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Friday, May 19, 2023

05-19-2023-1531 - Magic Items, Moral, Magna Carta, etc. ; Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means.[1][2] It is to be distinguished from paranormal magic which are effects claimed to be created through supernatural means. It is one of the oldest performing arts in the world., etc. (draft)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Magic Items)
For other uses, see Magic item (disambiguation).
"Alberich puts on the Tarnhelm and vanishes" illustration by Arthur Rackham to Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold: a magical item with the ability to make the wearer invisible
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A magic item is any object that has magical powers inherent in it. These may act on their own or be the tools of the person or being whose hands they fall into. Magic items are commonly found in both folklore and modern fantasy. Their fictional appearance is as old as the Iliad in which Aphrodite's magical girdle is used by Hera as a love charm.[1]

Magic items often act as a plot device to grant magical abilities. They may give magical abilities to a person lacking in them, or enhance the power of a wizard. For instance, in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, the magical ring allows Bilbo Baggins to be instrumental in the quest, exceeding the abilities of the dwarves.[2]

Magic items are often, also, used as MacGuffins. The characters in a story must collect an arbitrary number of magical items, and when they have the full set, the magic is sufficient to resolve the plot. In video games, these types of items are usually collected in fetch quests.

Fairy tales

Certain kinds of fairy tales have their plots dominated by the magic items they contain. One such is the tale where the hero has a magic item that brings success, loses the item either accidentally (The Tinder Box) or through an enemy's actions (The Bronze Ring), and must regain it to regain his success.[3] Another is the magic item that runs out of control when the character knows how to start it but not to stop it: the mill in Why the Sea Is Salt or the pot in Sweet Porridge.[4] A third is the tale in which a hero has two rewards stolen from him, and a third reward attacks the thief.[5]

Types of magic items

Many works of folklore and fantasy include very similar items, that can be grouped into types. These include:

Artifacts

In role-playing games and fantasy literature, an artifact is a magical object with great power. Often, this power is so great that it cannot be duplicated by any known art allowed by the premises of the fantasy world, and often cannot be destroyed by ordinary means. Artifacts often serve as MacGuffins, the central focus of quests to locate, capture, or destroy them. The One Ring of The Lord of the Rings is a typical artifact: it was alarmingly powerful, of ancient and obscure origin, and nearly indestructible.

In fiction

This interpretation may have arisen as an extension of the archaeological meaning of the word; fantasy artifacts are often the remains of earlier civilisations established by beings of great magical power (cf. many artifacts in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, as well as the "Forgotten Realms" Dungeons & Dragons setting).[citation needed]

In Dungeons & Dragons
Main article: List of major artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons

In Dungeons & Dragons, artifacts are magic items that either cannot be created by players or the secrets to their creation is not given. In any event, artifacts have no market price and have no hit points (that is, they are indestructible by normal spells). Artifacts typically have no inherent limit of using their powers. Under strict rules, any artifact can theoretically be destroyed by the sorcerer/wizard spell Mordenkainen's Disjunction, but for the purposes of a campaign centered on destroying an artifact, a plot-related means of destruction is generally substituted. Artifacts in D&D are split into two categories. Minor artifacts are common, but they can no longer be created, whereas major artifacts are unique – only one of each item exists.[6]

In Harry Potter
Main article: Magical objects in Harry Potter

In the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, several magical objects exist for the use of the characters. Some of them play a crucial role in the main plot. There are objects for different purposes such as communication, transportation, games, storage, as well as legendary artifacts and items with dark properties.

References


  • Ogden, Daniel (1999). "Binding Spells : Curse Tablets and Voodoo Dolls in the Greek and Roman Worlds". Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. Ancient Greece and Rome. London: Athlone. ISBN 0-485-89002-X

  • Shippey, T. A. (2003). The Road to Middle-earth : How J.R.R. Tolken Created a New Mythology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. ISBN 0-618-25760-8, page 77

  • Stith Thompson, The Folktale, p 70-1, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977

  • Stith Thompson, The Folktale, p 73, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977

  • Stith Thompson, The Folktale, p 72, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977

    1. Cook, Monte (July 2003). Dungeon Master's Guide (v.3.5 ed.). Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast. pp. 277–280.


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_item

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    This article is about the English charter of 1215. For other uses, see Magna Carta (disambiguation).
    Magna Carta
    Magna Carta (British Library Cotton MS Augustus II.106).jpg
    Cotton MS. Augustus II. 106, one of four surviving exemplifications of the 1215 text
    Created1215; 808 years ago
    LocationTwo at the British Library; one each in Lincoln Castle and in Salisbury Cathedral
    Author(s)
    PurposePeace treaty
    Full Text
    Magna Carta at Wikisource
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    Magna Carta Libertatum (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called Magna Carta (also Magna Charta; "Great Charter"),[a] is a royal charter[4][5] of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215.[b] First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Stephen Langton, to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Neither side stood behind their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War.

    After John's death, the regency government of his young son, Henry III, reissued the document in 1216, stripped of some of its more radical content, in an unsuccessful bid to build political support for their cause. At the end of the war in 1217, it formed part of the peace treaty agreed at Lambeth, where the document acquired the name "Magna Carta", to distinguish it from the smaller Charter of the Forest which was issued at the same time. Short of funds, Henry reissued the charter again in 1225 in exchange for a grant of new taxes. His son, Edward I, repeated the exercise in 1297, this time confirming it as part of England's statute law. The charter became part of English political life and was typically renewed by each monarch in turn, although as time went by and the fledgling Parliament of England passed new laws, it lost some of its practical significance.

    At the end of the 16th century, there was an upsurge in interest in Magna Carta. Lawyers and historians at the time believed that there was an ancient English constitution, going back to the days of the Anglo-Saxons, that protected individual English freedoms. They argued that the Norman invasion of 1066 had overthrown these rights, and that Magna Carta had been a popular attempt to restore them, making the charter an essential foundation for the contemporary powers of Parliament and legal principles such as habeas corpus. Although this historical account was badly flawed, jurists such as Sir Edward Coke used Magna Carta extensively in the early 17th century, arguing against the divine right of kings. Both James I and his son Charles I attempted to suppress the discussion of Magna Carta. The political myth of Magna Carta and its protection of ancient personal liberties persisted after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 until well into the 19th century. It influenced the early American colonists in the Thirteen Colonies and the formation of the United States Constitution, which became the supreme law of the land in the new republic of the United States.[c] Research by Victorian historians showed that the original 1215 charter had concerned the medieval relationship between the monarch and the barons, rather than the rights of ordinary people, but the charter remained a powerful, iconic document, even after almost all of its content was repealed from the statute books in the 19th and 20th centuries. None of the original 1215 Magna Carta is currently in force as it was repealed, however four clauses of the original charter (1 (part), 13, 39 and 40) are enshrined in the 1297 reissued Magna Carta and do still remain in force in England and Wales (as clauses 1, 9 and 29 of the 1297 statute).[6][7]

    Magna Carta still forms an important symbol of liberty today, often cited by politicians and campaigners, and is held in great respect by the British and American legal communities, Lord Denning describing it as "the greatest constitutional document of all times—the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot".[8] In the 21st century, four exemplifications of the original 1215 charter remain in existence, two at the British Library, one at Lincoln Castle and one at Salisbury Cathedral. There are also a handful of the subsequent charters in public and private ownership, including copies of the 1297 charter in both the United States and Australia. Although scholars refer to the 63 numbered "clauses" of Magna Carta, this is a modern system of numbering, introduced by Sir William Blackstone in 1759; the original charter formed a single, long unbroken text. The four original 1215 charters were displayed together at the British Library for one day, 3 February 2015, to mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta.

    History

    13th century

    Background

    Main article: John, King of England
    An illuminated picture of King John riding a white horse and accompanied by four hounds. The King is chasing a stag, and several rabbits can be seen at the bottom of the picture.
    King John on a stag hunt

    Magna Carta originated as an unsuccessful attempt to achieve peace between royalist and rebel factions in 1215, as part of the events leading to the outbreak of the First Barons' War. England was ruled by King John, the third of the Angevin kings. Although the kingdom had a robust administrative system, the nature of government under the Angevin monarchs was ill-defined and uncertain.[9][10] John and his predecessors had ruled using the principle of vis et voluntas, or "force and will", taking executive and sometimes arbitrary decisions, often justified on the basis that a king was above the law.[10] Many contemporary writers believed that monarchs should rule in accordance with the custom and the law, with the counsel of the leading members of the realm, but there was no model for what should happen if a king refused to do so.[10]

    John had lost most of his ancestral lands in France to King Philip II in 1204 and had struggled to regain them for many years, raising extensive taxes on the barons to accumulate money to fight a war which ended in expensive failure in 1214.[11] Following the defeat of his allies at the Battle of Bouvines, John had to sue for peace and pay compensation.[12] John was already personally unpopular with many of the barons, many of whom owed money to the Crown, and little trust existed between the two sides.[13][14][15] A triumph would have strengthened his position, but in the face of his defeat, within a few months after his return from France, John found that rebel barons in the north and east of England were organising resistance to his rule.[16][17]

    The rebels took an oath that they would "stand fast for the liberty of the church and the realm", and demanded that the King confirm the Charter of Liberties that had been declared by King Henry I in the previous century, and which was perceived by the barons to protect their rights.[17][18][19] The rebel leadership was unimpressive by the standards of the time, even disreputable, but were united by their hatred of John;[20] Robert Fitzwalter, later elected leader of the rebel barons, claimed publicly that John had attempted to rape his daughter,[21] and was implicated in a plot to assassinate John in 1212.[22]

    A mural of Pope Innocent III, c. 1219

    John held a council in London in January 1215 to discuss potential reforms, and sponsored discussions in Oxford between his agents and the rebels during the spring.[23] Both sides appealed to Pope Innocent III for assistance in the dispute.[24] During the negotiations, the rebellious barons produced an initial document, which historians have termed "the Unknown Charter of Liberties", which drew on Henry I's Charter of Liberties for much of its language; seven articles from that document later appeared in the "Articles of the Barons" and the subsequent charter.[25][26][27]

    It was John's hope that the Pope would give him valuable legal and moral support, and accordingly John played for time; the King had declared himself to be a papal vassal in 1213 and correctly believed he could count on the Pope for help.[24][28] John also began recruiting mercenary forces from France, although some were later sent back to avoid giving the impression that the King was escalating the conflict.[23] In a further move to shore up his support, John took an oath to become a crusader, a move which gave him additional political protection under church law, even though many felt the promise was insincere.[29][30]

    Letters backing John arrived from the Pope in April, but by then the rebel barons had organised into a military faction. They congregated at Northampton in May and renounced their feudal ties to John, marching on London, Lincoln, and Exeter.[31] John's efforts to appear moderate and conciliatory had been largely successful, but once the rebels held London, they attracted a fresh wave of defectors from the royalists.[32] The King offered to submit the problem to a committee of arbitration with the Pope as the supreme arbiter, but this was not attractive to the rebels.[33] Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury, had been working with the rebel barons on their demands, and after the suggestion of papal arbitration failed, John instructed Langton to organise peace talks.[32][34]

    Great Charter of 1215

    The Articles of the Barons, 1215, held by the British Library

    John met the rebel leaders at Runnymede, a water-meadow on the south bank of the River Thames, on 10 June 1215. Runnymede was a traditional place for assemblies, but it was also located on neutral ground between the royal fortress of Windsor Castle and the rebel base at Staines, and offered both sides the security of a rendezvous where they were unlikely to find themselves at a military disadvantage.[35][36] Here the rebels presented John with their draft demands for reform, the 'Articles of the Barons'.[32][34][37] Stephen Langton's pragmatic efforts at mediation over the next ten days turned these incomplete demands into a charter capturing the proposed peace agreement; a few years later, this agreement was renamed Magna Carta, meaning "Great Charter".[34][37][38] By 15 June, general agreement had been made on a text, and on 19 June, the rebels renewed their oaths of loyalty to John and copies of the charter were formally issued.[34][37]

    Although, as the historian David Carpenter has noted, the charter "wasted no time on political theory", it went beyond simply addressing individual baronial complaints, and formed a wider proposal for political reform.[32][39] It promised the protection of church rights, protection from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and, most importantly, limitations on taxation and other feudal payments to the Crown, with certain forms of feudal taxation requiring baronial consent.[16][40] It focused on the rights of free men—in particular, the barons.[39] The rights of serfs were included in articles 16, 20 and 28.[41][d] Its style and content reflected Henry I's Charter of Liberties, as well as a wider body of legal traditions, including the royal charters issued to towns, the operations of the Church and baronial courts and European charters such as the Statute of Pamiers.[44][45]

    Under what historians later labelled "clause 61", or the "security clause", a council of 25 barons would be created to monitor and ensure John's future adherence to the charter.[46] If John did not conform to the charter within 40 days of being notified of a transgression by the council, the 25 barons were empowered by clause 61 to seize John's castles and lands until, in their judgement, amends had been made.[47] Men were to be compelled to swear an oath to assist the council in controlling the King, but once redress had been made for any breaches, the King would continue to rule as before.[48]

    In one sense this was not unprecedented. Other kings had previously conceded the right of individual resistance to their subjects if the King did not uphold his obligations. Magna Carta was novel in that it set up a formally recognised means of collectively coercing the King.[48] The historian Wilfred Warren argues that it was almost inevitable that the clause would result in civil war, as it "was crude in its methods and disturbing in its implications".[49] The barons were trying to force John to keep to the charter, but clause 61 was so heavily weighted against the King that this version of the charter could not survive.[47]

    John and the rebel barons did not trust each other, and neither side seriously attempted to implement the peace accord.[46][50] The 25 barons selected for the new council were all rebels, chosen by the more extremist barons, and many among the rebels found excuses to keep their forces mobilised.[51][52][53] Disputes began to emerge between the royalist faction and those rebels who had expected the charter to return lands that had been confiscated.[54]

    Clause 61 of Magna Carta contained a commitment from John that he would "seek to obtain nothing from anyone, in our own person or through someone else, whereby any of these grants or liberties may be revoked or diminished".[55][56] Despite this, the King appealed to Pope Innocent for help in July, arguing that the charter compromised the Pope's rights as John's feudal lord.[54][57] As part of the June peace deal, the barons were supposed to surrender London by 15 August, but this they refused to do.[58] Meanwhile, instructions from the Pope arrived in August, written before the peace accord, with the result that papal commissioners excommunicated the rebel barons and suspended Langton from office in early September.[59]

    Once aware of the charter, the Pope responded in detail: in a letter dated 24 August and arriving in late September, he declared the charter to be "not only shameful and demeaning but also illegal and unjust" since John had been "forced to accept" it, and accordingly the charter was "null, and void of all validity for ever"; under threat of excommunication, the King was not to observe the charter, nor the barons try to enforce it.[54][58][60][61]

    By then, violence had broken out between the two sides. Less than three months after it had been agreed, John and the loyalist barons firmly repudiated the failed charter: the First Barons' War erupted.[54][62][63] The rebel barons concluded that peace with John was impossible, and turned to Philip II's son, the future Louis VIII, for help, offering him the English throne.[54][64][e] The war soon settled into a stalemate. The King became ill and died on the night of 18 October 1216, leaving the nine-year-old Henry III as his heir.[65]

    Charters of the Welsh Princes

    The Magna Carta of 1215 was the first document in which reference is made to English and Welsh law alongside one another, including the principle of the common acceptance of the lawful judgement of peers.

    Chapter 56: The return of lands and liberties to Welshmen if those lands and liberties had been taken by English (and vice versa) without a law abiding judgement of their peers.

    Chapter 57: The return of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, illegitimate son of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great) along with other Welsh hostages which were originally taken for "peace" and "good".[66][67]

    Lists of participants in 1215
    Counsellors named in Magna Carta

    The preamble to Magna Carta includes the names of the following 27 ecclesiastical and secular magnates who had counselled John to accept its terms. The names include some of the moderate reformers, notably Archbishop Stephen Langton, and some of John's loyal supporters, such as William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. They are listed here in the order in which they appear in the charter itself:[68]

    The Council of Twenty-Five Barons

    The names of the Twenty-Five Barons appointed under clause 61 to monitor John's future conduct are not given in the charter itself, but do appear in four early sources, all seemingly based on a contemporary listing: a late-13th-century collection of law tracts and statutes, a Reading Abbey manuscript now in Lambeth Palace Library, and the Chronica Majora and Liber Additamentorum of Matthew Paris.[69][70][71] The process of appointment is not known, but the names were drawn almost exclusively from among John's more active opponents.[72] They are listed here in the order in which they appear in the original sources:

    Excommunicated rebels

    In September 1215, the papal commissioners in England—Subdeacon Pandulf, Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, and Simon, Abbot of Reading—excommunicated the rebels, acting on instructions earlier received from Rome. A letter sent by the commissioners from Dover on 5 September to Archbishop Langton explicitly names nine senior rebel barons (all members of the Council of Twenty-Five), and six clerics numbered among the rebel ranks:[73]

    Barons

    Clerics

    Great Charter of 1216

    Although the Charter of 1215 was a failure as a peace treaty, it was resurrected under the new government of the young Henry III as a way of drawing support away from the rebel faction. On his deathbed, King John appointed a council of thirteen executors to help Henry reclaim the kingdom, and requested that his son be placed into the guardianship of William Marshal, one of the most famous knights in England.[74] William knighted the boy, and Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, the papal legate to England, then oversaw his coronation at Gloucester Cathedral on 28 October.[75][76][77]

    The young King inherited a difficult situation, with over half of England occupied by the rebels.[78][79] He had substantial support though from Guala, who intended to win the civil war for Henry and punish the rebels.[80] Guala set about strengthening the ties between England and the Papacy, starting with the coronation itself, during which Henry gave homage to the Papacy, recognising the Pope as his feudal lord.[75][81] Pope Honorius III declared that Henry was the Pope's vassal and ward, and that the legate had complete authority to protect Henry and his kingdom.[75] As an additional measure, Henry took the cross, declaring himself a crusader and thereby entitled to special protection from Rome.[75]

    The war was not going well for the loyalists, but Prince Louis and the rebel barons were also finding it difficult to make further progress.[82][83] John's death had defused some of the rebel concerns, and the royal castles were still holding out in the occupied parts of the country.[83][84] Henry's government encouraged the rebel barons to come back to his cause in exchange for the return of their lands, and reissued a version of the 1215 Charter, albeit having first removed some of the clauses, including those unfavourable to the Papacy and clause 61, which had set up the council of barons.[85][86] The move was not successful, and opposition to Henry's new government hardened.[87]

    Great Charter of 1217

    See also: First Barons' War, Charter of the Forest, and English land law
    The Charter of the Forest re-issued in 1225, held by the British Library

    In February 1217, Louis set sail for France to gather reinforcements.[88] In his absence, arguments broke out between Louis' French and English followers, and Cardinal Guala declared that Henry's war against the rebels was the equivalent of a religious crusade.[89] This declaration resulted in a series of defections from the rebel movement, and the tide of the conflict swung in Henry's favour.[90] Louis returned at the end of April, but his northern forces were defeated by William Marshal at the Battle of Lincoln in May.[91][92]

