasy - translated from Greek, means the art of imagination. The emergence of science fiction as a literary trend began in the 19th century with the growth of scientific and technological progress and is associated with the names of Herbert Wells and Jules Verne. In Russia, the first science fiction writers were Alexander Veltman, Vladimir Odoevsky, Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, and later the world learned the names of the Strugatsky brothers, Ivan Efremov, Alexander Grin, Alexander Belyaev. A close connection with science separated science fiction from fiction and attracted people, one way or another connected with scientific knowledge: scientists, students, people of technical professions. That is, initially science fiction assumed precisely science fiction, trying to logically explain the basic ideas about a person, his world and the theoretical possibilities of his abilities in the future. That is, the main thing in this definition is the future.

Since the middle of the 20th century, the concept of "fantasy" has significantly expanded the scope of its definition. In the 1970s and 1980s, science fiction itself underwent a series of changes that brought it closer to the general literary stream, simplifying the scientific framework and previously defined rules. Gradually, under the familiar concept of "fantasy", the works of authors related to mysticism, "horror" (horror literature), fantasy (magic, magic fiction), etc. began to be understood. That is, fantasy literary direction, if it can be compared, it is with science fiction, and not with science fiction in general.

Fantasy implies free fantasy (apparently from this words happened) without any explanation. This is a kind of fantastic literature that allows for everything irrational, supernatural - sorcerers, Gods, wizards, etc.

Initially, fantasy assumes an unknown, unidentified and inaccessible past to our consciousness, in which all the usual laws of physics, mathematics, logic, etc. are violated. For example, magic that denies the laws of gravity, conservation of energy, any causal relationship. Although there are versions that magic is just the same very well thought out and calculated field of knowledge, but we must make a reservation that paranormal knowledge. In other words, fantasy is where the magic is, fantasy is where the physics is.

According to A. Sapkowski, fantasy is a genre or subgenre of science fiction, the founder of which is Howard, Lewis, Tolkien, Moorcock, Norton, Le Guin. He calls the main source of fantasy not fairy tale from our childhood (which is called folk epic), but the legends about King Arthur, which have very few analogues of this level. It was this archetype that became the prototype of most works of the fantasy genre, which is based on the opposition of Good and Evil, Progress and Destruction, and the Forces behind it. But also this salient feature fantasy, as a genre at the beginning of its development, is lost when compared with science fiction, because the struggle between light and dark is the basis of the literary concept of almost any work. As one of the critics noted, fantasy is what we guess from the very first lines of a book or the first minutes of a movie, but to explain and give an accurate and specific definition can not.

There are dozens of genres in science fiction, from children's fantasy, magical realism, utopia and dystopia, "soft" science fiction to cyberpunk, space science fiction, techno-fantasy, apocalypse and post-apocalypse.

As you can see, fantasy is part of the fantasy world. But! IN early XXI centuries, these two concepts have merged, mixed and dissolved. If initially, science fiction is robots, starships, aliens, and fantasy is magicians, gnomes, swords and fairy tale characters, then works where scientific discoveries are made by fantasy heroes and vice versa, where the entourage of one direction is superimposed on another, and often the most competent critic is unable to determine where to attribute this or that film or literary creation, are becoming more widespread.

This trend of synergy is characteristic of the entire scientific and non-scientific world. An era has come when a synthesis of knowledge is needed in all areas. The science acknowledges the paranormal and comments on interpretations of the Bible. Literary currents It's just a reflection of reality. The fusion of the concepts of scientific and non-scientific is dictated by an overabundance information flows that merge with each other, creating new emotional sensations.

All children love fairy tales. And older children even more so. Only their fairy tales are scarier, but more interesting. Here you won’t be surprised by the Frog Princess, and cunning writers have come up with a genre that helps to escape from reality into fairy world quite "adult" scale. Fantasy world. This genre is perhaps one of the oldest genres of literature, because ancient greek myths and the legends also belong to fantasy genre. In addition, fiction is very diverse, including many varieties, including science fiction and fantasy. The similarity of names and the fact that science fiction gained immense popularity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries led to the fact that when we talk about science fiction, we mean science fiction, and fantasy is generally not singled out as a separate genre. Let's try to draw a line between two genres of science fiction: science fiction and fantasy.

