SOURCE: "The Function of the Fantastic," in Theophile Gautier and the Fantastic, Romance Monographs, Inc., 1977, pp. 118-38.

In the excerpt that follows, Smith explores the fantastic in Gautier's works, including his use of various phenomena such as impossible events, dreams and hallucinations, and heightened expressivity.

Arthur Ransome Praises Gautier's Art:

When [Gautier] is at his best; when he is not projecting young men with a mathematical freedom of morals into a Western society; in those moments, strung like rare beads along the life of an artist, when he is most himself, we hear clipped feathers beat against the bars. .. . As the Christian fingers his crucifix and is able to kneel upon the footsteps of the throne, so Gautier found talismans to help his dreams to their desires. A mummy's foot, a marble hand took him to the times he loved, or half revealed the perfections that reality refused...