    Meanwhile, support for Louis' campaign was diminishing in France, and he concluded that the war in England was lost.[93] He negotiated terms with Cardinal Guala, under which Louis would renounce his claim to the English throne. In return, his followers would be given back their lands, any sentences of excommunication would be lifted, and Henry's government would promise to enforce the charter of the previous year.[94] The proposed agreement soon began to unravel amid claims from some loyalists that it was too generous towards the rebels, particularly the clergy who had joined the rebellion.[95]

    In the absence of a settlement, Louis stayed in London with his remaining forces, hoping for the arrival of reinforcements from France.[95] When the expected fleet arrived in August, it was intercepted and defeated by loyalists at the Battle of Sandwich.[96] Louis entered into fresh peace negotiations. The factions came to agreement on the final Treaty of Lambeth, also known as the Treaty of Kingston, on 12 and 13 September 1217.[96]

    The treaty was similar to the first peace offer, but excluded the rebel clergy, whose lands and appointments remained forfeit. It included a promise that Louis' followers would be allowed to enjoy their traditional liberties and customs, referring back to the Charter of 1216.[97] Louis left England as agreed. He joined the Albigensian Crusade in the south of France, bringing the war to an end.[93]

    A great council was called in October and November to take stock of the post-war situation. This council is thought to have formulated and issued the Charter of 1217.[98] The charter resembled that of 1216, although some additional clauses were added to protect the rights of the barons over their feudal subjects, and the restrictions on the Crown's ability to levy taxation were watered down.[99] There remained a range of disagreements about the management of the royal forests, which involved a special legal system that had resulted in a source of considerable royal revenue. Complaints existed over both the implementation of these courts, and the geographic boundaries of the royal forests.[100]

    A complementary charter, the Charter of the Forest, was created, pardoning existing forest offences, imposing new controls over the forest courts, and establishing a review of the forest boundaries.[100] To distinguish the two charters, the term 'magna carta libertatum' ("the great charter of liberties") was used by the scribes to refer to the larger document, which in time became known simply as Magna Carta.[101][102]

    Great Charter of 1225

    1225 version of Magna Carta issued by Henry III, held in the National Archives

    Magna Carta became increasingly embedded into English political life during Henry III's minority.[103] As the King grew older, his government slowly began to recover from the civil war, regaining control of the counties and beginning to raise revenue once again, taking care not to overstep the terms of the charters.[104] Henry remained a minor and his government's legal ability to make permanently binding decisions on his behalf was limited. In 1223, the tensions over the status of the charters became clear in the royal court, when Henry's government attempted to reassert its rights over its properties and revenues in the counties, facing resistance from many communities that argued—if sometimes incorrectly—that the charters protected the new arrangements.[105][106]

    This resistance resulted in an argument between Archbishop Langton and William Brewer over whether the King had any duty to fulfil the terms of the charters, given that he had been forced to agree to them.[107] On this occasion, Henry gave oral assurances that he considered himself bound by the charters, enabling a royal inquiry into the situation in the counties to progress.[108]

    In 1225, the question of Henry's commitment to the charters re-emerged, when Louis VIII of France invaded Henry's remaining provinces in France, Poitou and Gascony.[109][110] Henry's army in Poitou was under-resourced, and the province quickly fell.[111] It became clear that Gascony would also fall unless reinforcements were sent from England.[112] In early 1225, a great council approved a tax of £40,000 to dispatch an army, which quickly retook Gascony.[113][114] In exchange for agreeing to support Henry, the barons demanded that the King reissue Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest.[115][116] The content was almost identical to the 1217 versions, but in the new versions, the King declared that the charters were issued of his own "spontaneous and free will" and confirmed them with the royal seal, giving the new Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest of 1225 much more authority than the previous versions.[116][117]

    The barons anticipated that the King would act in accordance with these charters, subject to the law and moderated by the advice of the nobility.[118][119] Uncertainty continued, and in 1227, when he was declared of age and able to rule independently, Henry announced that future charters had to be issued under his own seal.[120][121] This brought into question the validity of the previous charters issued during his minority, and Henry actively threatened to overturn the Charter of the Forest unless the taxes promised in return for it were actually paid.[120][121] In 1253, Henry confirmed the charters once again in exchange for taxation.[122]

    Henry placed a symbolic emphasis on rebuilding royal authority, but his rule was relatively circumscribed by Magna Carta.[77][123] He generally acted within the terms of the charters, which prevented the Crown from taking extrajudicial action against the barons, including the fines and expropriations that had been common under his father, John.[77][123] The charters did not address the sensitive issues of the appointment of royal advisers and the distribution of patronage, and they lacked any means of enforcement if the King chose to ignore them.[124] The inconsistency with which he applied the charters over the course of his rule alienated many barons, even those within his own faction.[77]

    Despite the various charters, the provision of royal justice was inconsistent and driven by the needs of immediate politics: sometimes action would be taken to address a legitimate baronial complaint, while on other occasions the problem would simply be ignored.[125] The royal courts, which toured the country to provide justice at the local level, typically for lesser barons and the gentry claiming grievances against major lords, had little power, allowing the major barons to dominate the local justice system.[126] Henry's rule became lax and careless, resulting in a reduction in royal authority in the provinces and, ultimately, the collapse of his authority at court.[77][126]

    In 1258, a group of barons seized power from Henry in a coup d'état, citing the need to strictly enforce Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, creating a new baronial-led government to advance reform through the Provisions of Oxford.[127] The barons were not militarily powerful enough to win a decisive victory, and instead appealed to Louis IX of France in 1263–1264 to arbitrate on their proposed reforms. The reformist barons argued their case based on Magna Carta, suggesting that it was inviolable under English law and that the King had broken its terms.[128]

    Louis came down firmly in favour of Henry, but the French arbitration failed to achieve peace as the rebellious barons refused to accept the verdict. England slipped back into the Second Barons' War, which was won by Henry's son, the Lord Edward. Edward also invoked Magna Carta in advancing his cause, arguing that the reformers had taken matters too far and were themselves acting against Magna Carta.[129] In a conciliatory gesture after the barons had been defeated, in 1267 Henry issued the Statute of Marlborough, which included a fresh commitment to observe the terms of Magna Carta.[130]

    Witnesses in 1225
    Witnesses to the 1225 charter

    Great Charter of 1297: statute

    1297 version of the Great Charter, on display in the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C.

    King Edward I reissued the Charters of 1225 in 1297 in return for a new tax.[132] It is this version which remains in statute today, although with most articles now repealed.[133][134]

    The Confirmatio Cartarum (Confirmation of Charters) was issued in Norman French by Edward I in 1297.[135] Edward, needing money, had taxed the nobility, and they had armed themselves against him, forcing Edward to issue his confirmation of Magna Carta and the Forest Charter to avoid civil war.[136] The nobles had sought to add another document, the De Tallagio, to Magna Carta. Edward I's government was not prepared to concede this, they agreed to the issuing of the Confirmatio, confirming the previous charters and confirming the principle that taxation should be by consent,[132] although the precise manner of that consent was not laid down.[137]

    A passage mandates that copies shall be distributed in "cathedral churches throughout our realm, there to remain, and shall be read before the people two times by the year",[138] hence the permanent installation of a copy in Salisbury Cathedral.[139] In the Confirmation's second article, it is confirmed that

    if any judgement be given from henceforth contrary to the points of the charters aforesaid by the justices, or by any other our ministers that hold plea before them against the points of the charters, it shall be undone, and holden for nought.[140][141]

    With the reconfirmation of the Charters in 1300, an additional document was granted, the Articuli super Cartas (The Articles upon the Charters).[142] It was composed of 17 articles and sought in part to deal with the problem of enforcing the Charters. Magna Carta and the Forest Charter were to be issued to the sheriff of each county, and should be read four times a year at the meetings of the county courts. Each county should have a committee of three men who could hear complaints about violations of the Charters.[143]

    Pope Clement V continued the papal policy of supporting monarchs (who ruled by divine grace) against any claims in Magna Carta which challenged the King's rights, and annulled the Confirmatio Cartarum in 1305. Edward I interpreted Clement V's papal bull annulling the Confirmatio Cartarum as effectively applying to the Articuli super Cartas, although the latter was not specifically mentioned.[144] In 1306 Edward I took the opportunity given by the Pope's backing to reassert forest law over large areas which had been "disafforested". Both Edward and the Pope were accused by some contemporary chroniclers of "perjury", and it was suggested by Robert McNair Scott that Robert the Bruce refused to make peace with Edward I's son, Edward II, in 1312 with the justification: "How shall the king of England keep faith with me, since he does not observe the sworn promises made to his liege men ...".[145][146]

    Magna Carta's influence on English medieval law

    The Great Charter was referred to in legal cases throughout the medieval period. For example, in 1226, the knights of Lincolnshire argued that their local sheriff was changing customary practice regarding the local courts, "contrary to their liberty which they ought to have by the charter of the lord king".[147] In practice, cases were not brought against the King for breach of Magna Carta and the Forest Charter, but it was possible to bring a case against the King's officers, such as his sheriffs, using the argument that the King's officers were acting contrary to liberties granted by the King in the charters.[148]

    In addition, medieval cases referred to the clauses in Magna Carta which dealt with specific issues such as wardship and dower, debt collection, and keeping rivers free for navigation.[149] Even in the 13th century, some clauses of Magna Carta rarely appeared in legal cases, either because the issues concerned were no longer relevant, or because Magna Carta had been superseded by more relevant legislation. By 1350 half the clauses of Magna Carta were no longer actively used.[150]

    14th–15th centuries

    Magna carta cum statutis angliae ("Great Charter with English Statutes"), early 14th century

    During the reign of King Edward III six measures, later known as the Six Statutes, were passed between 1331 and 1369. They sought to clarify certain parts of the Charters. In particular the third statute, in 1354, redefined clause 29, with "free man" becoming "no man, of whatever estate or condition he may be", and introduced the phrase "due process of law" for "lawful judgement of his peers or the law of the land".[151]

    Between the 13th and 15th centuries Magna Carta was reconfirmed 32 times according to Sir Edward Coke, and possibly as many as 45 times.[152][153] Often the first item of parliamentary business was a public reading and reaffirmation of the Charter, and, as in the previous century, parliaments often exacted confirmation of it from the monarch.[153] The Charter was confirmed in 1423 by King Henry VI.[154][155][156]

    By the mid-15th century, Magna Carta ceased to occupy a central role in English political life, as monarchs reasserted authority and powers which had been challenged in the 100 years after Edward I's reign.[157] The Great Charter remained a text for lawyers, particularly as a protector of property rights, and became more widely read than ever as printed versions circulated and levels of literacy increased.[158]

    16th century

    A version of the Charter of 1217, produced between 1437 and c. 1450

    During the 16th century, the interpretation of Magna Carta and the First Barons' War shifted.[159] Henry VII took power at the end of the turbulent Wars of the Roses, followed by Henry VIII, and extensive propaganda under both rulers promoted the legitimacy of the regime, the illegitimacy of any sort of rebellion against royal power, and the priority of supporting the Crown in its arguments with the Papacy.[160]

    Tudor historians rediscovered the Barnwell chronicler, who was more favourable to King John than other 13th-century texts, and, as historian Ralph Turner describes, they "viewed King John in a positive light as a hero struggling against the papacy", showing "little sympathy for the Great Charter or the rebel barons".[161] Pro-Catholic demonstrations during the 1536 uprising cited Magna Carta, accusing the King of not giving it sufficient respect.[162]

    The first mechanically printed edition of Magna Carta was probably the Magna Carta cum aliis Antiquis Statutis of 1508 by Richard Pynson, although the early printed versions of the 16th century incorrectly attributed the origins of Magna Carta to Henry III and 1225, rather than to John and 1215, and accordingly worked from the later text.[163][164][165] An abridged English-language edition was published by John Rastell in 1527. Thomas Berthelet, Pynson's successor as the royal printer during 1530–1547, printed an edition of the text along with other "ancient statutes" in 1531 and 1540.[166]

    In 1534, George Ferrers published the first unabridged English-language edition of Magna Carta, dividing the Charter into 37 numbered clauses.[167]

    a stone statue of a man in Tudor clothes and down and cap and cahins off office holding a rolled up copy of maga carter
    Magna Carta held by Sir Rowland Hill in his monument in Shropshire: his 16th Century funerary monument in London also showed him holding the document

    The mid-sixteenth century funerary monument Sir Rowland Hill of Soulton, placed in St Stephens Wallbroke, included a full statue[168] of the Tudor statesman and judge holding a copy of Magna Carta.[169] Hill was a Mercer and a Lord Mayor of London; both of these statuses were shared with Serlo the Mercer who was a negotiator and enforcer of Magna Carta.[170] The original monument was lost in the Great Fire of London, but it was restated on a 110 foot tall column on his family's estates in Shropshire.[171]

    At the end of the 16th century, there was an upsurge in antiquarian interest in England.[162] This work concluded that there was a set of ancient English customs and laws, temporarily overthrown by the Norman invasion of 1066, which had then been recovered in 1215 and recorded in Magna Carta, which in turn gave authority to important 16th-century legal principles.[162][172][173] Modern historians note that although this narrative was fundamentally incorrect—many refer to it as a "myth"—it took on great importance among the legal historians of the time.[173][g]

    The antiquarian William Lambarde, for example, published what he believed were the Anglo-Saxon and Norman law codes, tracing the origins of the 16th-century English Parliament back to this period, albeit misinterpreting the dates of many documents concerned.[172] Francis Bacon argued that clause 39 of Magna Carta was the basis of the 16th-century jury system and judicial processes.[178] Antiquarians Robert Beale, James Morice and Richard Cosin argued that Magna Carta was a statement of liberty and a fundamental, supreme law empowering English government.[179] Those who questioned these conclusions, including the Member of Parliament Arthur Hall, faced sanctions.[180][181]

    17th–18th centuries

    Political tensions

    The jurist Edward Coke made extensive political use of Magna Carta.

    In the early 17th century, Magna Carta became increasingly important as a political document in arguments over the authority of the English monarchy.[182] James I and Charles I both propounded greater authority for the Crown, justified by the doctrine of the divine right of kings, and Magna Carta was cited extensively by their opponents to challenge the monarchy.[175]

    Magna Carta, it was argued, recognised and protected the liberty of individual Englishmen, made the King subject to the common law of the land, formed the origin of the trial by jury system, and acknowledged the ancient origins of Parliament: because of Magna Carta and this ancient constitution, an English monarch was unable to alter these long-standing English customs.[175][182][183][184] Although the arguments based on Magna Carta were historically inaccurate, they nonetheless carried symbolic power, as the charter had immense significance during this period; antiquarians such as Sir Henry Spelman described it as "the most majestic and a sacrosanct anchor to English Liberties".[173][175][182]

    Sir Edward Coke was a leader in using Magna Carta as a political tool during this period. Still working from the 1225 version of the text – the first printed copy of the 1215 charter only emerged in 1610 – Coke spoke and wrote about Magna Carta repeatedly.[173] His work was challenged at the time by Lord Ellesmere, and modern historians such as Ralph Turner and Claire Breay have critiqued Coke as "misconstruing" the original charter "anachronistically and uncritically", and taking a "very selective" approach to his analysis.[175][185] More sympathetically, J. C. Holt noted that the history of the charters had already become "distorted" by the time Coke was carrying out his work.[186]

    The Leveller John Lilburne criticised Magna Carta as an inadequate definition of English liberties.

    In 1621, a bill was presented to Parliament to renew Magna Carta; although this bill failed, lawyer John Selden argued during Darnell's Case in 1627 that the right of habeas corpus was backed by Magna Carta.[187][188] Coke supported the Petition of Right in 1628, which cited Magna Carta in its preamble, attempting to extend the provisions, and to make them binding on the judiciary.[189][190] The monarchy responded by arguing that the historical legal situation was much less clear-cut than was being claimed, restricted the activities of antiquarians, arrested Coke for treason, and suppressed his proposed book on Magna Carta.[188][191] Charles initially did not agree to the Petition of Right, and refused to confirm Magna Carta in any way that would reduce his independence as King.[192][193]

    England descended into civil war in the 1640s, resulting in Charles I's execution in 1649. Under the republic that followed, some questioned whether Magna Carta, an agreement with a monarch, was still relevant.[194] An anti-Cromwellian pamphlet published in 1660, The English devil, said that the nation had been "compelled to submit to this Tyrant Nol or be cut off by him; nothing but a word and a blow, his Will was his Law; tell him of Magna Carta, he would lay his hand on his sword and cry Magna Farta".[195] In a 2005 speech the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Woolf, repeated the claim that Cromwell had referred to Magna Carta as "Magna Farta".[196]

    The radical groups that flourished during this period held differing opinions of Magna Carta. The Levellers rejected history and law as presented by their contemporaries, holding instead to an "anti-Normanism" viewpoint.[197] John Lilburne, for example, argued that Magna Carta contained only some of the freedoms that had supposedly existed under the Anglo-Saxons before being crushed by the Norman yoke.[198] The Leveller Richard Overton described the charter as "a beggarly thing containing many marks of intolerable bondage".[199]

    Both saw Magna Carta as a useful declaration of liberties that could be used against governments they disagreed with.[200] Gerrard Winstanley, the leader of the more extreme Diggers, stated "the best lawes that England hath, [viz., Magna Carta] were got by our Forefathers importunate petitioning unto the kings that still were their Task-masters; and yet these best laws are yoaks and manicles, tying one sort of people to be slaves to another; Clergy and Gentry have got their freedom, but the common people still are, and have been left servants to work for them."[201][202]

    Glorious Revolution

    The first attempt at a proper historiography was undertaken by Robert Brady,[203] who refuted the supposed antiquity of Parliament and belief in the immutable continuity of the law. Brady realised that the liberties of the Charter were limited and argued that the liberties were the grant of the King. By putting Magna Carta in historical context, he cast doubt on its contemporary political relevance;[204] his historical understanding did not survive the Glorious Revolution, which, according to the historian J. G. A. Pocock, "marked a setback for the course of English historiography."[205]

    According to the Whig interpretation of history, the Glorious Revolution was an example of the reclaiming of ancient liberties. Reinforced with Lockean concepts, the Whigs believed England's constitution to be a social contract, based on documents such as Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights.[206] The English Liberties (1680, in later versions often British Liberties) by the Whig propagandist Henry Care (d. 1688) was a cheap polemical book that was influential and much-reprinted, in the American colonies as well as Britain, and made Magna Carta central to the history and the contemporary legitimacy of its subject.[207]

    Ideas about the nature of law in general were beginning to change. In 1716, the Septennial Act was passed, which had a number of consequences. First, it showed that Parliament no longer considered its previous statutes unassailable, as it provided for a maximum parliamentary term of seven years, whereas the Triennial Act (1694) (enacted less than a quarter of a century previously) had provided for a maximum term of three years.[208]

    It also greatly extended the powers of Parliament. Under this new constitution, monarchical absolutism was replaced by parliamentary supremacy. It was quickly realised that Magna Carta stood in the same relation to the King-in-Parliament as it had to the King without Parliament. This supremacy would be challenged by the likes of Granville Sharp. Sharp regarded Magna Carta as a fundamental part of the constitution, and maintained that it would be treason to repeal any part of it. He also held that the Charter prohibited slavery.[209]

    Sir William Blackstone published a critical edition of the 1215 Charter in 1759, and gave it the numbering system still used today.[210] In 1763, Member of Parliament John Wilkes was arrested for writing an inflammatory pamphlet, No. 45, 23 April 1763; he cited Magna Carta continually.[211] Lord Camden denounced the treatment of Wilkes as a contravention of Magna Carta.[212] Thomas Paine, in his Rights of Man, would disregard Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights on the grounds that they were not a written constitution devised by elected representatives.[213]

    Use in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States

    Magna Carta replica and display in the rotunda of the United States Capitol, Washington, D.C.