Definition

There are a huge number of definitions of both science fiction and fantasy. Let's dwell on the most common.
Verbatim Science fiction translated as "scientific fiction". It can be defined as a kind of fantastic literature and art, which is based on a scientific assumption, supplemented by the imagination of the author. These fantasies can develop not only on the basis of technological realities, but also historical, cultural, spatio-temporal, etc. Science fiction does not apply only to magic and magic.
But fantasy fills this gap. And at the heart of this genre lies the free flight of fantasy, not limited by scientific boundaries. Fantasy is a kind of science fiction, which is based on the flight of imagination of the author who is not limited by the framework. scientific progress or regression. The fantasy world develops thanks to mystical elements, as well as magic and sorcery. Translated from English as fantasy.

emergence

Again, many people think that science fiction appeared only at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But this is not true. As it was written above, myths and legends belong to fiction. different peoples. fantasy literature developed during the Renaissance utopian works), and throughout the Middle Ages (romantic fiction). But science fiction, as a genre, just appeared thanks to scientific and technological progress nineteenth century. The pioneers of the genre were Jules Verne, in the USSR - A. Tolstoy, A. Belyaev.
But the founding father of fantasy is JRR Tolkien with his famous Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit, or There and Back Again). Then the idea of good (and not so) gnomes, elves and goblins was picked up by other writers. But the peak of fantasy popularity came in the nineties of the twentieth century. And to this day, fantasy is the most popular view fiction that has supplanted science fiction.
Some works stand, as it were, at the junction of these genres, for example, the work of Ursula Le Guin. Her works are sometimes classified as fantasy, sometimes as science fiction. This is exactly the case when one genre smoothly flows into another.

Subgenres

There are not very many science fiction subgenres. We will simply list the main and typical representatives of this subgenre: technological fiction (R. Heinlein), cyber fiction (A. Clark), sociological (Orwell). Each of these subgenres experienced a peak in popularity during a particular decade of the twentieth century. But in the past few decades, science fiction literature has been supplanted by the fantasy genre in all its manifestations.
There are a lot of fantasy genres. Moreover, with the development of the Internet and computer games, this genre won another niche for itself. The most common subgenres are magical, mystical and scientific.
Also, fantasy is closely intertwined with other literary genres, giving rise to a fantastic detective story or a fantastic action movie.

TheDifference.ru found the following differences between science fiction and fantasy:

Science fiction is based on scientific facts; fantasy is based on magic.
Science fiction is literally translated as scientific fiction, and fantasy as fantasy.
The foundation for the birth of both genres was science fiction. Science fiction appeared at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and developed rapidly throughout the twentieth century. Fantasy appeared in the middle of the century.
Science fiction is going through better times, and fantasy, on the contrary, develops, giving rise to more and more new genres.

The fantasy genre has been causing a lot of questions, disputes and rumors since its inception. Can stories about elves and dwarves in a fictional world be considered fantasy? Fantasy as a literary genre has existed for more than a hundred years - and so far no one has really figured out this issue.

Before diving into the topic, one more obvious fact should be stipulated: the differences between fantasy and science fiction, and not from science fiction in general, will be considered. Simply because fantasy is part of science fiction, one of the fantastic genres.

What is fantasy?

To begin with, it is necessary to define fantasy as a genre of literature. Although, it can be called a genre only for the sake of simplicity of presenting the material, because literary critics consistently “throw” the old woman from genres to methods and vice versa.

So, fantasy (from the Greek " phantastike"- the art of imagining) is a kind of host literary genres which differ in a special, logically incompatible with everyday reality, picture of the world. Wherein fantasy worlds may be part of the world of the Earth, in contact with it - or may not relate to it in any way. The latter can often be attributed to works of the fantasy genre.

Fantasy and SF: definitions

Science fiction and fantasy are two of the oldest fantasy genres. To be more precise, science fiction is older than fantasy by about a century. As soon as " younger sister"was born at the beginning of the 20th century, they immediately began to compare it with the older one. And most of these comparisons were not flattering. Why? Because people of the 20th century, like people of the 21st century, most often think too rationally. And fantasy is the embodiment of irrationality. And now - in more detail.

is an author's fiction supplemented with the power of imagination, based on real scientific knowledge and facts. The fantasy of the author of science fiction works can be based not only on the achievements of technical disciplines or natural sciences, but also on the facts of history, space-time realities, and so on. Most often in the works of science fiction, or science fiction, the theme of magic, magic, irrational miracle is not revealed in any way.

