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1. 
   sullymonster Teacher
   Community / Jr. College

   Magic realism refers to literature that fuses both physical realities and psychological ones.  It is "real" because it takes place in the real world.  It is "magic" because it incorporates dreams, fantasies, and emotions as part of the real world.

   Urban fantasy deals with stories that more specifically reflect elements of traditional fantasy novels - imaginary situations that are not scientifically probable, but that take place in real world settings.

   The two genres are different, but you can see that the imaginary elements are somewhat similar.  William Kennedy, who wrote Ironweed, is an American magic realist author.

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/magic-realism/

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   Posted by sullymonster on Thursday May 8, 2008 at 6:31 PM
   
   

2. 
   davidrubin Teacher
   Doctorate

   Both magic realism and urban fantasy (as in "urban legend") focus on the merging of probabilities. Urban fantasy combines common, natural probability (as in Balzac, Dickens, Mann, and Chekov) with hypothetical probability, which posits an extraordinary but not impossible condition and draws conclusions from it. Many short stories of Horatio Alger exemplify this tendency. Magic realism, by contrast, goes much further, conjoining standard-issue realism with sheer impossibility, as in Gogol's "The Nose", where the protagonist sees his absentee proboscis richly dressed and praying in church.

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   Posted by davidrubin on Monday July 21, 2008 at 11:42 AM