    When English colonists left for the New World, they brought royal charters that established the colonies. The Massachusetts Bay Company charter, for example, stated that the colonists would "have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects."[214] The Virginia Charter of 1606, which was largely drafted by Sir Edward Coke, stated that the colonists would have the same "liberties, franchises and immunities" as people born in England.[215] The Massachusetts Body of Liberties contained similarities to clause 29 of Magna Carta; when drafting it, the Massachusetts General Court viewed Magna Carta as the chief embodiment of English common law.[216] The other colonies would follow their example. In 1638, Maryland sought to recognise Magna Carta as part of the law of the province, but the request was denied by Charles I.[217]

    In 1687, William Penn published The Excellent Privilege of Liberty and Property: being the birth-right of the Free-Born Subjects of England, which contained the first copy of Magna Carta printed on American soil. Penn's comments reflected Coke's, indicating a belief that Magna Carta was a fundamental law.[218] The colonists drew on English law books, leading them to an anachronistic interpretation of Magna Carta, believing that it guaranteed trial by jury and habeas corpus.[219]

    The development of parliamentary supremacy in the British Isles did not constitutionally affect the Thirteen Colonies, which retained an adherence to English common law, but it directly affected the relationship between Britain and the colonies.[220] When American colonists fought against Britain, they were fighting not so much for new freedom, but to preserve liberties and rights that they believed to be enshrined in Magna Carta.[221]

    In the late 18th century, the United States Constitution became the supreme law of the land, recalling the manner in which Magna Carta had come to be regarded as fundamental law.[221] The Constitution's Fifth Amendment guarantees that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law", a phrase that was derived from Magna Carta.[222] In addition, the Constitution included a similar writ in the Suspension Clause, Article 1, Section 9: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it."[223]

    Each of these proclaim that no person may be imprisoned or detained without evidence that he or she committed a crime. The Ninth Amendment states that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The writers of the U.S. Constitution wished to ensure that the rights they already held, such as those that they believed were provided by Magna Carta, would be preserved unless explicitly curtailed.[224][225]

    The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly referenced Edward Coke's analysis of Magna Carta as an antecedent of the Sixth Amendment's right to a speedy trial.[226]

    19th–21st centuries

    Interpretation

    A romanticised 19th-century recreation of King John signing Magna Carta. Rather than signing in writing, the document would have been authenticated with the Great Seal and applied by officials rather than John himself.[227]

    Initially, the Whig interpretation of Magna Carta and its role in constitutional history remained dominant during the 19th century. The historian William Stubbs's Constitutional History of England, published in the 1870s, formed the high-water mark of this view.[228] Stubbs argued that Magna Carta had been a major step in the shaping of the English nation, and he believed that the barons at Runnymede in 1215 were not just representing the nobility, but the people of England as a whole, standing up to a tyrannical ruler in the form of King John.[228][229]

    This view of Magna Carta began to recede. The late-Victorian jurist and historian Frederic William Maitland provided an alternative academic history in 1899, which began to return Magna Carta to its historical roots.[230] In 1904, Edward Jenks published an article entitled "The Myth of Magna Carta", which undermined the previously accepted view of Magna Carta.[231] Historians such as Albert Pollard agreed with Jenks in concluding that Edward Coke had largely "invented" the myth of Magna Carta in the 17th century; these historians argued that the 1215 charter had not referred to liberty for the people at large, but rather to the protection of baronial rights.[232]

    This view also became popular in wider circles, and in 1930 Sellar and Yeatman published their parody on English history, 1066 and All That, in which they mocked the supposed importance of Magna Carta and its promises of universal liberty: "Magna Charter was therefore the chief cause of Democracy in England, and thus a Good Thing for everyone (except the Common People)".[233][234]

    In many literary representations of the medieval past, however, Magna Carta remained a foundation of English national identity. Some authors used the medieval roots of the document as an argument to preserve the social status quo, while others pointed to Magna Carta to challenge perceived economic injustices.[230] The Baronial Order of Magna Charta was formed in 1898 to promote the ancient principles and values felt to be displayed in Magna Carta.[235] The legal profession in England and the United States continued to hold Magna Carta in high esteem; they were instrumental in forming the Magna Carta Society in 1922 to protect the meadows at Runnymede from development in the 1920s, and in 1957, the American Bar Association erected the Magna Carta Memorial at Runnymede.[222][236][237] The prominent lawyer Lord Denning described Magna Carta in 1956 as "the greatest constitutional document of all times—the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot".[238]

    Repeal of articles and constitutional influence

    Radicals such as Sir Francis Burdett believed that Magna Carta could not be repealed,[239] but in the 19th century clauses which were obsolete or had been superseded began to be repealed. The repeal of clause 26 in 1829, by the Offences Against the Person Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4 c. 31 s. 1)[h][240] was the first time a clause of Magna Carta was repealed. Over the next 140 years, nearly the whole of Magna Carta (1297) as statute was repealed,[241] leaving just clauses 1, 9 and 29 still in force (in England and Wales) after 1969. Most of the clauses were repealed in England and Wales by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863, and in modern Northern Ireland and also in the modern Republic of Ireland by the Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872.[240]

    Many later attempts to draft constitutional forms of government trace their lineage back to Magna Carta. The British dominions, Australia and New Zealand,[242] Canada[243] (except Quebec), and formerly the Union of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, reflected the influence of Magna Carta in their laws, and the Charter's effects can be seen in the laws of other states that evolved from the British Empire.[244]

    Modern legacy

    The Magna Carta Memorial at Runnymede, designed by Sir Edward Maufe and erected by the American Bar Association in 1957. The memorial stands in the meadow known historically as Long Mede: it is likely that the actual site of the sealing of Magna Carta lay further east, towards Egham and Staines.[35]

    Magna Carta continues to have a powerful iconic status in British society, being cited by politicians and lawyers in support of constitutional positions.[238][245] Its perceived guarantee of trial by jury and other civil liberties, for example, led to Tony Benn's reference to the debate in 2008 over whether to increase the maximum time terrorism suspects could be held without charge from 28 to 42 days as "the day Magna Carta was repealed".[246] Although rarely invoked in court in the modern era, in 2012 the Occupy London protestors attempted to use Magna Carta in resisting their eviction from St. Paul's Churchyard by the City of London. In his judgment the Master of the Rolls gave this short shrift, noting somewhat drily that although clause 29 was considered by many the foundation of the rule of law in England, he did not consider it directly relevant to the case, and that the two other surviving clauses ironically concerned the rights of the Church and the City of London and could not help the defendants.[247][248]

    Magna Carta carries little legal weight in modern Britain, as most of its clauses have been repealed and relevant rights ensured by other statutes, but the historian James Holt remarks that the survival of the 1215 charter in national life is a "reflexion of the continuous development of English law and administration" and symbolic of the many struggles between authority and the law over the centuries.[249] The historian W. L. Warren has observed that "many who knew little and cared less about the content of the Charter have, in nearly all ages, invoked its name, and with good cause, for it meant more than it said".[250]

    It also remains a topic of great interest to historians; Natalie Fryde characterised the charter as "one of the holiest of cows in English medieval history", with the debates over its interpretation and meaning unlikely to end.[229] In many ways still a "sacred text", Magna Carta is generally considered part of the uncodified constitution of the United Kingdom; in a 2005 speech, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Woolf, described it as the "first of a series of instruments that now are recognised as having a special constitutional status".[196][251]

    Magna Carta was reprinted in New Zealand in 1881 as one of the Imperial Acts in force there.[252] Clause 29 of the document remains in force as part of New Zealand law.[253]

    The document also continues to be honoured in the United States as an antecedent of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.[254] In 1976, the UK lent one of four surviving originals of the 1215 Magna Carta to the United States for their bicentennial celebrations and also donated an ornate display case for it. The original was returned after one year, but a replica and the case are still on display in the United States Capitol Crypt in Washington, D.C.[255]

    Celebration of the 800th anniversary

    The plan for four surviving original copies of Magna Carta to be brought together in 2015, at the British Library in collaboration with Lincoln Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral and supported by the law firm Linklaters

    The 800th anniversary of the original charter occurred on 15 June 2015, and organisations and institutions planned celebratory events.[256] The British Library brought together the four existing copies of the 1215 manuscript in February 2015 for a special exhibition.[257] British artist Cornelia Parker was commissioned to create a new artwork, Magna Carta (An Embroidery), which was shown at the British Library between May and July 2015.[258] The artwork is a copy of the Wikipedia article about Magna Carta (as it appeared on the document's 799th anniversary, 15 June 2014), hand-embroidered by over 200 people.[259]

    On 15 June 2015, a commemoration ceremony was conducted in Runnymede at the National Trust park, attended by British and American dignitaries.[260] On the same day, Google celebrated the anniversary with a Google Doodle.[261]

    The copy held by Lincoln Cathedral was exhibited in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., from November 2014 until January 2015.[262] A new visitor centre at Lincoln Castle was opened for the anniversary.[263] The Royal Mint released two commemorative two-pound coins.[264][265]

    In 2014, Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk celebrated the 800th anniversary of the barons' Charter of Liberties, said to have been secretly agreed there in November 1214.[266]

    Content

    Physical format

    Numerous copies, known as exemplifications, were made of the various charters, and many of them still survive.[267] The documents were written in heavily abbreviated medieval Latin in clear handwriting, using quill pens on sheets of parchment made from sheep skin, approximately 15 by 20 inches (380 by 510 mm) across.[268][269] They were sealed with the royal great seal by an official called the spigurnel, equipped with a special seal press, using beeswax and resin.[269][270] There were no signatures on the charter of 1215, and the barons present did not attach their own seals to it.[271] The text was not divided into paragraphs or numbered clauses: the numbering system used today was introduced by the jurist Sir William Blackstone in 1759.[210]

    Exemplifications

    1215 exemplifications

    At least thirteen original copies of the charter of 1215 were issued by the royal chancery during that year, seven in the first tranche distributed on 24 June and another six later; they were sent to county sheriffs and bishops, who were probably charged for the privilege.[272] Slight variations exist between the surviving copies, and there was probably no single "master copy".[273] Of these documents, only four survive, all held in England: two now at the British Library, one at Salisbury Cathedral, and one, the property of Lincoln Cathedral, on permanent loan to Lincoln Castle.[274] Each of these versions is slightly different in size and text, and each is considered by historians to be equally authoritative.[275]

    1733 engraving by John Pine of the 1215 charter (Cotton Charter XIII.31A)

    The two 1215 charters held by the British Library, known as Cotton MS. Augustus II.106 and Cotton Charter XIII.31A, were acquired by the antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton in the 17th century.[276] The first had been found by Humphrey Wyems, a London lawyer, who may have discovered it in a tailor's shop, and who gave it to Cotton in January 1629.[277] The second was found in Dover Castle in 1630 by Sir Edward Dering. The Dering charter was traditionally thought to be the copy sent in 1215 to the Cinque Ports,[278] but in 2015 the historian David Carpenter argued that it was more probably that sent to Canterbury Cathedral, as its text was identical to a transcription made from the Cathedral's copy of the 1215 charter in the 1290s.[279][280][281] This copy was damaged in the Cotton library fire of 1731, when its seal was badly melted. The parchment was somewhat shrivelled but otherwise relatively unscathed. An engraved facsimile of the charter was made by John Pine in 1733. In the 1830s, an ill-judged and bungled attempt at cleaning and conservation rendered the manuscript largely illegible to the naked eye.[282][283] This is the only surviving 1215 copy still to have its great seal attached.[284][285]

    Lincoln Cathedral's copy has been held by the county since 1215. It was displayed in the Common Chamber in the cathedral, before being moved to another building in 1846.[274][286] Between 1939 and 1940 it was displayed in the British Pavilion at the 1939 World Fair in New York City, and at the Library of Congress.[287] When the Second World War broke out, Winston Churchill wanted to give the charter to the American people, hoping that this would encourage the United States, then neutral, to enter the war against the Axis powers, but the cathedral was unwilling, and the plans were dropped.[288][289]

    After December 1941, the copy was stored in Fort Knox, Kentucky, for safety, before being put on display again in 1944 and returned to Lincoln Cathedral in early 1946.[287][288][290][291] It was put on display in 1976 in the cathedral's medieval library.[286] It was displayed in San Francisco, and was taken out of display for a time to undergo conservation in preparation for another visit to the United States, where it was exhibited in 2007 at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia and the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.[286][292][293] In 2009 it returned to New York to be displayed at the Fraunces Tavern Museum.[294] It is currently on permanent loan to the David P. J. Ross Vault at Lincoln Castle, along with an original copy of the 1217 Charter of the Forest.[295][296]

    The fourth copy, held by Salisbury Cathedral, was first given in 1215 to its predecessor, Old Sarum Cathedral.[297] Rediscovered by the cathedral in 1812, it has remained in Salisbury throughout its history, except when being taken off-site for restoration work.[298][299] It is possibly the best preserved of the four, although small pin holes can be seen in the parchment from where it was once pinned up.[299][300][301] The handwriting on this version is different from that of the other three, suggesting that it was not written by a royal scribe but rather by a member of the cathedral staff, who then had it exemplified by the royal court.[267][298]

    Later exemplifications

    1225 charter, held in the British Library, with the royal great seal attached

    Other early versions of the charters survive today. Only one exemplification of the 1216 charter survives, held in Durham Cathedral.[302] Four copies of the 1217 charter exist; three of these are held by the Bodleian Library in Oxford and one by Hereford Cathedral.[302][303] Hereford's copy is occasionally displayed alongside the Mappa Mundi in the cathedral's chained library and has survived along with a small document called the Articuli super Cartas that was sent along with the charter, telling the sheriff of the county how to observe the conditions outlined in the document.[304] One of the Bodleian's copies was displayed at San Francisco's California Palace of the Legion of Honor in 2011.[305]

    Four exemplifications of the 1225 charter survive: the British Library holds one, which was preserved at Lacock Abbey until 1945; Durham Cathedral also holds a copy, with the Bodleian Library holding a third.[303][306][307] The fourth copy of the 1225 exemplification was held by the museum of the Public Record Office and is now held by The National Archives.[308][309] The Society of Antiquaries also holds a draft of the 1215 charter (discovered in 2013 in a late-13th-century register from Peterborough Abbey), a copy of the 1225 third re-issue (within an early-14th-century collection of statutes) and a roll copy of the 1225 reissue.[310]

    A 1297 copy of Magna Carta, owned by the Australian Government and on display in the Members' Hall of Parliament House, Canberra

    Only two exemplifications of Magna Carta are held outside England, both from 1297. One of these was purchased in 1952 by the Australian Government for £12,500 from King's School, Bruton, England.[311] This copy is now on display in the Members' Hall of Parliament House, Canberra.[312] The second was originally held by the Brudenell family, earls of Cardigan, before they sold it in 1984 to the Perot Foundation in the United States, which in 2007 sold it to U.S. businessman David Rubenstein for US$21.3 million.[313][314][315] Rubenstein commented "I have always believed that this was an important document to our country, even though it wasn't drafted in our country. I think it was the basis for the Declaration of Independence and the basis for the Constitution". This exemplification is now on permanent loan to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.[316][317] Only two other 1297 exemplifications survive,[318] one of which is held in the UK's National Archives,[319] the other in the Guildhall, London.[318]

    Seven copies of the 1300 exemplification by Edward I survive,[318][320] in Faversham,[321] Oriel College, Oxford, the Bodleian Library, Durham Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, the City of London (held in the archives at the London Guildhall[322]) and Sandwich (held in the Kent County Council archives). The Sandwich copy was rediscovered in early 2015 in a Victorian scrapbook in the town archives of Sandwich, Kent, one of the Cinque Ports.[320] In the case of the Sandwich and Oriel College exemplifications, the copies of the Charter of the Forest originally issued with them also survive.

    Clauses

    A photograph of the "heads" side of a silver King John penny
    A silver King John penny. Much of Magna Carta concerned how royal revenues were raised.

    Most of the 1215 charter and later versions sought to govern the feudal rights of the Crown over the barons.[323] Under the Angevin kings, and in particular during John's reign, the rights of the King had frequently been used inconsistently, often in an attempt to maximise the royal income from the barons. Feudal relief was one way that a king could demand money, and clauses 2 and 3 fixed the fees payable when an heir inherited an estate or when a minor came of age and took possession of his lands.[323]

    Scutage was a form of medieval taxation. All knights and nobles owed military service to the Crown in return for their lands, which theoretically belonged to the King. Many preferred to avoid this service and offer money instead. The Crown often used the cash to pay for mercenaries.[324] The rate of scutage that should be payable, and the circumstances under which it was appropriate for the King to demand it, was uncertain and controversial. Clauses 12 and 14 addressed the management of the process.[323]

    The English judicial system had altered considerably over the previous century, with the royal judges playing a larger role in delivering justice across the country. John had used his royal discretion to extort large sums of money from the barons, effectively taking payment to offer justice in particular cases, and the role of the Crown in delivering justice had become politically sensitive among the barons. Clauses 39 and 40 demanded due process be applied in the royal justice system, while clause 45 required that the King appoint knowledgeable royal officials to the relevant roles.[325]

    Although these clauses did not have any special significance in the original charter, this part of Magna Carta became singled out as particularly important in later centuries.[325] In the United States, for example, the Supreme Court of California interpreted clause 45 in 1974 as establishing a requirement in common law that a defendant faced with the potential of incarceration be entitled to a trial overseen by a legally trained judge.[326]

    King John holding a church, painted c. 1250–1259 by Matthew Paris

    Royal forests were economically important in medieval England and were both protected and exploited by the Crown, supplying the King with hunting grounds, raw materials, and money.[327][328] They were subject to special royal jurisdiction and the resulting forest law was, according to the historian Richard Huscroft, "harsh and arbitrary, a matter purely for the King's will".[327] The size of the forests had expanded under the Angevin kings, an unpopular development.[329]

    The 1215 charter had several clauses relating to the royal forests. Clauses 47 and 48 promised to deforest the lands added to the forests under John and investigate the use of royal rights in this area, but notably did not address the forestation of the previous kings, while clause 53 promised some form of redress for those affected by the recent changes, and clause 44 promised some relief from the operation of the forest courts.[330] Neither Magna Carta nor the subsequent Charter of the Forest proved entirely satisfactory as a way of managing the political tensions arising in the operation of the royal forests.[330]

    Some of the clauses addressed wider economic issues. The concerns of the barons over the treatment of their debts to Jewish moneylenders, who occupied a special position in medieval England and were by tradition under the King's protection, were addressed by clauses 10 and 11.[331] The charter concluded this section with the phrase "debts owing to other than Jews shall be dealt with likewise", so it is debatable to what extent the Jews were being singled out by these clauses.[332] Some issues were relatively specific, such as clause 33 which ordered the removal of all fishing weirs—an important and growing source of revenue at the time—from England's rivers.[330]

    The role of the English Church had been a matter for great debate in the years prior to the 1215 charter. The Norman and Angevin kings had traditionally exercised a great deal of power over the church within their territories. From the 1040s onwards successive popes had emphasised the importance of the church being governed more effectively from Rome, and had established an independent judicial system and hierarchical chain of authority.[333] After the 1140s, these principles had been largely accepted within the English church, even if accompanied by an element of concern about centralising authority in Rome.[334][335]

    These changes brought the customary rights of lay rulers such as John over ecclesiastical appointments into question.[334] As described above, John had come to a compromise with Pope Innocent III in exchange for his political support for the King, and clause 1 of Magna Carta prominently displayed this arrangement, promising the freedoms and liberties of the church.[323] The importance of this clause may also reflect the role of Archbishop Langton in the negotiations: Langton had taken a strong line on this issue during his career.[323]

    Clauses in detail

    Magna Carta clauses in the 1215 and later charters

    Clauses remaining in English law

    Only three clauses of Magna Carta still remain on statute in England and Wales.[245] These clauses concern 1) the freedom of the English Church, 2) the "ancient liberties" of the City of London (clause 13 in the 1215 charter, clause 9 in the 1297 statute), and 3) a right to due legal process (clauses 39 and 40 in the 1215 charter, clause 29 in the 1297 statute).[245] In detail, these clauses (using the numbering system from the 1297 statute) state that:

    • I. FIRST, We have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, for Us and our Heirs for ever, that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable. We have granted also, and given to all the Freemen of our Realm, for Us and our Heirs for ever, these Liberties under-written, to have and to hold to them and their Heirs, of Us and our Heirs for ever.
    • IX. THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, as with all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs.
    • XXIX. NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.[240][339]

    See also

    Notes


  • The document's Latin name is spelled either 'Magna Carta' or 'Magna Charta' (the pronunciation is the same), and may appear in English with or without the definite article "the", though it is more usual for the article to be omitted.[1] Latin does not have a definite article equivalent to "the".
    The spelling 'Charta' originates in the 18th century, as a restoration of classical Latin 'charta' for the Medieval Latin spelling 'carta'.[2] While "Charta" remains an acceptable variant spelling, it never became prevalent in English usage.[3]

  • Within this article, dates before 14 September 1752 are in the Julian calendar. Later dates are in the Gregorian calendar. In the Gregorian calendar, however, the date would have been 22 June 1215.