This gap is successfully filled by works of the fantasy genre. The flight of fantasy of authors working in this genre is not limited by anything. Absolutely nothing. Where did the word "fantasy" come from? Everything is very simple: this is a tracing paper of the English "fantasy" - a fantasy. More often than not, fantasy worlds are unaffected by the progress or regression of science. Because magical worlds live by their magical laws. Magic works in them, and miracles happen literally at every step. Figuratively speaking.

The appearance and essence of "opponents"

Fantastic themes can be traced in the art of all, without exception, the peoples of the planet at all times. After all, what does not distinguish the creator so much as the ability to imagine? In some cases, even myths and legends are classified as fantastic genres, which is extremely wrong from the point of view of literary criticism.

But science fiction appeared just on the wave of scientific progress of the late 19th and 20th centuries. The science fiction writers at the origins of the genre quite often predicted big and not so big inventions and turns in the development of science and technology in the future. So, for example, Jules Verne described a submarine when they had not even begun to be developed, Isaac Asimov wrote a lot about artificial intelligence, and Andrey Belyaev's heroes were placed on an orbital station. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of such examples.

Fantasy, on the other hand, emerged from the desire of one Oxford professor by last name Tolkien to create a new mythology for Great Britain, does not build assumptions about the future. That is why for a hundred years it has been referred to as "entertaining fiction", "fake literature".

Fantasy novels often take place in completely fictional worlds that live by irrational magical laws. Heroes can belong to a mythical (elves, gnomes, goblins, giants) or fictional race (hobbits, orcs). Some characters wield magic or inexplicable powers that they actively use to solve their problems or save the world.

J. R. R. Tolkien and his works The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion are most often referred to as the ancestor of the fantasy genre. Among famous contemporaries- authors of "fake" books, it is worth mentioning Ursula le Guin, Andre Norton, Nick Perumov, Terry Goodkind, George Martin, Robert Asprin and many others.

List of differences

Below is the maximum detailed list features by which one can determine whether the work in question belongs to the genre of science fiction or fantasy.

Attention! The general trend of interpenetration of genres has given rise to such interesting offspring as science fantasy and other mixed genres. They randomly combine the features of genres - "parents".

So what are the differences between science fiction and fantasy?

Science fiction is based on real scientific facts. The basis of the fantasy work is mythology, magic, irrational miracles.
The fantasy genre came later than the science fiction genre. SF spawned the rapid progress of the late 19th and 20th centuries, while fantasy spawned a surge of mythological thinking in the 20th century.
A characteristic feature of works of science fiction is a fantastic assumption (what would the world be like if something happened, if something were invented). An alternative or completely fictional fantasy reality is in no way connected with objective reality. The authors of fantasy works do not explain the laws of the worlds they have created, in which working magic and developed non-human civilizations, mythical races are recognized as the norm.
Today, science fiction is in crisis, it has partially assimilated, giving birth to a fantastic action movie, space opera and other "soft" genres. Fantasy, on the contrary, is developing rapidly, giving rise to more and more branches and many interesting works.
The main conflict of SF is the confrontation between social norms and the love of freedom of the protagonist. In fantasy works, the main confrontation is between the forces of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness.

Reproducing new masterpieces. IN Lately books devoted to fictional worlds are especially popular among readers, so it became necessary to find a clear explanation of the difference between science fiction and fantasy. Although these two genres are similar to each other, there are still some very significant differences.

In science fiction, basically everything is considered from a scientific point of view, in which events take place in a world that differs from the modern one in historical, physical or technological reality. Such works use machines or devices that did not yet exist at the time of writing. How is science fiction different from fantasy? The fact that the ideas of writers in the future are reflected in technological progress.

