fantastic literature
fantastic literature,or fiction of the unreal, took two forms in antiquity:
(a) fantasies of travel beyond the known world;
(b) stories of the supernatural. Both look back to the Phaeacian tales in the Odyssey, which became a byword for the unbelievable (cf. [Longinus] On the Sublime 9. 14).
From the Hellenistic period we know of a series of descriptions of imaginary lands, such as those by Euhemerus, Hecataeus of Abdera, and Iambulus. Their primary purpose was social and moral comment, but they often seem to have been authenticated by an adventure story, which provided entertainment but also drew attention to the question of how literally they were to be believed. Antiphanes of Berge's account of the far north was so transparently fictitious that ‘Bergaean’ became synonymous with ‘fantasist’. Although these works were criticized as falsehoods, some recognized that undisguised fiction represented an area...
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