  • The United States (US) Constitution was written in 1787, went into effect in 1788, after ratification by nine of the 13 states, and the US Federal government started operation in 1789.

  • The Runnymede Charter of Liberties did not apply to Chester, which at the time was a separate feudal domain. Earl Ranulf granted his own Magna Carta of Chester.[42] Some of its articles were similar to the Runnymede Charter.[43]

  • Louis's claim to the English throne, described as "debatable" by the historian David Carpenter, derived from his wife, Blanche of Castile, who was the granddaughter of King Henry II of England. Louis argued that since John had been legitimately deposed, the barons could then legally appoint him king over the claims of John's son Henry.[54]

  • Roger de Montbegon is named in only one of the four early sources (BL, Harley MS 746, fol. 64); whereas the others name Roger de Mowbray. However, Holt believes the Harley listing to be "the best", and the de Mowbray entries to be an error.

  • Among the historians to have discussed the "myth" of Magna Carta and the ancient English constitution are Claire Breay, Geoffrey Hindley, James Holt, John Pocock, Danny Danziger, and John Gillingham.[173][174][175][176][177]

    1. I.e., section 1 of the 31st statute issued in the 9th year of George IV; "nor will We not" in clause 29 is correctly quoted from this source.

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  • Du Cange s.v. 1 carta

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  • Metherell, Mark (4 January 2006). "Rare Magna Carta copy not such a big deal after all". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 November 2014.

  • Barron, James (25 September 2007). "Magna Carta is going on the auction block". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 December 2007.

  • "Magna Carta copy fetches $24m". Sydney Morning Herald. 19 December 2007. Retrieved 19 December 2007.

  • Edgers, Geoff (31 October 2014). "Two Magna Cartas in D.C." The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 November 2014.

  • Vincent 2015, p. 160.

  • Hossack, James (19 December 2007). "Magna Carta Sold at Auction for $21.3 Million". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 14 June 2015.

  • Harris, Carolyn. "Where is Magna Carta Today?". Magna Carta 2015 Canada. Retrieved 13 June 2015.

  • "Magna Carta". National Archives. 1297. Retrieved 13 June 2015.

  • "Magna Carta edition found in Sandwich archive scrapbook". BBC. 8 February 2015. Retrieved 13 June 2015.

  • "Faversham gets ready to celebrate its Magna Carta artefact". Faversham Times. 17 September 2014. Archived from the original on 12 February 2015. Retrieved 13 June 2015.

  • "New City of London Heritage Gallery to open at the Guildhall". Museums and Heritage Advisor. Retrieved 13 June 2015.

  • Breay 2010, p. 28.

  • Poole 1993, pp. 16–17.

  • Breay 2010, p. 29.

  • Gordon v. Justice Court, 12 Cal. 3d 323 (1974).

  • Huscroft 2005, p. 97.

  • Poole 1993, pp. 29–30.

  • Poole 1993, p. 29.

  • Breay 2010, p. 32.

  • Poole 1993, pp. 353, 474.

  • Hillaby 2013, p. 23.

  • Huscroft 2005, p. 190.

  • Huscroft 2005, p. 189.

  • Turner 2009, p. 121.

  • Breay 2010, pp. 49–54.

  • Sharples, Barry. "Magna Carta Liberatum (The Great Charter of Liberties) The First Great Charter of King Edward The First Granted October 12th 1297". Retrieved 13 November 2014.

  • "Magna Carta (1297)". Uk Government. Retrieved 15 November 2014.

  • Madison, P. A. (2 August 2010). "Historical Analysis of the first of the 14th Amendment's First Section". The Federalist Blog. Archived from the original on 18 November 2019. Retrieved 19 January 2013. The words "We will sell to no man" were intended to abolish the fines demanded by King John in order to obtain justice. "Will not deny" referred to the stopping of suits and the denial of writs. "Delay to any man" meant the delays caused either by the counter-fines of defendants, or by the prerogative of the King.

  • "The 1215 Magna Carta: Clause 52". The Magna Carta Project. University of East Anglia. Retrieved 22 July 2021.

    1. Hindley 1990, p. 201.

    Bibliography

    Further reading

    External links

    Wikisource has original text related to this article:
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    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    For other varieties of magic, see Magic (disambiguation).
    "Illusionist" redirects here. For the artistic tradition, see Illusionism (art). For other uses, see The Illusionist (disambiguation).
    Magic
    Hieronymus Bosch 051.jpg
    The Conjurer, 1475–1480, by Hieronymus Bosch or his workshop. Notice how the man in the back row steals another man's purse while applying misdirection by looking at the sky. The artist even misdirects the viewer from the thief by drawing the viewer to the magician.
    Part of a series on
    Performing arts

    Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means.[1][2] It is to be distinguished from paranormal magic which are effects claimed to be created through supernatural means. It is one of the oldest performing arts in the world.

    Modern entertainment magic, as pioneered by 19th-century magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, has become a popular theatrical art form.[3] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, magicians such as Maskelyne and Devant, Howard Thurston, Harry Kellar, and Harry Houdini achieved widespread commercial success during what has become known as "the Golden Age of Magic."[4] During this period, performance magic became a staple of Broadway theatre, vaudeville, and music halls. Magic retained its popularity in the television age, with magicians such as Paul Daniels, David Copperfield, Criss Angel, Doug Henning, Penn & Teller, David Blaine, and Derren Brown modernizing the art form.[5]

    The world's largest-selling publication for magicians, Magic magazine,[6] curated a list of the "100 most influential magicians of the 20th century" to have contributed to the modern development of the art of magic.[7] According to the magician-culled list titled "Those Who Most Affected The Art in America," Houdini holds the first rank. Then, in decreasing order, Dai Vernon, David Copperfield, Harry Blackstone, Doug Henning, Tarbell, Cardini, Mark Wilson, Siegfried and Roy, and finally Thurston at number 10.

    History

    Main article: History of magic

    The term "magic" etymologically derives from the Greek word mageia (μαγεία). In ancient times, Greeks and Persians had been at war for centuries, and the Persian priests, called magosh in Persian, came to be known as magoi in Greek. Ritual acts of Persian priests came to be known as mageia, and then magika—which eventually came to mean any foreign, unorthodox, or illegitimate ritual practice. To the general public, successful acts of illusion could be perceived as if it were similar to a feat of magic supposed to have been able to be performed by the ancient magoi. The performance of tricks of illusion, or magical illusion, and the apparent workings and effects of such acts have often been referred to as "magic" and particularly as magic tricks.

    One of the earliest known books to explain magic secrets, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, was published in 1584. It was created by Reginald Scot to stop people from being killed for witchcraft. During the 17th century, many books were published that described magic tricks. Until the 18th century, magic shows were a common source of entertainment at fairs. The "Father" of modern entertainment magic was Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, who had a magic theatre in Paris in 1845.[8] John Henry Anderson was pioneering the same transition in London in the 1840s. Towards the end of the 19th century, large magic shows permanently staged at big theatre venues became the norm.[9] As a form of entertainment, magic easily moved from theatrical venues to television magic specials.

    Performances that modern observers would recognize as conjuring have been practiced throughout history. For example, a trick with three cups and balls has been performed since 3 BC.[10] and is still performed today on stage and in street magic shows. For many recorded centuries, magicians were associated with the devil and the occult. During the 19th and 20th centuries, many stage magicians even capitalized on this notion in their advertisements.[11] The same level of ingenuity that was used to produce famous ancient deceptions such as the Trojan Horse would also have been used for entertainment, or at least for cheating in money games. They were also used by the practitioners of various religions and cults from ancient times onwards to frighten uneducated people into obedience or turn them into adherents. However, the profession of the illusionist gained strength only in the 18th century, and has enjoyed several popular vogues since.[citation needed]

    Magic tricks

    Main article: List of magic tricks
    "Magic trick" redirects here. For the 1953 film, see Magic Trick (film).

    Opinions vary among magicians on how to categorize a given effect, but a number of categories have been developed. Magicians may pull a rabbit from an empty hat, make something seem to disappear, or transform a red silk handkerchief into a green silk handkerchief. Magicians may also destroy something, like cutting a head off, and then "restore" it, make something appear to move from one place to another, or they may escape from a restraining device. Other illusions include making something appear to defy gravity, making a solid object appear to pass through another object, or appearing to predict the choice of a spectator. Many magic routines use combinations of effects.

    An illustration from Reginald Scot's The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), one of the earliest books on magic tricks, explaining how the "Decollation of John Baptist" decapitation illusion may be performed

    Among the earliest books on the subject is Gantziony's work of 1489, Natural and Unnatural Magic, which describes and explains old-time tricks.[12] In 1584, Englishman Reginald Scot published The Discoverie of Witchcraft, part of which was devoted to debunking the claims that magicians used supernatural methods, and showing how their "magic tricks" were in reality accomplished. Among the tricks discussed were sleight-of-hand manipulations with rope, paper and coins. At the time, fear and belief in witchcraft was widespread and the book tried to demonstrate that these fears were misplaced.[13] Popular belief held that all obtainable copies were burned on the accession of James I in 1603.[14]

    During the 17th century, many similar books were published that described in detail the methods of a number of magic tricks, including The Art of Conjuring (1614) and The Anatomy of Legerdemain: The Art of Juggling (c. 1675).

    Advertisement for Isaac Fawkes' show from 1724 in which he boasts of the success of his performances for the King and Prince George

    Until the 18th century, magic shows were a common source of entertainment at fairs, where itinerant performers would entertain the public with magic tricks, as well as the more traditional spectacles of sword swallowing, juggling and fire breathing. In the early 18th century, as belief in witchcraft was waning, the art became increasingly respectable and shows would be put on for rich private patrons. A notable figure in this transition was the English showman, Isaac Fawkes, who began to promote his act in advertisements from the 1720s—he even claimed to have performed for King George II. One of Fawkes' advertisements described his routine in some detail:

    He takes an empty bag, lays it on the Table and turns it several times inside out, then commands 100 Eggs out of it and several showers of real Gold and silver, then the Bag beginning to swell several sorts of wild fowl run out of it upon the Table. He throws up a Pack of Cards, and causes them to be living birds flying about the room. He causes living Beasts, Birds, and other Creatures to appear upon the Table. He blows the spots of the Cards off and on, and changes them to any pictures.[15]

    From 1756 to 1781, Jacob Philadelphia performed feats of magic, sometimes under the guise of scientific exhibitions, throughout Europe and in Russia.

    Modern stage magic

    Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, pioneer of modern magic entertainment

    The "Father" of modern entertainment magic was Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, originally a clockmaker, who opened a magic theatre in Paris in 1845.[8] He transformed his art from one performed at fairs to a performance that the public paid to see at the theatre. His speciality was constructing mechanical automata that appeared to move and act as if alive. Many of Robert-Houdin's mechanisms for illusion were pirated by his assistant and ended up in the performances of his rivals, John Henry Anderson and Alexander Herrmann.

    John Henry Anderson was pioneering the same transition in London. In 1840 he opened the New Strand Theatre, where he performed as The Great Wizard of the North. His success came from advertising his shows and captivating his audience with expert showmanship. He became one of the earliest magicians to attain a high level of world renown. He opened a second theatre in Glasgow in 1845.

    John Nevil Maskelyne, a famous magician and illusionist of the late 19th century.

    Towards the end of the century, large magic shows permanently staged at big theatre venues became the norm.[9] The British performer J N Maskelyne and his partner Cooke were established at the Egyptian Hall in London's Piccadilly in 1873 by their manager William Morton, and continued there for 31 years. The show incorporated stage illusions and reinvented traditional tricks with exotic (often Oriental) imagery. The potential of the stage was exploited for hidden mechanisms and assistants, and the control it offers over the audience's point of view. Maskelyne and Cooke invented many of the illusions still performed today—one of his best-known being levitation.[16]

    The model for the look of a 'typical' magician—a man with wavy hair, a top hat, a goatee, and a tailcoat—was Alexander Herrmann (1844–1896), also known as Herrmann the Great. Herrmann was a French magician and was part of the Herrmann family name that is the "first-family of magic."

    The escapologist and magician Harry Houdini (1874–1926) took his stage name from Robert-Houdin and developed a range of stage magic tricks, many of them based on what became known after his death as escapology. Houdini was genuinely skilled in techniques such as lockpicking and escaping straitjackets, but also made full use of the range of conjuring techniques, including fake equipment and collusion with individuals in the audience. Houdini's show-business savvy was as great as his performance skill. There is a Houdini Museum dedicated to him in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

    The Magic Circle was formed in London in 1905 to promote and advance the art of stage magic.[17]

    As a form of entertainment, magic easily moved from theatrical venues to television specials, which opened up new opportunities for deceptions, and brought stage magic to huge audiences. Famous magicians of the 20th century included Okito, David Devant, Harry Blackstone Sr., Harry Blackstone Jr., Howard Thurston, Theodore Annemann, Cardini, Joseph Dunninger, Dai Vernon, Fred Culpitt, Tommy Wonder, Siegfried & Roy, and Doug Henning. Popular 20th- and 21st-century magicians include David Copperfield, Lance Burton, James Randi, Penn and Teller, David Blaine, Criss Angel, Hans Klok, Derren Brown and Dynamo. Well-known women magicians include Dell O'Dell and Dorothy Dietrich. Most television magicians perform before a live audience, who provide the remote viewer with a reassurance that the illusions are not obtained with post-production visual effects.

    Many of the principles of stage magic are old. There is an expression, "it's all done with smoke and mirrors," used to explain something baffling, but effects seldom use mirrors today, due to the amount of installation work and transport difficulties. For example, the famous Pepper's Ghost, a stage illusion first used in 19th-century London, required a specially built theatre. Modern performers have vanished objects as large as the Taj Mahal, the Statue of Liberty, and a space shuttle, using other kinds of optical deceptions.

    Types of magic performance

    A magician, from the point of view of the audience, seemingly igniting fire out of nowhere from the palm, which can be deemed either stage or shock magic. It can even promote religion.

    Magic is often described according to various specialties or genres.

    A mentalist on stage in a mind-reading performance, 1900

    Stage illusions

    Stage illusions are performed for large audiences, typically within a theatre or auditorium. This type of magic is distinguished by large-scale props, the use of assistants and often exotic animals such as elephants and tigers. Famous stage illusionists, past and present, include Harry Blackstone, Sr., Howard Thurston, Chung Ling Soo, David Copperfield, Lance Burton, Silvan, Siegfried & Roy, and Harry Blackstone, Jr.

    Parlor magic

    Parlor magic is done for larger audiences than close-up magic (which is for a few people or even one person) and for smaller audiences than stage magic. In parlor magic, the performer is usually standing and on the same level as the audience, which may be seated on chairs or even on the floor. According to the Encyclopedia of Magic and Magicians by T.A. Waters, "The phrase [parlor magic] is often used as a pejorative to imply that an effect under discussion is not suitable for professional performance." Also, many magicians consider the term "parlor" old fashioned and limiting, since this type of magic is often done in rooms much larger than the traditional parlor, or even outdoors. A better term for this branch of magic may be "platform," "club" or "cabaret." Examples of such magicians include Jeff McBride, David Abbott, Channing Pollock, Black Herman, and Fred Kaps.

    Close-up magic

    Close-up magic (or table magic) is performed with the audience close to the magician, sometimes even one-on-one. It usually makes use of everyday items as props, such as cards (see Card manipulation), coins (see Coin magic), and seemingly 'impromptu' effects. This may be called "table magic," particularly when performed as dinner entertainment. Ricky Jay, Mahdi Moudini, and Lee Asher, following in the traditions of Dai Vernon, Slydini, and Max Malini, are considered among the foremost practitioners of close-up magic.

    Escapology

    Escapology is the branch of magic that deals with escapes from confinement or restraints. Harry Houdini is a well-known example of an escape artist or escapologist.

    Pickpocket magic

    Pickpocket magicians use magic to misdirect members of the audience while removing wallets, belts, ties, and other personal effects. It can be presented on a stage, in a cabaret setting, before small close-up groups, or even for one spectator. Well-known pickpockets include James Freedman, David Avadon, Bob Arno, and Apollo Robbins.

    Mentalism

    Mentalism creates the impression in the minds of the audience that the performer possesses special powers to read thoughts, predict events, control other minds, and similar feats. It can be presented on a stage, in a cabaret setting, before small close-up groups, or even for one spectator. Well-known mentalists of the past and present include Alexander, The Zancigs, Axel Hellstrom, Dunninger, Kreskin, Deddy Corbuzier, Derren Brown, Rich Ferguson, Guy Bavli, Banachek, Max Maven, and Alain Nu.

