SOURCE: Schwartz, Richard Alan. “The Fantastic in Contemporary Fiction.” In The Scope of the Fantastic—Theory, Technique, Major Authors: Selected Essays from the First International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film, edited by Robert A. Collins and Howard D. Pierce, pp. 27-32. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985.

In the following essay, Schwartz reflects upon the resurgence of fantasy literature in the twentieth century, theorizing that this return to the fantastic is a means for modern authors to create a sense of order in a fast-changing and chaotic world.

The turn to the fantastic in literature represents in some ways a new method if not for imposing a sense of order on our chaotic world at least for turning the chaos into something positive and useful.

The world of the fantastic has become the world of much of our foremost contemporary literature. Art is no longer Stendhal's mirror...