“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
Edgar Allan Poe

Greetings, I am honored to be the guest editor for this issue of the Writing.Com Fantasy Newsletter ^_^ I believe that all creative writing, be it poetry or prose, has an element of fantasy. We write what we know, perceive, and imagine.

The word “fantasy” has myriad definitions; but thumb through any dictionary, or surf dictionary.com or wikipedia.com, and you will see that they all begin with “imagination.”

Is that not what the writer does? ~ Observe, perceive, or visualized an object, emotion, situation, and with pen/pencil, or keyboard, use words to develop a story or a poem that relates that observation, perception, or vision.

"The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in."
~W. H. Auden~
Poet - (1907-73)

         Fairy Tales have a long and rich history in literature and as oral folktale. The term itself is credited to a French writer in the second half of 17th Century, Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, who used it to describe her collections of popular tales and adventure stories. These stories were told in Les Contes des Fees (Tales of fairies) and Contes Nouveaux, ou Les Fées à la Mode in a conversational salon style. I’ve read some partial classic translations online (www.surlalunefairytales.com) and agree that these stories were originally written for her adult peers. Current English adaptations of these stories have been revised to make them more suitable for younger audiences.

         Although Mme. d’Aulnoy is credited for inventing the phrase to define her stories and those written by her Italian and French peers during that era, they are not the first written “Fairy Tales.” Spin back in time to Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” and further back to Ancient Greece for Aesop’s famous “Fables” (6th Century BCE) and, some historians claim, even farther back to ancient Egypt around 1300 BCE!

         The oral folk tradition of fairy tales is even longer, and draws from the rich history and mythology of the people whose culture it reflects. Some are woven into legendary narratives of interactions with the fairies, elves, dragons and giants which once lived more openly with mortals throughout the world. The ‘fairy tale’ as we now characterize it usually features characters found in such folklore (i.e., fairies, goblins, elves, giants, talking animals) and enchantments, often involving a fantastic sequence of events and most often ending happily. They do not refer to specific locations, persons or time periods, as they often begin “once upon a time.”

         Perhaps the best known fairy tales are the stories compiled by the Brothers Grimm. These began their collected life in print as a compendium of oral folktales, originally written in the early 1800s, where the Brothers Grimm sought to preserve the characters and plots of oral German folk tales in written form. In later editions, the stories were edited to make them more suitable for children, and were published in the late 1800s as a collection entitled Children’s and Household Tales. Pressure from publishers in the 1900s resulted in even more rewriting in translations to make them suitable for younger children, and today’s common image of the child’s fairy story was defined, perhaps along with the coinage of a happy ending as a ‘fairy tale ending.’ . (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_tale)

         The Fairy Tale continues its evolution today, while also holding fast its original and common literary image. American Heritage Dictionary defines a fairy tale as both “1. A fanciful tale of legendary deeds and creatures, usually intended for children,” and “2. A fictitious, highly fanciful story or explanation.”

         Fairy Tales are embraced throughout the world, by adults and kids alike. From nursery rhymes (often a child’s first exposure to literature), to some manga {i.e., “Sandman”), and individual stories worldwide, creative authors of poetry and prose incorporate at times elements of oral history, science, local color, images, comics, film, manga, along with myth and fantasy. This literary form, having survived and grown over millenia, thus continues to delight, enthral, and at times compel readers.

         Fairy Tales today evolve with the vision of the writers of stories and poems who transport us to magical and mystical places and show us events that occurred, or may yet occur, “once upon a time.”

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Kate - Writing & Reading