    Séances

    Theatrical séances simulate spiritualistic or mediumistic phenomena for theatrical effect. This genre of stage magic has been misused at times by charlatans pretending to actually be in contact with spirits or supernatural forces. For this reason, some well-known magicians such as James Randi[18][19] (AKA "The Amazing Randi") have made it their goal to debunk such paranormal phenomena and illustrate that any such effects may be achieved by natural or human means. Randi was the "foremost skeptic" in this regard in the United States.[20]

    Children's magic

    Amateur magician performing "children's magic" for a birthday party audience

    Children's magic is performed for an audience primarily composed of children. It is typically performed at birthday parties, preschools, elementary schools, Sunday schools, or libraries. This type of magic is usually comedic in nature and involves audience interaction as well as volunteer assistants.

    Online magic

    Online magic tricks were designed to function on a computer screen. The computer screen affords ways to incorporate magic from the magician's wand to the computer mouse. The use of computing technologies in performance can be traced back to a 1984 presentation by David Copperfield, who used a Commodore 64 to create a "magic show" for his audience. More recently, virtual performers have been experimenting with captivating digital animations and illusions that blur the lines between magic tricks and reality. In some cases, the computer essentially replaces the online magician.

    In a 2008 TED Talk, Penn Jillette discussed how technology will continue to play a role in magic by influencing media and communication. According to Jillette, magicians continue to innovate in not only digital communication but also live performances that utilize digital effects. The 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns ushered onto the world stage a surge of online magic shows. These shows are performed via video conferencing platforms such as Zoom.

    Some online magic tricks recreate traditional card tricks and require user participation, while others, like Plato's Cursed Triangle, are based on mathematical, geometrical, and/or optical illusions. One such online magic trick, called Esmeralda's Crystal Ball,[21] became a viral phenomenon that fooled so many computer users into believing that their computer had supernatural powers, that the fact-checking website Snopes dedicated a page to debunking the trick.[22]

    Mathemagic

    Mathemagic is a genre of stage magic that combines magic and mathematics. It is commonly used by children's magicians and mentalists.

    Corporate magic

    Corporate magic or trade show magic uses magic as a communication and sales tool, as opposed to just straightforward entertainment. Corporate magicians may come from a business background and typically present at meetings, conferences and product launches. They run workshops and can sometimes be found at trade shows, where their patter and illusions enhance an entertaining presentation of the products offered by their corporate sponsors. Pioneer performers in this arena include Eddie Tullock[23] and Guy Bavli.[24][25]

    Gospel magic

    Gospel magic uses magic to catechize and evangelize. Gospel magic was first used by St. John Bosco to interest children in 19th-century Turin, Italy to come back to school, to accept assistance and to attend church. The Jewish equivalent is termed Torah magic.

    Street magic

    Street magic is a form of street performing or busking that employs a hybrid of stage magic, platform, and close-up magic, usually performed 'in the round' or surrounded by the audience. Notable modern street magic performers include Jeff Sheridan and Gazzo. Since the first David Blaine TV special Street Magic aired in 1997, the term "street magic" has also come to describe a style of 'guerilla' performance in which magicians approach and perform for unsuspecting members of the public on the street. Unlike traditional street magic, this style is almost purely designed for TV and gains its impact from the wild reactions of the public. Magicians of this type include David Blaine and Cyril Takayama.

    Bizarre magic

    Bizarre magic is a branch of stage magic that creates eerie effects through its use of narratives and esoteric imagery.[26] The experience may be more akin to small, intimate theater or to a conventional magic show.[27] Bizarre magic often uses horror, supernatural, and science fiction imagery in addition to the standard commercial magic approaches of comedy and wonder.[28]

    Shock magic

    Shock magic is a genre of magic that shocks the audience. Sometimes referred to as "geek magic," it takes its roots from circus sideshows, in which 'freakish' performances were shown to audiences. Common shock magic or geek magic effects include eating razor blades, needle-through-arm, string through neck and pen-through-tongue.

    French comedy magician Éric Antoine

    Comedy magic

    Comedy magic is the use of magic in which is combined with stand-up comedy. Famous comedy magicians include The Amazing Johnathan, Holly Balay, Mac King, and Penn & Teller.

    Quick change magic

    Quick change magic is the use of magic which is combined with the very quick changing of costumes. Famous quick-change artists include Sos & Victoria Petrosyan.

    Camera magic

    Camera magic (or "video magic") is magic that is aimed at viewers watching broadcasts or recordings. It includes tricks based on the restricted viewing angles of cameras and clever editing. Camera magic often features paid extras posing as spectators who may even be assisting in the performance. Camera magic can be done live, such as Derren Brown's lottery prediction. Famous examples of camera magic include David Copperfield's Floating Over the Grand Canyon and many of Criss Angel's illusions.

    Classical magic

    Classical magic is a style of magic that conveys feelings of elegance and skill akin to prominent magicians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

    Mechanical magic

    Ambigram Magic / Dream with a handheld pattern giving a reversed shadow by mirror symmetry. "It's all done with smoke and mirrors," as we say to explain something baffling.

    Mechanical magic is a form of stage magic in which the magician uses a variety of mechanical devices to perform acts that appear to be physically impossible. Examples include such things as a false-bottomed mortar in which the magician places an audience member's watch only to later produce several feet away inside a wooden frame.[29] Mechanical magic requires a certain degree of sleight of hand and carefully functioning mechanisms and devices to be performed convincingly. This form of magic was popular around the turn of the 19th century—today, many of the original mechanisms used for this magic have become antique collector's pieces and may require significant and careful restoration to function.

    Categories of effects

    Magicians describe the type of tricks they perform in various ways. Opinions vary as to how to categorize a given effect, and disagreement as to what categories actually exist. For instance, some magicians consider "penetrations" a separate category, while others consider penetrations a form of restoration or teleportation. Some magicians today, such as Guy Hollingworth[30] and Tom Stone[31] have begun to challenge the notion that all magic effects fit into a limited number of categories. Among magicians who believe in a limited number of categories (such as Dariel Fitzkee, Harlan Tarbell, S.H. Sharpe), there has been disagreement as to how many different types of effects there are. Some of these are listed below.

    • Production: The magician produces something from nothing—a rabbit from an empty hat, a fan of cards from thin air, a shower of coins from an empty bucket, a dove from a pan, or the magician himself or herself, appearing in a puff of smoke on an empty stage—all of these effects are productions.
    • Vanish: The magician makes something disappear—a coin, a cage of doves, milk from a newspaper, an assistant from a cabinet, or even the Statue of Liberty. A vanish, being the reverse of a production, may use a similar technique in reverse.
    • Transformation: The magician transforms something from one state into another—a silk handkerchief changes color, a lady turns into a tiger, an indifferent card changes to the spectator's chosen card.
      0:12
    • Transformation: Change of color
    • Restoration: The magician destroys an object—a rope is cut, a newspaper is torn, a woman is cut in half, a borrowed watch is smashed to pieces—then restores it to its original state.
    • Transposition: A transposition involves two or more objects. The magician will cause these objects to change places, as many times as he pleases, and in some cases, ends with a kicker by transforming the objects into something else.
    • Teleportation: The magician causes something to move from one place to another—a borrowed ring is found inside a ball of wool, a canary inside a light bulb, an assistant from a cabinet to the back of the theatre, or a coin from one hand to the other. When two objects exchange places, it is called a transposition: a simultaneous, double transportation. A transportation can be seen as a combination of a vanish and a production. When performed by a mentalist it might be called teleportation.
    • Escape: The magician (or less often, an assistant) is placed in a restraining device (i.e., handcuffs or a straitjacket) or a death trap, and escapes to safety. Examples include being put in a straitjacket and into an overflowing tank of water, and being tied up and placed in a car being sent through a car crusher.
    • Levitation: The magician defies gravity, either by making something float in the air, or with the aid of another object (suspension)—a silver ball floats around a cloth, an assistant floats in mid-air, another is suspended from a broom, a scarf dances in a sealed bottle, the magician levitates his own body in midair. There are many popular ways to create this illusion, including Asrah levitation, Balducci levitation, invisible thread, and King levitation.[32] The flying illusion has often been performed by David Copperfield. Harry Blackstone floated a light bulb over the heads of the public.
    • Penetration: The magician makes a solid object pass through another—a set of steel rings link and unlink, a candle penetrates an arm, swords pass through an assistant in a basket, a salt shaker penetrates a tabletop, or a man walks through a mirror. Sometimes referred to as "solid-through-solid."
    • Prediction: The magician accurately predicts the choice of a spectator or the outcome of an event—a newspaper headline, the total amount of loose change in the spectator's pocket, a picture drawn on a slate—under seemingly impossible circumstances.

    Many magic routines use combinations of effects. For example, in "cups and balls" a magician may use vanishes, productions, penetrations, teleportation and transformations as part of the one presentation.

    The methodology behind magic is often referred to as a science (often a branch of physics) while the performance aspect is more of an art form.

    Learning magic

    See also: List of magic publications
    A stage magician using a top hat as a prop

    Dedication to magic can teach confidence and creativity, as well as the work ethic associated with regular practice and the responsibility that comes with devotion to an art.[33] The teaching of performance magic was once a secretive practice.[34] Professional magicians were unwilling to share knowledge with anyone outside the profession to prevent the laity from learning their secrets.[35] This often made it difficult for an interested apprentice to learn anything but the basics of magic. Some had strict rules against members discussing magic secrets with anyone but established magicians.

    From the 1584 publication of Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft until the end of the 19th century, only a few books were available for magicians to learn the craft, whereas today mass-market books offer a myriad titles. Videos and DVDs are newer media, but many of the methods found in this format are readily found in previously published books. However, they can serve as a visual demonstration.

    Persons interested in learning to perform magic can join magic clubs. Here magicians, both seasoned and novitiate, can work together and help one another for mutual improvement, to learn new techniques, to discuss all aspects of magic, to perform for each other—sharing advice, encouragement, and criticism. Before a magician can join one of these clubs, they usually have to audition. The purpose is to show to the membership they are a magician and not just someone off the street wanting to discover magic secrets.

    The world's largest magic organization is the International Brotherhood of Magicians; it publishes a monthly journal, The Linking Ring. The oldest organization is the Society of American Magicians, which publishes the monthly magazine M-U-M and of which Houdini was a member and president for several years. In London, England, there is The Magic Circle, which houses the largest magic library in Europe. Also PSYCRETS—The British Society of Mystery Entertainers[36]—caters specifically to mentalists, bizarrists, storytellers, readers, spiritualist performers, and other mystery entertainers. Davenport's Magic[37] in London's The Strand was the world's oldest family-run magic shop.[38] It is now closed. The Magic Castle in Hollywood, California, is home to the Academy of Magical Arts.

    Traditionally, magicians refuse to reveal the methods behind their tricks to the audience. Membership in professional magicians' organizations often requires a commitment never to reveal the secrets of magic to non-magicians. When Justin Flom in 2020 began disclosing how tricks worked in Facebook videos, other magicians publicly and privately criticized and ostracized him.[39]

    Magic performances tend to fall into a few specialties or genres. Stage illusions use large-scale props and even large animals. Platform magic is performed for a medium to large audience. Close-up magic is performed with the audience close to the magician. Escapology involves escapes from confinement or restraints. Pickpocket magicians take audience members' wallets, wristwatches, belts, and ties. Mentalism creates the illusion that the magician can read minds. Comedy magic is the use of magic combined with stand-up comedy, an example being Penn & Teller. Some modern illusionists believe that it is unethical to give a performance that claims to be anything other than a clever and skillful deception. Others argue that they can claim that the effects are due to magic. These apparently irreconcilable differences of opinion have led to some conflicts among performers. Another issue is the use of deceptive practices for personal gain outside the venue of a magic performance. Examples include fraudulent mediums, con men and grifters who use deception for cheating at card games.

    Misuse of the term “magic”

    Some modern illusionists believe that it is unethical to give a performance that claims to be anything other than a clever and skillful deception. Most of these performers therefore eschew the term "magician" (which they view as making a claim to supernatural power) in favor of "illusionist" and similar descriptions; for example, the performer Jamy Ian Swiss makes these points by billing himself as an "honest liar."[40] Alternatively, many performers say that magical acts, as a form of theatre, need no more of a disclaimer than any play or film; this policy was advocated by the magician and mentalist Joseph Dunninger, who stated "For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice."[41]

    These apparently irreconcilable differences of opinion have led to some conflicts among performers. For example, more than thirty years after the illusionist Uri Geller made his first appearances on television in the 1970s to exhibit his self-proclaimed psychic ability to bend spoons, his actions still provoke controversy among some magic performers, because he claimed what he did was not an illusion. On the other hand, because Geller bent—and continues to bend—spoons within a performance context and has lectured at several magic conventions, the Dunninger quote may be said to apply.

    In 2016, self-proclaimed psychic The Amazing Kreskin was barred from sending fraudulent letters to solicit money from the elderly. “This settlement ends these efforts to cheat Iowa’s most vulnerable people,” stated Attorney General Tom Miller. “The letters were shamelessly predatory and manipulative, variously promising riches, protection from ill-health, and even personal friendship to each recipient – all to get the victim to send money.”[42]

    Less fraught with controversy, however, may be the use of deceptive practices by those who employ stage magic techniques for personal gain outside the venue of a magic performance.

    C. Alexander wrote about the trickery in con-men exploiting their sworn spiritual magic to rip off each cilent they swung in The Dr. Q. Book. However, a group of people believe Alexander to be a con-man too.

    Fraudulent mediums have long capitalized on the popular belief in paranormal phenomena to prey on the bereaved for financial gain. From the 1840s to the 1920s, during the greatest popularity of the spiritualism religious movement as well as public interest in séances, a number of fraudulent mediums used stage magic methods to perform illusions such as table-knocking, slate-writing, and telekinetic effects, which they attributed to the actions of ghosts or other spirits. The great escapologist and illusionist Harry Houdini devoted much of his time to exposing such fraudulent operators.[43] Magician James Randi, magic duo Penn & Teller, and the mentalist Derren Brown have also devoted much time to investigating and debunking paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims.[44][45]

    Fraudulent faith healers have also been shown to employ sleight of hand to give the appearance of removing chicken-giblet "tumors" from patients' abdomens.[46]

    Con men and grifters too may use techniques of stage magic for fraudulent goals. Cheating at card games is an obvious example, and not a surprising one: one of the most respected textbooks of card techniques for magicians, The Expert at the Card Table by Erdnase, was primarily written as an instruction manual for card sharps. The card trick known as "Find the Lady" or "Three-card Monte" is an old favourite of street hustlers, who lure the victim into betting on what seems like a simple proposition: to identify, after a seemingly easy-to-track mixing sequence, which one of three face-down cards is the Queen. Another example is the shell game, in which a pea is hidden under one of three walnut shells, then shuffled around the table (or sidewalk) so slowly as to make the pea's position seemingly obvious. Although these are well known as frauds, people still lose money on them; a shell-game ring was broken up in Los Angeles as recently as December 2009.[47]

    Researching magic

    Because of the secretive nature of magic, research can be a challenge.[48] Many magic resources are privately held and most libraries only have small populist collections of magicana. However, organizations exist to band together independent collectors, writers, and researchers of magic history, including the Magic Collectors' Association,[49] which publishes a quarterly magazine and hosts an annual convention; and the Conjuring Arts Research Center,[50] which publishes a monthly newsletter and biannual magazine, and offers its members use of a searchable database of rare books and periodicals.

    Performance magic is particularly notable as a key area of popular culture from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. Many performances and performers can be followed through newspapers[51] of the time.

    Many books have been written about magic tricks; so many are written every year that at least one magic author[52] has suggested that more books are written about magic than any other performing art. Although the bulk of these books are not seen on the shelves of libraries or public bookstores, the serious student can find many titles through specialized stores catering to the needs of magic performers.

    Several notable public research collections on magic are the WG Alma Conjuring Collection[53] at the State Library of Victoria; the R. B. Robbins Collection of Stage Magic and Conjuring[54] at the State Library of NSW; the H. Adrian Smith Collection of Conjuring and Magicana[55] at Brown University; and the Carl W. Jones Magic Collection, 1870s–1948[56] at Princeton University.

    See also

    References


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  • Gibson, Bill (18 March 2016). "David Copperfield Is The Magic Force Behind A Must-Read Congressional Resolution". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 May 2016.

  • "Recognizing magic as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure". H.Res No. 642 of March 2016.

  • Steinmeyer, Jim (2003). Hiding the Elephant. Da Capo Press.

  • Chambers, Colin (2002). Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre. Continuum. p. 471.

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  • 100 Most Influential Magicians of the 20th Century, Magic Magazine. 1999.

  • Jones, Graham M. (2008). "The Family Romance of Modern Magic: Contesting Robert-Houdin's Cultural Legacy in Contemporary France". Performing Magic on the Western Stage. pp. 33–60. doi:10.1057/9780230617124_3. ISBN 978-1349374649.

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  • Houdini, Harry (1908). The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin. p. 19.

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  • Christopher, Milbourne (1991) [1962]. Magic: A Picture History. New York: Courier Dover Publications. p. 16. ISBN 0486263738.

  • Dawes, Edwin (1979). The Great Illusionists. Chartwell Books Inc. p. 161. ISBN 978-0890092408.

  • Jack Delvin. "About The Magic Circle".

  • "James Randi". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2021-01-09.

  • Fox, Margalit (2020-10-22). "James Randi, Magician Who Debunked Paranormal Claims, Dies at 92". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-01-09.

  • "Final goodbye: Recalling influential people who died in 2020". www.wwnytv.com. Associated Press. Retrieved 2021-01-09.

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  • Master of the Mind – Guy Bavoi

  • Jones, Graham (2011). Trade of the Tricks: Inside the Magician's Craft. University of California Press. p. 125. ISBN 978-0520950528.

  • Burger, Eugene (1989). "A Midnight Talk". The New Invocation (49): 558–593.

  • Taylor, Nik; Nolan, Stuart. "Performing Fabulous Monsters: re-inventing the gothic personae in bizarre magick". Monstrous media/spectral subjects : imaging Gothic from the nineteenth century to the present. Botting, Fred,, Spooner, Catherine. Manchester. pp. 128–142. ISBN 978-0719098130. OCLC 921217998.

  • Nevil Monroe Hopkins (1898). Twentieth Century Magic and the Construction of Modern Magical Apparatus. Routledge & Sons Ltd. pp. 29–70.

  • Hollingworth, Guy. "Waiting For Inspiration." Genii Magazine. January 2008 – December 2008.

  • Stone, Tom. "Lodestones." Genii Magazine. February 2009

  • Finch, Jon. "Types of Magic Tricks". Magician Jon Finch. Jon Finch. Retrieved 3 February 2020.

  • Hass, Larry & Burger, Eugene (November 2000). "The Theory and Art of Magic". The Linking Ring. The International Brotherhood of Magicians.

  • "Magic Summer Reading List". www.mattmatthewsmagic.com.

  • "The Magician's Oath: A Conversation with Pat Hammond on Magic, Science, and the Wind | Drachen Foundation". www.drachen.org. Archived from the original on 2016-12-01. Retrieved 2016-12-01.

  • S.J.Drury [web-aviso.com]. "psycrets.org.uk". psycrets.org.uk. Retrieved 2012-03-17.

  • "Davenports Magic. Central London magic shop and school since 1898". www.davenportsmagic.co.uk.

