Thing as a constructing element of the poetics of fantasy

The article refers to a complex of topical themes of literary studies, such as the poetics of fantasy and the analysis of the image of the world in fantasy works. Fantasy is one of the most popular literary forms. However, there are many unresolved questions literary studies face. They are: Is fantasy a genre? What are the main genre criteria for fantasy? What methodology will be effective in analyzing fantasy works? The specificity of fantasy is a special relation to the secondary world: creating an image of a world different from the usual reality is the leading feature of fantasy. Fantasy works create a model and an image of the world. Fantasy follows mythology in many aspects, including the fact of endowing the elements of the work with a world-modeling function typical of myths. Things perform the most global world-modeling task in the work, acting as an analog of the world, a microcosm. This manifests, for example, in a deep connection between the fate of the world and the fate of concrete things. In this study, we suggest considering material images as one of the genre criteria of fantasy. Three cycles of works are analyzed, namely, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by L. Carroll; The Chronicles of Narnia by K.S. Lewis; a series of novels by J. Rowling about Harry Potter. Based on the example of the functioning of things in these cycles, the study shows that the first two works differ substantially from the Lewis and Rowling cycles. There are central real images that have a world-modeling function in the The Chronicles of Narnia and the novels about Harry Potter, while in the works of L. Carroll things perform the traditional fairytale function of magical assistants.