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Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or magical elements, often including completely imaginary realms and creatures.
The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, which later became fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century onward, it has expanded into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animation, and video games.
The expression fantastic literature is often used for this genre by Anglophone literary critics. An archaic spelling for the term is phantasy.
Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by an absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these can occur in fantasy. In popular culture, the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that reflect the actual Earth, but with some sense of otherness.
English
Alternative forms
- phantasie (obsolete)
- phantasy (archaic)
Etymology
Noun inherited from Middle English fantasie, from Old French fantasie (“fantasy”), from Latin phantasia (“imagination”), from Ancient Greek φαντασία (phantasía, “apparition”), from φαντάζω (phantázō, “to render visible”), from φαντός (
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