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  • Mears, Ashley (2022-07-28). "Hocus focus: how magicians made a fortune on Facebook". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2022-08-06.

  • Norman, Tony (October 31, 2008). "Deception's his tool (but he's no politician)". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

  • "Memorable-Quotes.com". Memorable-Quotes.com. Archived from the original on 2011-02-07. Retrieved 2011-01-02.

  • "Judgment Bars New York-based Mailing Operation from Iowa; Miller Alleged Company Defrauded Elderly". Iowa Attorney General. Retrieved 1 September 2021.

  • Harry Houdini. A Magician Among the Spirits (New York: Harper and Bros., 1924)

  • Randi, James (February 9, 2007). "More Geller Woo-Woo". SWIFT Newsletter. James Randi Educational Foundation. Archived from the original on July 10, 2009. Retrieved January 29, 2007.

  • One-Million-Dollar Challenge from MIT Media Lab: Affective Computing Group

  • Robert T. Carroll (2009-02-23). "Psychic 'surgery'". The Skeptic's Dictionary. Retrieved 2010-08-19.

  • Andrew Blankenstein. "8 Arrested in Downtown Shell-Game Operation," Los Angeles Times, December 10, 2009.

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  • "Magic Collectors". Magicana. Retrieved 2012-03-17.

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  • "Magicians – Magic & magicians – Research Guides at State Library of Victoria". Guides.slv.vic.gov.au. 2012-02-12. Retrieved 2012-03-17.

  • Bart King, The Pocket Guide to Magic, Gibbs Smith, 2009

  • "Get started – Magic & magicians – Research Guides at State Library of Victoria". Guides.slv.vic.gov.au. 2012-02-12. Retrieved 2012-03-17.

  • "Special collections | State Library of New South Wales". Sl.nsw.gov.au. 2010-02-03. Retrieved 2012-03-17.

  • "John Hay Library: Collections". Brown.edu. Archived from the original on 2011-12-30. Retrieved 2012-03-17.

    1. "Carl W. Jones Magic Collection, 1870s–1948: Finding Aid". Arks.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2012-03-17.

    Further reading

    External links

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Magic (illusion).
    Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Conjuring".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(illusion)

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Magic realism or magical realism is a style of literary fiction and art. It paints a realistic view of the world while also adding magical elements, often blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.[1] Magic realism often refers to literature in particular, with magical or supernatural phenomena presented in an otherwise real-world or mundane setting, commonly found in novels and dramatic performances.[2]: 1–5  Despite including certain magic elements, it is generally considered to be a different genre from fantasy because magical realism uses a substantial amount of realistic detail and employs magical elements to make a point about reality, while fantasy stories are often separated from reality.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] Magical realism is often seen as an amalgamation of real and magical elements that produces a more inclusive writing form than either literary realism or fantasy.[4]

    The term magic realism is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous, and Matthew Strecher (1999) defines it as "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe."[10] The term and its wide definition can often become confused, as many writers are categorized as magical realists. The term was influenced by a German and Italian painting style of the 1920s which were given the same name.[2] In The Art of Fiction, British novelist and critic David Lodge defines magic realism: "when marvellous and impossible events occur in what otherwise purports to be a realistic narrative—is an effect especially associated with contemporary Latin American fiction (for example the work of the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez) but it is also encountered in novels from other continents, such as those of Günter Grass, Salman Rushdie and Milan Kundera. All these writers have lived through great historical convulsions and wrenching personal upheavals, which they feel they cannot be adequately represented in a discourse of undisturbed realism", citing Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting as an exemplar."[11] Michiko Kakutani writes that "The transactions between the extraordinary and the mundane that occur in so much Latin American fiction are not merely a literary technique, but also a mirror of a reality in which the fantastic is frequently part of everyday life."[12] Magical realism often mixes history and fantasy, as in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, in which the children born at midnight on August 15, 1947, the moment of India's independence, are telepathically linked.

    Irene Guenther (1995) tackles the German roots of the term, and how an earlier magic realist art is related to a later magic realist literature;[13] meanwhile, magical realism is often associated with Latin-American literature, including founders of the genre, particularly the authors Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Rulfo, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Elena Garro, Mireya Robles, Rómulo Gallegos and Arturo Uslar Pietri. In English literature, its chief exponents include Neil Gaiman, Salman Rushdie, Alice Hoffman, Nick Joaquin, and Nicola Barker. In Bengali literature, prominent writers of magic realism include Nabarun Bhattacharya, Akhteruzzaman Elias, Shahidul Zahir, Jibanananda Das and Syed Waliullah. In Kannada literature, the writers Shivaram Karanth and Devanur Mahadeva have infused magical realism in their most prominent works. In Japanese literature, one of the most important authors of this genre is Haruki Murakami. In Chinese literature most known writer of the style is Mo Yan, the 2012 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature for his "hallucinatory realism." In Polish literature, magic realism is represented by Olga Tokarczuk, the 2018 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature.

    Etymology and literary origins

    The term first appeared as the German magischer Realismus ('magical realism'). In 1925, German art critic Franz Roh used magischer Realismus to refer to a painterly style known as Neue Sachlichkeit ('New Objectivity'),[14][15] an alternative to expressionism that was championed by German museum director Gustav Hartlaub.[2]: 9–11 [13]: 33  Roh identified magic realism's accurate detail, smooth photographic clarity, and portrayal of the 'magical' nature of the rational world; it reflected the uncanniness of people and our modern technological environment.[2]: 9–10  He also believed that magic realism was related to, but distinct from, surrealism, due to magic realism's focus on material object and the actual existence of things in the world, as opposed to surrealism's more abstract, psychological, and subconscious reality.[2]: 12 

    19th-century Romantic writers such as E. T. A. Hoffmann and Nikolai Gogol, especially in their fairy tales and short stories, have been credited with originating a trend within Romanticism that contained "a European magical realism where the realms of fantasy are continuously encroaching and populating the realms of the real".[16] In the words of Anatoly Lunacharsky:

    Unlike other romantics, Hoffmann was a satirist. He saw the reality surrounding him with unusual keenness, and in this sense he was one of the first and sharpest realists. The smallest details of everyday life, funny features in the people around him with extraordinary honesty were noticed by him. In this sense, his works are a whole mountain of delightfully sketched caricatures of reality. But he was not limited to them. Often he created nightmares similar to Gogol’s Portrait. Gogol is a student of Hoffmann and is extremely dependent on Hoffmann in many works, for example in Portrait and The Nose. In them, just like Hoffmann, he frightens with a nightmare and contrasts it to a positive beginning ... Hoffmann’s dream was free, graceful, attractive, cheerful to infinity. Reading his fairy tales, you understand that Hoffmann is, in essence, a kind, clear person, because he could tell a child such things as The Nutcracker or The Royal Bride – these pearls of human fantasy.[17]

    German magic-realist paintings influenced the Italian writer Massimo Bontempelli, who has been called the first to apply magic realism to writing, aiming to capture the fantastic, mysterious nature of reality. In 1926, he founded the magic realist magazine 900.Novecento, and his writings influenced Belgian magic realist writers Johan Daisne and Hubert Lampo.[2]: 13–14 

    Roh's magic realism also influenced writers in Hispanic America, where it was translated in 1927 as realismo mágico. Venezuelan writer Arturo Uslar-Pietri, who had known Bontempelli, wrote influential magic-realist short stories in the 1930s and 40s that focused on the mystery and reality of how we live.[2]: 14–15  Luis Leal attests that Uslar Pietri seemed to have been the first to adopt the term realismo mágico in Hispanic America in 1948.[18] There is evidence that Mexican writer Elena Garro used the same term to describe the works of E. T. A. Hoffmann, but dismissed her own work as a part of the genre.[19] French-Russian Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, who rejected Roh's magic realism as tiresome pretension, developed his related concept lo real maravilloso ('marvelous realism') in 1949.[2]: 14  Maggie Ann Bowers writes that marvelous-realist literature and art expresses "the seemingly opposed perspectives of a pragmatic, practical and tangible approach to reality and an acceptance of magic and superstition" within an environment of differing cultures.[2]: 2–3 

    Magic realism was later used to describe the uncanny realism by such American painters as Ivan Albright, Peter Blume, Paul Cadmus, Gray Foy, George Tooker, and Viennese-born Henry Koerner, among other artists during the 1940s and 1950s. However, in contrast with its use in literature, magic realist art does not often include overtly fantastic or magical content, but rather, it looks at the mundane through a hyper-realistic and often mysterious lens.[13]

    The term magical realism, as opposed to magic realism, first emerged in the 1955 essay "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction" by critic Angel Flores in reference to writing that combines aspects of magic realism and marvelous realism.[2]: 16  While Flores named Jorge Luis Borges as the first magical realist, he failed to acknowledge either Carpentier or Uslar Pietri for bringing Roh's magic realism to Latin America. Borges is often seen as a predecessor of magical realists, with only Flores considering him a true magical realist.[2]: 16–18  After Flores's essay, there was a resurgence of interest in marvelous realism, which, after the Cuban revolution of 1959, led to the term magical realism being applied to a new type of literature known for matter-of-fact portrayal of magical events.[2]: 18 

    Literary magic realism originated in Latin America. Writers often traveled between their home country and European cultural hubs, such as Paris or Berlin, and were influenced by the art movement of the time.[20][21] Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier and Venezuelan Arturo Uslar-Pietri, for example, were strongly influenced by European artistic movements, such as Surrealism, during their stays in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.[2] One major event that linked painterly and literary magic realisms was the translation and publication of Franz Roh's book into Spanish by Spain's Revista de Occidente in 1927, headed by major literary figure José Ortega y Gasset. "Within a year, Magic Realism was being applied to the prose of European authors in the literary circles of Buenos Aires."[13]: 61  Jorge Luis Borges inspired and encouraged other Latin American writers in the development of magical realism – particularly with his first magical realist publication, Historia universal de la infamia in 1935.[22] Between 1940 and 1950, magical realism in Latin America reached its peak, with prominent writers appearing mainly in Argentina.[22] Alejo Carpentier's novel The Kingdom of This World, published in 1949, is often characterised as an important harbinger of magic realism, which reached its most canonical incarnation in Gabriel García Marquez's novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967).[23] García Marquez cited Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" as a formative influence: "The first line almost knocked me out of bed. It begins: 'As Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.' When I read that line I thought to myself I didn't know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago." He also cited the stories told to him by his grandmother: "She told me things that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness. She did not change her expression at all when telling her stories, and everyone was surprised. In previous attempts to write One Hundred Years of Solitude, I tried to tell the story without believing in it. I discovered that what I had to was believe in them myself and them write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face."[24]

    The theoretical implications of visual art's magic realism greatly influenced European and Latin American literature. Italian Massimo Bontempelli, for instance, claimed that literature could be a means to create a collective consciousness by "opening new mythical and magical perspectives on reality", and used his writings to inspire an Italian nation governed by Fascism.[2] Uslar Pietri was closely associated with Roh's form of magic realism and knew Bontempelli in Paris. Rather than follow Carpentier's developing versions of "the (Latin) American marvelous real", Uslar Pietri's writings emphasize "the mystery of human living amongst the reality of life". He believed magic realism was "a continuation of the vanguardia [or avant-garde] modernist experimental writings of Latin America".[2]

    Characteristics

    The extent to which the characteristics below apply to a given magic realist text varies. Every text is different and employs a smattering of the qualities listed here. However, they accurately portray what one might expect from a magic realist text.

    Fantastical Realism elements

    Magical realism portrays fantastical events in an otherwise realistic tone. It brings fables, folk tales, and myths into contemporary social relevance. Fantasy traits given to characters, such as levitation, telepathy, and telekinesis, help to encompass modern political realities that can be phantasmagorical.[25]

    Real-world setting

    The existence of fantastic elements in the real world provides the basis for magical realism. Writers do not invent new worlds, but rather, they reveal the magical in the existing world, as was done by Gabriel García Márquez, who wrote the seminal work One Hundred Years of Solitude.[26] In the world of magical realism, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world.[27]: 15 

    Authorial reticence

    Authorial reticence is the "deliberate withholding of information and explanations about the disconcerting fictitious world."[28]: 16  The narrator is indifferent, a characteristic enhanced by this absence of explanation of fantastic events; the story proceeds with "logical precision" as if nothing extraordinary had taken place.[22][28]: 30  Magical events are presented as ordinary occurrences; therefore, the reader accepts the marvelous as normal and common.[29]

    Plenitude

    In his essay "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real", Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier defines the baroque by a lack of emptiness, a departure from structure or rules, and an "extraordinary" abundance (plenitude) of disorienting detail. (He cites Mondrian as its opposite.) From this angle, Carpentier views the baroque as a layering of elements, which translates easily into the postcolonial or transcultural Latin-American atmosphere that he emphasizes in The Kingdom of this World.[30] "America, a continent of symbiosis, mutations...mestizaje, engenders the baroque,"[21] made explicit by elaborate Aztec temples and associative Nahuatl poetry. These mixing ethnicities grow together with the American baroque; the space in between is where the "marvelous real" is seen. Marvelous: not meaning beautiful and pleasant, but extraordinary, strange, and excellent. Such a complex system of layering—encompassed in the Latin-American "boom" novel, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude—aims towards "translating the scope of America."[21]: 107 

    Hybridity

    Magical realism plot lines characteristically employ hybrid multiple planes of reality that take place in "inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and Western and indigenous."[31][32]

    Metafiction

    Main article: Metafiction

    This trait centers on the reader's role in literature. With its multiple realities and specific reference to the reader's world, it explores the impact fiction has on reality, reality on fiction, and the reader's role in between; as such, it is well suited for drawing attention to social or political criticism. Furthermore, it is the tool paramount in the execution of a related and major magic-realist phenomenon: textualization. This term defines two conditions—first, where a fictitious reader enters the story within a story while reading it, making them self-conscious of their status as readers—and secondly, where the textual world enters into the reader's (real) world. Good sense would negate this process, but "magic" is the flexible convention that allows it.[33]

    Heightened awareness of mystery

    Something that most critics agree on is this major theme. Magic realist literature tends to read at an intensified level. Taking One Hundred Years of Solitude, the reader must let go of pre-existing ties to conventional exposition, plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc., to strive for a state of heightened awareness of life's connectedness or hidden meanings. Luis Leal articulates this feeling as "to seize the mystery that breathes behind things,"[34] and supports the claim by saying a writer must heighten his senses to the point of "estado limite" ('limit state' or 'extreme') in order to realize all levels of reality, most importantly that of mystery.[35]

    Political critique

    Magic realism contains an "implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite."[36] Especially with regard to Latin America, the style breaks from the inarguable discourse of "privileged centers of literature."[37] This is a mode primarily about and for "ex-centrics:" the geographically, socially, and economically marginalized. Therefore, magic realism's "alternative world" works to correct the reality of established viewpoints (like realism, naturalism, modernism). Magic-realist texts, under this logic, are subversive texts, revolutionary against socially-dominant forces. Alternatively, the socially-dominant may implement magical realism to disassociate themselves from their "power discourse."[37]: 195  Theo D'haen calls this change in perspective "decentering."

    In his review of Gabriel Garcia Márquez' novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Salman Rushdie argues that the formal experiment of magic realism allows political ideas to be expressed in ways that might not be possible through more established literary forms:[38]

    "El realismo mágico", magic realism, at least as practised by Márquez, is a development out of Surrealism that expresses a genuinely "Third World" consciousness. It deals with what Naipaul has called "half-made" societies, in which the impossibly old struggles against the appallingly new, in which public corruptions and private anguishes are somehow more garish and extreme than they ever get in the so-called "North", where centuries of wealth and power have formed thick layers over the surface of what's really going on. In the works of Márquez, as in the world he describes, impossible things happen constantly, and quite plausibly, out in the open under the midday sun.[39]

    Major topics in criticism

    Ambiguities in definition

    Mexican critic Luis Leal summed up the difficulty of defining magical realism by writing, "If you can explain it, then it's not magical realism."[40] He offers his own definition by writing, "Without thinking of the concept of magical realism, each writer gives expression to a reality he observes in the people. To me, magical realism is an attitude on the part of the characters in the novel toward the world," or toward nature.

    Leal and Guenther both quote Arturo Uslar-Pietri, who described "man as a mystery surrounded by realistic facts. A poetic prediction or a poetic denial of reality. What for lack of another name could be called a magical realism."[41]

    Western and native worldviews

    The critical perspective towards magical realism as a conflict between reality and abnormality stems from the Western reader's disassociation with mythology, a root of magical realism more easily understood by non-Western cultures.[20]: 3–4  Western confusion regarding magical realism is due to the "conception of the real" created in a magical realist text: rather than explain reality using natural or physical laws, as in typical Western texts, magical realist texts create a reality "in which the relation between incidents, characters, and setting could not be based upon or justified by their status within the physical world or their normal acceptance by bourgeois mentality."[42]

    Guatemalan author William Spindler's article, "Magic realism: A Typology",[43] suggests that there are three kinds of magic realism, which however are by no means incompatible:[44]

    • European "metaphysical" magic realism, with its sense of estrangement and the uncanny, exemplified by Kafka's fiction;
    • "ontological" magical realism, characterized by "matter-of-factness" in relating "inexplicable" events; and
    • "anthropological" magical realism, where a Native worldview is set side by side with the Western rational worldview.

    Spindler's typology of magic realism has been criticized as:[45]

    [A]n act of categorization which seeks to define Magic Realism as a culturally specific project, by identifying for his readers those (non-modern) societies where myth and magic persist and where Magic Realism might be expected to occur. There are objections to this analysis. Western rationalism models may not actually describe Western modes of thinking and it is possible to conceive of instances where both orders of knowledge are simultaneously possible.

