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The Game

Of The

Impossible

A Rhetoric of

Fantasy

W. R. IRWIN

愛荷華州立大學教授厄文，專書剖析奇幻文學起源與歷史，書中探討1880年至1957年多位知名奇幻作家的作品，例如 C. S. 路易斯、大衛．加奈特、赫伯特．瑞德爵士、法蘭茲．卡夫卡，當然還有近年還最為人所知的英倫知名奇幻作家托爾金。一本研究英美比較文學或對於奇幻文學深感興趣的讀者不可錯過的文學研究！

Though we hear the terms "fantasy" and "fantastic" widely and wildly applied, few know what they mean. In this first thorough examination of fantasy as a literary genre, W. R. Irwin attempts to bring order to this phenomenon of cultural history by examining the common characteristics of fantasies written between 1880 and 1957.

By selecting the time span when the genre was most prominent, he confronts some well-remembered and some almost forgotten works of eminent authors such as C. S. Lewis, Franz Kafka, Ronald Firbank, David Garnett, Sir Herbert Read, Elinor Wylie, W. H. Hudson, Virginia Woolf, and J. R. R. Tolkien. THE GAME OF THE IMPOSSIBLE examines these selected works — representing a variety of experimental novel-length fiction — for both their intrinsic importance and illustrative value.

Irwin establishes that a fantasy is a story based on and controlled by an overt violation of what is generally accepted as possibility. It is, he says, the narrative result of transforming a condition contrary to fact into "fact" itself. As a kind of intellectual play, it is a calculated diversion in which writer and reader temporarily engage themselves. Its usefulness lies in its ability to entertain, to provide a respite from ordinary concerns, and sometimes to offer critique of our familiar world.

Popular fascination with the fantastic has grown in the last twenty years, Irwin says, while fantasy itself appears to be waning. The term "fantasy" has been carelessly used to designate "almost any kind of strange feeling, thought, conduct or experience; any kind of bizarre story, whether on the printed page, on stage, or in film. "Though he views such exuberance as "a sign of imaginative health," Irwin suggests it has the potential danger of making "fantasy" mean nothing at all. THE GAME OF THE IMPOSSIBLE is a wide-ranging study meant to give the term, so that its place in our culture, past and present, can be understood.

威廉．羅伯．厄文／William Robert Irwin

W. R. IRWIN is professor of English at the University of Iowa. He has published three other books: The Making of Jonathan Wild: A study in the literary Method of Henry Fielding (1941), Challenge: An Anthology of the Literature of Mountaineering (1950), and The Comic Style of Beaumarchais (1961), written in collaboration with Janis B. Ratermanis.

作者：威廉．羅伯．厄文／William Robert Irwin

規格：精裝／Hardback，16 x 23.4 x 2.4 cm，216頁

版本：First Edition

出版商：University of Illinois Press

出版日期：1976年01月01日

語言：英文

ISBN-10：0-252-00587-2

非新品書脊邊緣略為磨損書頁泛黃，附保護書套，不介意物品狀況再行購買。

Condition: Good. Pre-owned book which has been read but is in good condition. Minimal damage to the spine including scuff marks, but no holes or tears. The majority of pages are undamaged and in good condition, no highlighting of text, no writing in margins. No missing pages. With dust jacket.

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