ABSTRACT
The author on "The Pleasures of the Imagination", Joseph Addison praises the power of a peculiar kind of literature he calls "the fairy way of writing". In his description of it in "The Fairy Way of Writing", Addison offers the eighteenth century a working definition of fantastic literature. Addison's definition contains a basic tension. On the one hand, the fantastic is presented as purely imaginary, as having "no existence", thereby framing, and so calling into question, "existence", whatever is understood as real and known. On the other hand, the fantastic is associated with a tradition of exploded supernatural beliefs from fairies to demons. Addison simply assumes the two sides of his definition do fit together: for, of course, modem rationality no longer allows belief in fairies or any of the other claptrap of superstition. Addison's criticism marks the fantastic as the oddity of original genius, as antiquated, as female, and as childish.