    Lo real maravilloso

    Alejo Carpentier originated the term lo real maravilloso (roughly 'the marvelous real') in the prologue to his novel The Kingdom of this World (1949); however, some debate whether he is truly a magical realist writer, or simply a precursor and source of inspiration. Maggie Bowers claims he is widely acknowledged as the originator of Latin American magical realism (as both a novelist and critic);[2] she describes Carpentier's conception as a kind of heightened reality where elements of the miraculous can appear while seeming natural and unforced. She suggests that by disassociating himself and his writings from Roh's painterly magic realism, Carpentier aimed to show how—by virtue of Latin America's varied history, geography, demography, politics, myths, and beliefs—improbable and marvelous things are made possible.[2] Furthermore, Carpentier's meaning is that Latin America is a land filled with marvels, and that "writing about this land automatically produces a literature of marvelous reality."[27]

    Alejo Carpentier

    "The marvelous" may be easily confused with magical realism, as both modes introduce supernatural events without surprising the implied author. In both, these magical events are expected and accepted as everyday occurrences. However, the marvelous world is a unidimensional world. The implied author believes that anything can happen here, as the entire world is filled with supernatural beings and situations to begin with. Fairy tales are a good example of marvelous literature. The important idea in defining the marvelous is that readers understand that this fictional world is different from the world where they live. The "marvelous" one-dimensional world differs from the bidimensional world of magical realism because, in the latter, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world (arriving at the combination of two layers of reality: bidimensionality).[27]: 15  While some use the terms magical realism and lo real maravilloso interchangeably, the key difference lies in the focus.[27]: 11 

    Critic Luis Leal attests that Carpentier was an originating pillar of the magical realist style by implicitly referring to the latter's critical works, writing that "The existence of the marvelous real is what started magical realist literature, which some critics claim is the truly American literature."[46] It can consequently be drawn that Carpentier's "lo real maravilloso" is especially distinct from magical realism by the fact that the former applies specifically to América (the American content).[32] On that note, Lee A. Daniel categorizes critics of Carpentier into three groups: those that do not consider him a magical realist whatsoever (Ángel Flores), those that call him "a mágicorealista writer with no mention of his 'lo real maravilloso' (Gómez Gil, Jean Franco, Carlos Fuentes)", and those that use the two terms interchangeably (Fernando Alegria, Luis Leal, Emir Rodriguez Monegal).[32]

    Latin American exclusivity

    Ángel Flores states that magical realism is an international commodity but that it has a Hispanic birthplace, writing that "Magical realism is a continuation of the romantic realist tradition of Spanish language literature and its European counterparts."[47] There is disagreement between those who see magical realism as a Latin American invention and those who see it as the global product of a postmodern world.[20] Guenther concludes, "Conjecture aside, it is in Latin America that [magic realism] was primarily seized by literary criticism and was, through translation and literary appropriation, transformed."[13]: 61  Magic realism has been internationalized: dozens of non-Hispanic writers are categorized as such, and many believe that it truly is an international commodity.[20]: 4, 8 

    Postmodernism

    Some have argued that connecting magical realism to postmodernism is a logical next step. To further connect the two concepts, there are descriptive commonalities between the two that Belgian critic Theo D'haen addresses in his essay, "Magical Realism and Postmodernism". While authors such as Günter Grass, Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, Italo Calvino, John Fowles, Angela Carter, John Banville, Michel Tournier, Willem Brakman, and Louis Ferron might be widely considered postmodernist, they can "just as easily be categorized...magic realist."[48] A list has been compiled of characteristics one might typically attribute to postmodernism, but that also could describe literary magic realism: "self-reflexiveness, metafiction, eclecticism, redundancy, multiplicity, discontinuity, intertextuality, parody, the dissolution of character and narrative instance, the erasure of boundaries, and the destabilization of the reader."[49] To further connect the two, magical realism and postmodernism share the themes of post-colonial discourse, in which jumps in time and focus cannot really be explained with scientific but rather with magical reasoning; textualization (of the reader); and metafiction.

    Concerning attitude toward audience, the two have, some argue, a lot in common. Magical realist works do not seek to primarily satisfy a popular audience, but instead, a sophisticated audience that must be attuned to noticing textual "subtleties."[22] While the postmodern writer condemns escapist literature (like fantasy, crime, ghost fiction), he/she is inextricably related to it concerning readership. There are two modes in postmodern literature: one, commercially successful pop fiction, and the other, philosophy, better suited to intellectuals. A singular reading of the first mode will render a distorted or reductive understanding of the text. The fictitious reader—such as Aureliano from 100 Years of Solitude—is the hostage used to express the writer's anxiety on this issue of who is reading the work and to what ends, and of how the writer is forever reliant upon the needs and desires of readers (the market).[33] The magic realist writer with difficulty must reach a balance between saleability and intellectual integrity. Wendy Faris, talking about magic realism as a contemporary phenomenon that leaves modernism for postmodernism, says, "Magic realist fictions do seem more youthful and popular than their modernist predecessors, in that they often (though not always) cater with unidirectional story lines to our basic desire to hear what happens next. Thus they may be more clearly designed for the entertainment of readers."[50]

    Comparison with related genres

    When attempting to define what something is, it is often helpful to define what something is not. Many literary critics attempt to classify novels and literary works in only one genre, such as "romantic" or "naturalist", not always taking into account that many works fall into multiple categories.[22] Much discussion is cited from Maggie Ann Bowers' book Magic(al) Realism, wherein she attempts to delimit the terms magic realism and magical realism by examining the relationships with other genres such as realism, surrealism, fantastic literature, science fiction and its African version, the animist realism.

    Realism

    Realism is an attempt to create a depiction of actual life; a novel does not simply rely on what it presents but how it presents it. In this way, a realist narrative acts as framework by which the reader constructs a world using the raw materials of life. Understanding both realism and magical realism within the realm of a narrative mode is key to understanding both terms. Magical realism "relies upon the presentation of real, imagined or magical elements as if they were real. It relies upon realism, but only so that it can stretch what is acceptable as real to its limits."[2]: 22  Literary theorist Kornelije Kvas wrote that "what is created in magic(al) realism works is a fictional world close to reality, marked by a strong presence of the unusual and the fantastic, in order to point out, among other things, the contradictions and shortcomings of society. The presence of the element of the fantastic does not violate the manifest coherence of a work that is characteristic of traditional realist literature. Fantastic (magical) elements appear as part of everyday reality, function as saviors of the human against the onslaught of conformism, evil and totalitarianism. Moreover, in magical realism works we find objective narration characteristic of traditional, 19th-century realism."[51]

    As a simple point of comparison, Roh's differentiation between expressionism and post-expressionism as described in German Art in the 20th Century, may be applied to magic realism and realism. Realism pertains to the terms "history," "mimetic," "familiarization," "empiricism/logic," "narration," "closure-ridden/reductive naturalism", and "rationalization/cause and effect."[52] On the other hand, magic realism encompasses the terms "myth/legend," "fantastic/supplementation," "defamiliarization," "mysticism/magic," "meta-narration," "open-ended/expansive romanticism," and "imagination/negative capability."[52]

    Surrealism

    Surrealism is often confused with magical realism as they both explore illogical or non-realist aspects of humanity and existence. There is a strong historical connection between Franz Roh's concept of magic realism and surrealism, as well as the resulting influence on Carpentier's marvelous reality; however, important differences remain. Surrealism "is most distanced from magical realism [in that] the aspects that it explores are associated not with material reality but with the imagination and the mind, and in particular it attempts to express the 'inner life' and psychology of humans through art". It seeks to express the sub-conscious, unconscious, the repressed and inexpressible. Magical realism, on the other hand, rarely presents the extraordinary in the form of a dream or a psychological experience. "To do so," Bowers writes, "takes the magic of recognizable material reality and places it into the little understood world of the imagination. The ordinariness of magical realism's magic relies on its accepted and unquestioned position in tangible and material reality."[2]: 22–4 

    Imaginary realism

    "Imaginary realism" is a term first coined by Dutch painter Carel Willink as a pendant of magic realism. Where magic realism uses fantastical and unreal elements, imaginary realism strictly uses realistic elements in an imagined scene. As such, the classic painters with their biblical and mythological scenes, can be qualified as 'imaginary realists'. With the increasing availability of photo editing software, also art photographers like Karl Hammer and others create artistic works in this genre.

    Fabulism

    Fabulism traditionally refers to fables, parables, and myths, and is sometimes used in contemporary contexts for authors whose work falls within or relates to magical realism.

    Though often used to refer to works of magical realism, fabulism incorporates fantasy elements into reality, using myths and fables to critique the exterior world and offer direct allegorical interpretations. Austrian-American child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim suggested that fairy tales have psychological merit. They are used to translate trauma into a context that people can more easily understand and help to process difficult truths. Bettelheim posited that the darkness and morality of traditional fairy tales allowed children to grapple with questions of fear through symbolism. Fabulism helped to work through these complexities and, in the words of Bettelheim, "make physical what is otherwise ephemeral or ineffable in an attempt...of understanding those things that we struggle the most to talk about: loss, love, transition."[53]

    Author Amber Sparks described fabulism as blending fantastical elements into a realistic setting. Crucial to the genre, said Sparks, is that the elements are often borrowed from specific myths, fairy tales, and folktales. Unlike magical realism, it does not just use general magical elements, but directly incorporates details from well known stories. "Our lives are bizarre, meandering, and fantastic," said Hannah Gilham of the Washington Square Review regarding fabulism. "Shouldn't our fiction reflect that?"[54]

    While magical realism is traditionally used to refer to works that are Latin American in origin, fabulism is not tied to any specific culture. Rather than focusing on political realities, fabulism tends to focus on the entirety of the human experience through the mechanization of fairy tales and myths.[55] This can be seen in the works of C.S. Lewis, who was once referred to as the greatest fabulist of the 20th century. His 1956 novel Till We Have Faces has been referenced as a fabulist retelling. This re-imagining of the story of Cupid and Psyche uses an age-old myth to impart moralistic knowledge on the reader. A Washington Post review of a Lewis biography discusses how his work creates "a fiction" in order to deliver a lesson. Says the Post of Lewis, "The fabulist...illuminates the nature of things through a tale both he and his auditors, or readers, know to be an ingenious analogical invention."[56]

    Italo Calvino is an example of a writer in the genre who uses the term fabulist. Calvino is best known for his book trilogy, Our Ancestors, a collection of moral tales told through surrealist fantasy. Like many fabulist collections, his work is often classified as allegories for children. Calvino wanted fiction, like folk tales, to act as a teaching device. "Time and again, Calvino insisted on the 'educational potential' of the fable and its function as a moral exemplum," wrote journalist Ian Thomson about the Italian Fabulist.[57]

    While reviewing the work of Romanian-born American theater director Andrei Şerban, New York Times critic Mel Gussow coined the term "The New Fabulism." Şerban is famous for his reinventions in the art of staging and directing, known for directing works like "The Stag King" and "The Serpent Woman," both fables adapted into plays by Carl Gozzi. Gussow defined "The New Fabulism" as "taking ancient myths and turn(ing) them into morality tales."[58] In Ed Menta's book, The Magic Behind the Curtain, he explores Şerban's work and influence within the context of American theatre. He wrote that the Fabulist style allowed Şerban to neatly combine technical form and his own imagination. Through directing fabulist works, Şerban can inspire an audience with innate goodness and romanticism through the magic of theatre. "The New Fabulism has allowed Şerban to pursue his own ideals of achieving on sage the naivete of a children's theater," wrote Menta. "It is in this simplicity, this innocence, this magic that Şerban finds any hope for contemporary theatre at all."[58]

    Fantasy

    Prominent English-language fantasy writers have said that "magic realism" is only another name for fantasy fiction. Gene Wolfe said, "magic realism is fantasy written by people who speak Spanish,"[59] and Terry Pratchett said magic realism "is like a polite way of saying you write fantasy."[60]

    However, Amaryll Beatrice Chanady distinguishes magical realist literature from fantasy literature ("the fantastic") based on differences between three shared dimensions: the use of antinomy (the simultaneous presence of two conflicting codes), the inclusion of events that cannot be integrated into a logical framework, and the use of authorial reticence. In fantasy, the presence of the supernatural code is perceived as problematic, something that draws special attention—where in magical realism, the presence of the supernatural is accepted. In fantasy, while authorial reticence creates a disturbing effect on the reader, it works to integrate the supernatural into the natural framework in magical realism. This integration is made possible in magical realism as the author presents the supernatural as being equally valid to the natural. There is no hierarchy between the two codes.[61] The ghost of Melquíades in Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude or the baby ghost in Toni Morrison's Beloved who visit or haunt the inhabitants of their previous residence are both presented by the narrator as ordinary occurrences; the reader, therefore, accepts the marvelous as normal and common.[2]: 25–7 

    To Clark Zlotchew, the differentiating factor between the fantastic and magical realism is that in fantastic literature, such as Kafka's The Metamorphosis, there is a hesitation experienced by the protagonist, implied author or reader in deciding whether to attribute natural or supernatural causes to an unsettling event, or between rational or irrational explanations.[27]: 14  Fantastic literature has also been defined as a piece of narrative in which there is a constant faltering between belief and non-belief in the supernatural or extraordinary event.

    In Leal's view, writers of fantasy literature, such as Borges, can create "new worlds, perhaps new planets. By contrast, writers like García Márquez, who use magical realism, don't create new worlds, but suggest the magical in our world."[26] In magical realism, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world. This twofold world of magical realism differs from the onefold world that can be found in fairy-tale and fantasy literature.[27]: 15  By contrast, in the series "Sorcerous Stabber Orphen" the laws of natural world become a basis for a naturalistic concept of magic.[62]

    Animist realism

    Animist realism is a term for conceptualizing the African literature that has been written based on the strong presence of the imaginary ancestor, the traditional religion and especially the animism of African cultures.[63] The term was used by Pepetela (1989)[64] and Harry Garuba (2003)[65] to be a new conception of magic realism in African literature.

    Science fiction

    While science fiction and magical realism both bend the notion of what is real, toy with human imagination, and are forms of (often fantastical) fiction, they differ greatly. Bower's cites Aldous Huxley's Brave New World as a novel that exemplifies the science fiction novel's requirement of a "rational, physical explanation for any unusual occurrences." Huxley portrays a world where the population is highly controlled with mood enhancing drugs, which are controlled by the government. In this world, there is no link between copulation and reproduction. Humans are produced in giant test tubes, where chemical alterations during gestation determine their fates. Bowers argues that, "The science fiction narrative's distinct difference from magical realism is that it is set in a world different from any known reality and its realism resides in the fact that we can recognize it as a possibility for our future. Unlike magical realism, it does not have a realistic setting that is recognizable in relation to any past or present reality."[2]: 29–30 

    Major authors and works

    See also: Category:Magic realism novels

    Although critics and writers debate which authors or works fall within the magical realism genre, the following authors represent the narrative mode. Within the Latin American world, the most iconic of magical realist writers are Jorge Luis Borges,[66] Isabel Allende,[67] and Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, whose novel One Hundred Years of Solitude was an instant worldwide success.

    Plaque of Gabriel García Márquez, Paris

    García Márquez confessed: "My most important problem was destroying the line of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic."[68] Allende was the first Latin American woman writer recognized outside the continent. Her best-known novel, The House of the Spirits, is arguably similar to García Márquez's style of magical realist writing.[2]: 43  Another notable novelist is Laura Esquivel, whose Like Water for Chocolate tells the story of the domestic life of women living on the margins of their families and society. The novel's protagonist, Tita, is kept from happiness and marriage by her mother. "Her unrequited love and ostracism from the family lead her to harness her extraordinary powers of imbuing her emotions to the food she makes. In turn, people who eat her food enact her emotions for her. For example, after eating a wedding cake Tita made while suffering from a forbidden love, the guests all suffer from a wave of longing. The Mexican Juan Rulfo pioneered the exposition through a non-linear structure with his short novel Pedro Páramo that tells the story of Comala both as a lively town in times of the eponymous Pedro Páramo and as a ghost town through the eyes of his son Juan Preciado who returns to Comala to fulfil a promise to his dead mother.

    In the Portuguese-speaking world, Jorge Amado and Nobel prize-winning novelist José Saramago are some of the most famous authors of magic realism. Less well-known figures may include Murilo Rubião, playwright Dias Gomes (Saramandaia), and José J. Veiga. Incidente em Antares, novel by Erico Verrissimo is also included, even though the author is not. Amado remains the best known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages. He is the most adapted Brazilian author in cinema, theater, and television, notably Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands in 1976 and the American remake Kiss Me Goodbye in 1982. Angolan author Ondjaki's novel Transparent City is an example of magical realism in African literature. Transparent City won the José Saramago Prize in 2013.

    In the English-speaking world, major authors include: British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie, whose Midnight's Children mixes history and fantasy; African American novelists Toni Morrison (although she has contested this descriptor of her work[69]) and Gloria Naylor; Latino writers such as Ana Castillo, Rudolfo Anaya, Daniel Olivas, Rudy Ruiz, Miguel Ángel Asturias, and Helena Maria Viramontes; Native American authors Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie; English author Louis de Bernières and English feminist writer Angela Carter. Perhaps the best known is Rushdie, whose "language form of magical realism straddles both the surrealist tradition of magic realism as it developed in Europe and the mythic tradition of magical realism as it developed in Latin America".[2] Morrison's most notable work, Beloved, tells the story of a mother who, haunted by the ghost of her child, learns to cope with memories of her traumatic childhood as an abused slave and the burden of nurturing children into a harsh and brutal society.[2] The Welsh author Glyn Jones's novel The Island of Apples (1965) is often overlooked, perhaps because it appeared before the term magic realism was commonly known in English, perhaps because too much was made of the supposed influence of Jones's friend Dylan Thomas on his work, but this phantasmagorical blend of reality and myth with a twelve year old narrator set in a dreamlike-version of the early 20th century clearly merits inclusion in the genre. Jonathan Safran Foer uses magical realism in exploring the history of the stetl and Holocaust in Everything Is Illuminated. The South African-Italian author Patricia Schonstein uses magic realism in examining the Holocaust, the Rhodesian War and apartheid in A Time of Angels and A Quilt of Dreams.

    Dino Buzzati's novels and short stories are often cited as examples of magic realism in Italian literature.

    In Norway, the writers Erik Fosnes Hansen, Jan Kjærstad and the young novelist Rune Salvesen have marked themselves as premier writers of magical realism, something that has been seen as very un-Norwegian.

    Dimitris Lyacos's Poena Damni trilogy, originally written in Greek, is also seen as displaying characteristics of magic realism in its simultaneous fusion of real and unreal situations in the same narrative context.

    In Kannada literature, Shivaram Karanth's Jnanpith award winning novel, Mookajjiya Kanasugalu and Devanur Mahadeva's Kendra Sahitya Akademi award winning novel, Kusuma Baale, are two prominent works that dabbled in magical realism. Both the works are widely read and have been adapted into a movie and a limited TV series, respectively. Mookajjiya Kanasugalu is a novel that traces the evolution of 'Gods' in a grounded setting via Mookajji's (the main character) preternatural ability to touch and see everything an inanimate object has witnessed in its entire existence. The novel Kusuma Baale blends magical realism and surrealism while telling the story of lives of people from the oppressed castes in rural parts of Karnataka.

