ABSTRACT
Fantasy enables us to enter worlds of infinite possibility. The maps and contours of fantasy are circumscribed only by imagination itself. The breathtaking sweep of its scope can be awesome and even frightening, but this powerful, vivid mode of human consciousness has been part of artistic expression from the earliest known oral and written texts right up to the present day. In fact, the literary genre of modern fantasy is characterized by a narrative frame that unites timeless mythic patterns with contemporary individual experiences. Its stories at their hearts are about the relationship between the individual and the infinite.
