History
Fantasy fiction developed out of fairy tales in the nineteenth century. Early nineteenth century scholarship into folklore led to fantasy fiction dominating Victorian children's literature. The genre diverged into the two subgenres, high and low fantasy, after the Edwardian era. Low fantasy itself diverged into further subgenres in the subsequent decades. In the twentieth century, low fantasy developed into the further subgenres of its own. The forms of low fantasy include personified animals, personified toys (including The Indian in the Cupboard and The Doll's House; building on the earlier The Adventures of Pinocchio), comic fantasies of exaggerated character traits and altered physics (including Pippi Longstocking and The Borrowers), magical powers, supernatural elements and time slips.
French fantastic fiction is predominantly within the low fantasy genre. Low fantasy corresponds to the French genre of "le fantastique" but French literature has no tradition equivalent to English literature's high fantasy. According to David Ketterer, emeritus professor of English at Concordia University, Montreal, the French term Le fantastique "refers to a specific kind of fantasy, that in which the supernatural or the bizarre intrudes into the everyday world; the closest equivalents in English would be 'low fantasy', 'dark fantasy' or 'weird fiction'. 'Le fantastique' does not cover the kind of complete secondary world creation typified by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. There is no tradition of "dragons and wizards" fantasy in French." Where high fantasy does occur, the terms "le merveilleux" or "le fantastique moderne" are often used.
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