Reading the World, creating Worlds: Possible Worlds in fantasy

  • Orsetta Innocenti I.I.S. "Santoni" Pisa
Keywords: Possible worlds, Fantasy, Act of reading, Ende, Iser, Tolkien

Abstract

This paper – which has been developed within a dialogue with Simona Micali’s one, regarding possible worlds within science fiction – aims at investigating those narrative strategies engaged in the processes of world building and construction of meaning in fantasy. Within such a frame, all the typical mechanisms related to the act of reading and to the act of make-believe will be also taken into account. The analysis focuses onto Ende’s Neverending Story, which is interpreted through a confrontation both with Wolfgang Iser’s theory about the act of reading, considered as a phenomenological act, and with Tolkien’s primary fantasy model of The Lord of the Rings. Starting from these premises, the paper also suggests a possible theoretical model of textual cooperation reader-author within the specific literary genre of fantasy.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Orsetta Innocenti, I.I.S. "Santoni" Pisa

Orsetta Innocenti is teacher of Humanities (Italian, History, Citizenship and Constitution) in Upper High School (I.I.S. “Santoni”, Pisa). She has been working on the youth literature, on the relationship between literature and history (literature and resistance, literature of concentration camps), on the relationship between literature and science and on the representation of the Romance in contemporary European fiction.

References

Bertoni, Federico, Il testo a quattro mani, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1996.

Id., “Il genio e l’automa. Per un’idea di letteratura”, Studi di letterature comparate in onore di Remo Ceserani, II, Ed. Pierluigi Pellini, Manziana, Vecchiarelli, 2003: 281-304.

Brooks, Peter, Trame: intenzionalità e progetto nel discorso narrativo, Torino, Einaudi, 1995.

Calvino, Italo, Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore (1979), in Id., Romanzi e racconti, 2, Eds. Mario Barenghi - Bruno Falcetto, Milano, Mondadori, 1992: 611-870.

Calvino, Italo, “Cibernetica e fantasmi” (1967), Saggi, 1, Milano, Mondadori, 1999: 205-25.

Eco, Umberto, Lector in fabula, Milano, Bompiani, 1979.

Ende, Michael, Die unendliche Geschichte (1979), trad. it. La storia infinita, Ed. Amina Pandolfi, Longanesi, Milano, 1981.

Ferrario, Marcello, “Libri, lettori e pericoli nella saga di Harry Potter”, CentoPagine, IV (2002): 27-38.

Genette, Gérard, Soglie: i dintorni del testo, Torino, Einaudi, 1989.

Innocenti, Orsetta, “Leggere un destino narrativo. Profezie tra le righe e il caso di Harry Potter”, Leggere l’adolescenza, Ed. Barbara Peroni, Milano, Edizioni Unicopli, 2008a: 179-216.

Id., “The Magic of Make-Believe: Reading, Plots and Protagonists in the Harry Potter Series”, LiCuS. Journal of Literary Theory and Cultural Studies, 3 (2008b): 35-52.

Iser, Wolfgang, “The Reading Process: a Phenomenological Approach”, New Literary History, 3.2 (1972): 279-99.

Id., L’atto della lettura: una teoria della risposta estetica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1987.

Kirchbaum, Jörg, Ende, Michael, Archäologie der Dunkelheit – Gespräche über Kunst und das Werk des Malers Edgar Ende, Stuttgart, Verlag, 1985.

Kocher, Paul Harold, Master of Middle-earth. The Achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien, London, Thames and Hudson, 1972.

Tolkien, John, Ronald, Reul, The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), trad. It. Il signore degli anelli, Ed. Quirino Principe, Milano, Rusconi, 1966.

Id., “On Fairy Stories”, The Monsters, the Critics and other Essays, London, Harper Collins, 1990.

Walton, Kendall, Mimesis and Make-Believe. On the Foundations of Representational Arts, Cambridge, Mass. - London, Harvard University Press, 1990.

Published
2019-12-01
How to Cite
Innocenti, O. (2019). Reading the World, creating Worlds: Possible Worlds in fantasy. Between, 9(18). https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/3741