What distinguishes science fiction from fantasy is the anomalous properties of the world from the point of view of physics. We perceive time that moves only in one direction, but the writers suggested that it can move in a circle, repeatedly repeating the same events or returning to the past. This cannot be called a complete fiction, because various anomalies are also found in our world. And what the best minds humanity has not yet found an explanation for this, does not mean that this cannot be. What distinguishes science fiction from fantasy is that the creator of the work is trying to expand the accepted framework for perceiving the world, to conduct a thought experiment. Often in such books you can read about extraterrestrial civilizations, on this moment this is an unconfirmed fact, but it cannot be denied.

Where fantasy differs from science fiction is the presence of magic, fictional worlds and races. In such works, the characters use unusual powers, magic wands, secret knowledge, magical abilities, various artifacts. Among the races, the most common are elves, goblins, orcs, gnomes, brownies, hobbits. Among contemporary writers fantasy genre, it is worth highlighting JK Rowling with her world famous novels about Harry Potter, John Tolkien with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, etc.

Works of this genre can be considered entertaining, because the events described in them will never happen in reality. The action usually takes place in a fictional world, on another planet, the writer does not indicate the exact location of the magical country or it is hidden from view ordinary people, as it happens in Rowling's novels. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Library is an interesting collection of books. Many writers combine these two genres, creating interesting works worth reading.

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All children love fairy tales. And older children even more so. Only their fairy tales are scarier, but more interesting. Here you won’t be surprised by the Frog Princess, and cunning writers have come up with a genre that helps to escape from reality into a fairy-tale world of a completely “adult” scale. Fantasy world. This genre is perhaps one of the oldest genres of literature, because ancient Greek myths and legends also belong to the fantastic genre. In addition, fiction is very diverse, including many varieties, including science fiction and fantasy. The similarity of names and the fact that science fiction gained immense popularity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries led to the fact that when we talk about science fiction, we mean science fiction, and fantasy is generally not singled out as a separate genre. Let's try to draw a line between two genres of science fiction: science fiction and fantasy.

Definition

There are a huge number of definitions of both science fiction and fantasy. Let's dwell on the most common.

Verbatim Science fiction translated as "scientific fiction". It can be defined as a kind of fantastic literature and art, which is based on a scientific assumption, supplemented by the imagination of the author. These fantasies can develop not only on the basis of technological realities, but also historical, cultural, spatio-temporal, etc. Science fiction isn't just about wizardry and magic.

A frame from the science fiction film "Professor Dowell's Head"

But fantasy fills this gap. And at the heart of this genre lies the free flight of fantasy, not limited by scientific boundaries. Fantasy is a kind of science fiction, which is based on the flight of the author's imagination, not limited by the framework of scientific progress or regression. The fantasy world develops thanks to mystical elements, as well as magic and sorcery. Translated from English as fantasy.

Harry Potter. fantasy

emergence

Again, many people think that science fiction appeared only at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But this is not true. As it was written above, myths and legends of different peoples belong to fantasy. Fantastic literature developed both during the Renaissance (utopian works) and throughout the Middle Ages (romantic fiction). But science fiction, as a genre, just appeared thanks to the scientific and technological progress of the nineteenth century. The pioneers of the genre were Jules Verne, in the USSR - A. Tolstoy, A. Belyaev.

But the founding father of fantasy is JRR Tolkien with his famous Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit, or There and Back Again). Then the idea of good (and not so) gnomes, elves and goblins was picked up by other writers. But the peak of fantasy popularity came in the nineties of the twentieth century. And to this day, fantasy is the most popular type of fiction, having supplanted science fiction.

Some works stand, as it were, at the junction of these genres, for example, the work of Ursula Le Guin. Her works are sometimes classified as fantasy, sometimes as science fiction. This is exactly the case when one genre smoothly flows into another.

Subgenres

There are a lot of fantasy genres. Moreover, with the development of the Internet and computer games, this genre has won another niche for itself. The most common subgenres are magical, mystical and scientific.

Also, fantasy is closely intertwined with other literary genres, giving rise to a fantastic detective story or a fantastic action movie.

Findings site

Science fiction is based on scientific facts; fantasy is based on magic.
Science fiction is literally translated as scientific fiction, and fantasy as fantasy.
The foundation for the birth of both genres was science fiction. Science fiction appeared at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and developed rapidly throughout the twentieth century. Fantasy appeared in the middle of the century.
Science fiction is now going through hard times, and fantasy, on the contrary, is developing, giving rise to more and more new genres.