    Visual art

    Historical development

    Giorgio de Chirico
    Love Song, 1914
    Museum of Modern Art

    The painterly style began evolving as early as the first decade of the 20th century,[70] but 1925 was when Magischer Realismus and Neue Sachlichkeit were officially recognized as major trends. This was the year that Franz Roh published his book on the subject, Nach-Expressionismus, Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten europäischen Malerei ('Post-Expressionism, Magical Realism: Problems of the Newest European Painting') and Gustav Hartlaub curated the seminal exhibition on the theme, entitled simply Neue Sachlichkeit (translated as New Objectivity), at the Kunsthalle Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany.[13]: 41  Guenther refers most frequently to the New Objectivity, rather than magical realism, which is attributed to that New objectivity is practical based, referential (to real practicing artists), while the magical realism is theoretical or critic's rhetoric. Eventually under Massimo Bontempelli guidance, the term magic realism was fully embraced by the German as well as in Italian practicing communities.[13]: 60 

    New Objectivity saw an utter rejection of the preceding impressionist and expressionist movements, and Hartlaub curated his exhibition under the guideline: only those, "who have remained true or have returned to a positive, palpable reality,"[71] in order to reveal the truth of the times,"[72]: 41  would be included. The style was roughly divided into two subcategories: conservative, (neo-)classicist painting, and generally left-wing, politically motivated Verists.[72]: 41  The following quote by Hartlaub distinguishes the two, though mostly with reference to Germany; however, one might apply the logic to all relevant European countries.[72]: 41 

    In the new art, he saw a right, a left wing. One, conservative towards Classicism, taking roots in timelessness, wanting to sanctify again the healthy, physically plastic in pure drawing after nature...after so much eccentricity and chaos [a reference to the repercussions of World War I].... The other, the left, glaringly contemporary, far less artistically faithful, rather born of the negation of art, seeking to expose the chaos, the true face of our time, with an addiction to primitive fact-finding and nervous baring of the self... There is nothing left but to affirm it [the new art], especially since it seems strong enough to raise new artistic willpower.[73]

    Both sides were seen all over Europe during the 1920s and 1930s, ranging from the Netherlands to Austria, France to Russia, with Germany and Italy as centers of growth.[72]: 41–5  Indeed, Italian Giorgio de Chirico, producing works in the late 1910s under the style arte metafisica (translated as Metaphysical art), is seen as a precursor and as having an "influence...greater than any other painter on the artists of New Objectivity."[72]: 38 [74]

    Further afield, American painters were later (in the 1940s and 1950s, mostly) coined magical realists; a link between these artists and the Neue Sachlichkeit of the 1920s was explicitly made in the New York Museum of Modern Art exhibition, tellingly titled "American Realists and Magic Realists."[75] French magical realist Pierre Roy, who worked and showed successfully in the US, is cited as having "helped spread Franz Roh's formulations" to the United States.[72]: 45 

    Excluding the overtly fantastic

    When art critic Franz Roh applied the term magic realism to visual art in 1925, he was designating a style of visual art that brings extreme realism to the depiction of mundane subject matter, revealing an "interior" mystery, rather than imposing external, overtly magical features onto this everyday reality. Roh explains:[76]

    We are offered a new style that is thoroughly of this world that celebrates the mundane. This new world of objects is still alien to the current idea of Realism. It employs various techniques that endow all things with a deeper meaning and reveal mysteries that always threaten the secure tranquility of simple and ingenuous things.... it is a question of representing before our eyes, in an intuitive way, the fact, the interior figure, of the exterior world.

    In painting, magical realism is a term often interchanged with post-expressionism, as Ríos also shows, for the very title of Roh's 1925 essay was "Post-Expressionism, Magical Realism".[76] Indeed, as Dr. Lois Parkinson Zamora of the University of Houston writes, "Roh, in his 1925 essay, described a group of painters whom we now categorize generally as Post-Expressionists."[77]

    Alexander Kanoldt, Still Life II 1922

    Roh used this term to describe painting that signaled a return to realism after expressionism's extravagances, which sought to redesign objects to reveal the spirits of those objects. Magical realism, according to Roh, instead faithfully portrays the exterior of an object, and in doing so the spirit, or magic, of the object reveals itself. One could relate this exterior magic all the way back to the 15th century. Flemish painter Van Eyck (1395–1441) highlights the complexity of a natural landscape by creating illusions of continuous and unseen areas that recede into the background, leaving it to the viewer's imagination to fill in those gaps in the image: for instance, in a rolling landscape with river and hills. The magic is contained in the viewer's interpretation of those mysterious unseen or hidden parts of the image.[78] Other important aspects of magical realist painting, according to Roh, include:

    • A return to ordinary subjects as opposed to fantastical ones.
    • A juxtaposition of forward movement with a sense of distance, as opposed to Expressionism's tendency to foreshorten the subject.
    • A use of miniature details even in expansive paintings, such as large landscapes.

    The pictorial ideals of Roh's original magic realism attracted new generations of artists through the latter years of the 20th century and beyond. In a 1991 New York Times review, critic Vivien Raynor remarked that "John Stuart Ingle proves that Magic Realism lives" in his "virtuoso" still life watercolors.[79] Ingle's approach, as described in his own words, reflects the early inspiration of the magic realism movement as described by Roh; that is, the aim is not to add magical elements to a realistic painting, but to pursue a radically faithful rendering of reality; the "magic" effect on the viewer comes from the intensity of that effort: "I don't want to make arbitrary changes in what I see to paint the picture, I want to paint what is given. The whole idea is to take something that's given and explore that reality as intensely as I can."[80][81]

    Later development: incorporating the fantastic

    Paul Cadmus, The Fleet's In! 1934

    While Ingle represents a "magic realism" that harks back to Roh's ideas, the term "magic realism" in mid-20th century visual art tends to refer to work that incorporates overtly fantastic elements, somewhat in the manner of its literary counterpart.

    Occupying an intermediate place in this line of development, the work of several European and American painters whose most important work dates from the 1930s through to the 1950s, including Bettina Shaw-Lawrence, Paul Cadmus, Ivan Albright, Philip Evergood, George Tooker, Ricco, even Andrew Wyeth, such as in his well-known work Christina's World,[82] is designated as "magic realist". This work departs sharply from Roh's definition, in that it (according to artcyclopedia.com) "is anchored in everyday reality, but has overtones of fantasy or wonder".[83] In the work of Cadmus, for example, the surreal atmosphere is sometimes achieved via stylized distortions or exaggerations that are not realistic.

    Recent "magic realism" has gone beyond mere "overtones" of the fantastic or surreal to depict a frankly magical reality, with an increasingly tenuous anchoring in "everyday reality". Artists associated with this kind of magic realism include Marcela Donoso[84][85][verification needed][86][87][88] and Gregory Gillespie.[89][90][91]

    Artists such as Peter Doig, Richard T. Scott and Will Teather have become associated with the term in the early 21st century.

    Painters

    Film and television

    See also the categories Magic realism films and Magic realism television series

    Magical realism is not a clearly defined film genre, but characteristics of magic realism present in literature can also be found in many moving pictures with fantasy elements. These characteristics may be presented matter-of-factly and occur without explanation.[92]

    Many films have magical realist narrative and events that contrast between real and magical elements, or different modes of production. This device explores the reality of what exists.[2]: 109–11  Fredric Jameson, in On Magic Realism in Film, advances a hypothesis that magical realism in film is a formal mode that is constitutionally dependent on a type of historical raw material in which disjunction is structurally present.[93][94] Like Water for Chocolate (1992) begins and ends with the first person narrative to establish the magical realism storytelling frame. Telling a story from a child's point of view, the historical gaps and holes perspective, and with cinematic color heightening the presence, are magical realist tools in films.[95]

    A number of films by Woody Allen including Midnight in Paris (2011) feature magical realist elements.[96] Most of the films directed by Terry Gilliam are strongly influenced by magic realism;[97] the animated films of Satoshi Kon and Hayao Miyazaki often utilize magic realism;[98] and some of the films of Emir Kusturica contain elements of magical realism, the most famous of which is Time of the Gypsies (1988).[99]

    Some other films and television shows that convey elements of magic realism include:

    Video games and new media

    In his essay "Half-Real", MIT professor and ludologist Jesper Juul argues that the intrinsic nature of video games is magic realist.[100] Early video games such as the 1986 text adventure Trinity combined elements of science fiction, fantasy and magic realism.[101] Point-and-click adventure games such as Kentucky Route Zero (2013) and Memoranda (2017) have also embraced the genre.[102][103] The Metal Gear franchise has also frequently been cited as a notable example of magic realism, because of its combination of realistic military fiction with supernatural elements.[104][105][106][107]

    In electronic literature, early author Michael Joyce's Afternoon, a story deploys the ambiguity and dubious narrator characteristic of high modernism, along with some suspense and romance elements, in a story whose meaning could change dramatically depending on the path taken through its lexias on each reading.[108]

    See also

    With reference to literature

    With reference to visual art

    With reference to both

    • Art film – Film genre
    • Escapism – Mental diversion from unpleasant or boring aspects of life
    • Dream art – Art based on dreams or meant to resemble dreams
    • Imagination – Creative ability
    • Metarealism – Direction in Russian poetry and art
    • Postmodernism – Philosophical and artistic movement
    • Romantic realism – Charles dickens
    • Surrealism – International cultural movement active from the 1920s to the 1950s
    • Utopia – Community or society possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities

    References


  • "What Is Magical Realism? Definition and Examples of Magical Realism in Literature, Plus 7 Magical Realism Novels You Should Read". MasterClass.

  • Bowers, Maggie Ann (2004). Magic(al) Realism. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-26854-7.

  • Cornés, Eladio (1992). Dictionary of Mexican Literature. Greenwood: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. https://books.google.es/books?id=j-K-13qmBSoC&pg=PA397&dq=magic+realism+is+not+fantasy&hl=es&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiC-eWbmeLqAhW06uAKHfwpAwsQ6AEwAXoECAIQAg#v=onepage&q=magic%20realism%20is%20not%20fantasy&f=false 397. Magical realism is not pure fantasy because it contains a substantial amount of realistic detail (...)

  • Wexler, Joyce (2002). "What Is a Nation? Magic Realism and National Identity in Midnight's Children and Clear Light of Day". The Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 37 (2): 137–155. doi:10.1177/002198940203700209. S2CID 161325155. The oxymoron "magic realism" (...) It is a more inclusive form than realism or fantasy.

  • Hegerfeldt, Anne C. (2005). Lies that Tell the Truth: Magic Realism Seen Through Contemporary Fiction from Britain. New York: Rodopi. p. https://books.google.es/books?id=FdrXgdj5TZAC&pg=PA6&dq=shorthand+definition+of+magic+realism+as+an+%E2%80%9Camalgamation+of+realism+and+fantasy%E2%80%9D&hl=es&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiZ3baYo-LqAhWnBWMBHeOPDgcQ6AEwAHoECAUQAg#v=onepage&q=shorthand%20definition%20of%20magic%20realism%20as%20an%20%E2%80%9Camalgamation%20of%20realism%20and%20fantasy%E2%80%9D&f=false 6. (...) clearly insufficient shorthand definition of magic realism as an "amalgamation of realism and fantasy"

  • Shultz, Christopher. "How Is Magical Realism Different From Fantasy?". Litbreaker. Retrieved 21 July 2020.

  • Davidson, Lale (16 May 2018). "The Difference Between Magic Realism and Fantasy". Luna Station Quarterly. Retrieved 21 July 2020.

  • Allmann, Emma (8 February 2018). "What is magical realism?". bookriot.com. Retrieved 21 July 2020.

  • Evans, Jon (23 October 2008). "Magic realism: Not fantasy. Sorry". tor.com. Retrieved 21 July 2020.

  • Strecher, Matthew C. 1999. "Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki." Journal of Japanese Studies 25(2):263–98. p. 267.

  • Lodge, David. The Art of Fiction. 1992.

  • Kakutani, Michiko (February 24, 1989). "Critic's Notebook: Telling Truth Through Fantasy: Rushdie's Magic Realism". The New York Times.

  • Guenther, Irene (1995). "Magic Realism, New Objectivity, and the Arts during the Weimar Republic". In Lois Parkinson Zamora; Wendy B. Faris (eds.). Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Duke University Press. pp. 33–73. ISBN 0-8223-1640-4.

  • Slemon, Stephen. 1988. "Magic realism as post-colonial discourse." Canadian Literature 116:9–24. doi:10.14288/cl.v0i116. Archived from the original on 2018-04-25. p. 9.

  • Roh, Franz. 1925. Nach-Expressionismus. Magischer Realismus. Probleme der neuesten europäischen Malerei. Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann.

  • Owen, Christopher (2020). "Transgression of Fantastika". Introduction to the Special Issue: The Two-Hundred-Year Legacy of E. T. A. Hoffmann. London: Anglia Ruskin University.

  • Lunacharsky, Anatoly (1924). "Die Romantische Literatur". Geschichte der westeuropaeischen Literatur in ihren wichtigsten Momenten. Translated by Leschnitzer, Franz. Moscow: Gosizdat.

  • Leal, Luis. "Magical Realism in Spanish America." In MR: Theory, History, Community. p. 120.

  • Lopátegui, Patricia Rosas. 2006. El asesinato de Elena Garro. México: Porrúa.

  • Faris, Wendy B., and Lois Parkinson Zamora. "Introduction." In Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community.

  • Carpentier, Alejo. 1975. "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real." In Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community.

  • Flores, Angel (May 1955). "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction". Hispania. 38 (2): 187–192. doi:10.2307/335812. JSTOR 335812.

  • Stephen M. Hart,Wen-chin Ouyang, A Companion to Magical Realism Boydell & Brewer 2005, p. 3

  • Stone, Peter (1981). "Gabriel García Márquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69". The Paris Review.

  • The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. 2008.

  • García, Leal, p. 89.

  • Zlotchew, Clark. 2007. Varieties of Magical Realism. New Jersey: Academic Press ENE.

  • Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice. 1985. Magical Realism and the Fantastic: Resolved versus Unresolved Antinomy. New York: Garland Publishing Inc.

  • Bowers, Maggie A. 2004. Magic(al) Realism. New York: Routledge. Print. pp. 25–27.

  • Carpentier, Alejo, El Reino de este Mundo

  • "Post Colonial Studies at Emory". 1998. Archived from the original on June 20, 2009. Retrieved June 18, 2009.

  • Daniel, Lee A. (1982). "Realismo Mágico: True Realism with a Pinch of Magic". The South Central Bulletin. 42 (4): 129–130. doi:10.2307/3188273. JSTOR 3188273.

  • Thiem, Jon. "The Textualization of the Reader in Magical Realist Fiction." In Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community.

  • Leal, Luis. "Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature." In MR: Theory, History, Community

  • Carpentier, Alej. "On the Marvelous Real in America." Intro in The Kingdom of this World.

  • "Twentieth-Century Spanish American Literature". University of Texas Press. 194. Archived from the original on February 27, 2009. Retrieved June 18, 2009.

  • D'haen, Theo. "Magical realism and postmodernism: decentering privileged centers." In Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community.

  • Juul, Jesper (13 August 2014). "Are Game Experiments Apolitical? Avant-garde and Magic Realism". The Ludologist. Archived from the original on 25 April 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2017.

  • Rushdie, Salman (1991). Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. London: Granta Books. ISBN 978-0-670-83952-0.

  • García, Leal, p. 127–28

  • Pietri, Arturo Uslar. 1949. Letras y hombres de Venezuela. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica. pp. 161–61.

  • Angel Flores, qtd. in Simpkins, Scott (1988), "Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism", Twentieth Century Literature, 34 (2): 140–154, doi:10.2307/441074, JSTOR 441074. p. 142.

  • Spindler, William. 1993. "Magic realism: A Typology." Forum for Modern Language Studies 39(1).

  • "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2012-01-19. Retrieved 2010-11-11.

  • Connell, Liam. 1998. "Discarding Magic Realism: Modernism, Anthropology, and Critical Practice." ARIEL 29(2):95–110.

  • Leal, Luis, "Magical Realism in Spanish America" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 122

  • Flores, Angel, "Magical Realism in Spanish America" from MR: Theory, History, Community

  • D'haen, Theo L., "Magical realism and postmodernism" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 193

  • D'haen, Theo L., "Magical realism and postmodernism" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 192-3 [D'haen references many texts that attest to these qualities]

  • Faris, Wendy. "Scheherezade's Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction." In MR: Theory, History, Community. p. 163

  • Kvas, Kornelije (2019). The Boundaries of Realism in World Literature. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: Lexington Books. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-7936-0910-6.

  • Simpkins, Scott (1988). "Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism". Twentieth Century Literature. 34 (2): 140–154. doi:10.2307/441074. JSTOR 441074.

  • Haggard, Kit. "How a queer fabulism came to dominate contemporary women's writing". theoutline.com. Retrieved 24 November 2018.

  • Gilham, Hannah. "Discovering the Fabulists: The Value of the Bizarre in Literature". Washington Square Review. Retrieved 25 November 2018.

  • Capettini, Emily (2014). A Second Ribcage: Fiction and an Article on New Wave Fabulism, Trauma, and the Environment (Doctoral dissertation). University of Louisiana at Lafayette. ProQuest 1548306771 – via ProQuest.

  • Kirk, Russell. "The Faith of a Fabulist". The Washington Post. Retrieved 25 November 2018.

  • Thomson, Ian (19 September 2015). "Italo Calvino: a celebration of the fairy king". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2022-01-11. Retrieved 8 December 2018.

  • Menta, Ed (1995). Magic World Behind the Curtain. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. pp. 89–105.

  • Wolfe, Gene; Baber, Brendan (2007). "Gene Wolfe Interview". In Wright, Peter (ed.). Shadows of the New Sun: Wolfe on Writing/Writers on Wolfe. ISBN 9781846310577. Retrieved 2009-01-20.

  • "Terry Pratchett by Linda Richards". januarymagazine.com. 2002. Archived from the original on December 17, 2007. Retrieved February 17, 2008.

  • Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice, Magical realism and the fantastic: Resolved versus unresolved antinomy. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1985. pp. 30-31

  • Mizuno, Ryou (2019). Sorcerous Stabber Orphen Anthology. Commentary (in Japanese). TO Books. p. 235. ISBN 9784864728799.

  • Paradiso, Silvio Ruiz. 2014. "Postcolonialism and religiosity in African literatures." Pp. 73–79 in Proceedings of the 4th International Congress in Cultural Studies. Aveiro, Portugal.

  • Pepetela. 1989. Lueji, o nascimento de um império. Porto, Portugal: União dos Escritores Angolanos.

  • Garuba , Harry. 2003. "Explorations in Animist Materialism: Notes on Reading/Writing African Literature, Culture, and Society." Public Culture.

  • Parkinson Zamora, Lois; B. Faris, Wendy (1995). Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Durham & London: Duke University Press.

  • Jaggi, Maya (5 February 2000). "A View From The Bridge". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 January 2018. Retrieved 15 January 2018.

  • Interview in Primera Plana 5(234):52–55. [quoted in "Diario Digital del Choapa". Archived from the original on 2009-03-06. Retrieved 2009-01-25.]: "Mi problema más importante era destruir la línea de demarcación que separa lo que parece real de lo que parece fantástico. Porque en el mundo que trataba de evocar esa barrera no existía. Pero necesitaba un tono convincente, que por su propio prestigio volviera verosímiles las cosas que menos lo parecían, y que lo hicieran sin perturbar la unidad del relato." [This agrees well (minor textual variants) with other quotations found in "Gabriel García Márquez cumple hoy 80 años y lo festejará todo el mundo". Territorio. Archived from the original on 2009-02-05. Retrieved 2009-01-25.: "El problema más importante era destruir la línea de demarcación que separa lo que parece real de lo que parece fantástico porque en el mundo que trataba de evocar, esa barrera no existía. Pero necesitaba un tono inocente, que por su prestigio volviera verosímiles las cosas que menos lo parecían, y que lo hiciera sin perturbar la unidad del relato. También el lenguaje era una dificultad de fondo, pues la verdad no parece verdad simplemente porque lo sea, sino por la forma en que se diga." [Other quotations on the Internet can be found in "Los 80 años de un mago de las letras (Gerontología - Universidad Maimónides)". Archived from the original on 2009-02-02. Retrieved 2009-01-25. and "Jardín Kiryesco: El coronel no tiene quien le escriba". 10 January 2009. Archived from the original on 2011-07-08. Retrieved 2009-01-25. All of these quotations reinforce the rough English translation of the first sentence given in the main text of this article. For those who wish to seek the original interview, the front cover and table of contents are reproduced at "Revista Primera Plana la Gran novela de América, Gabriel García Márquez". Archived from the original on 2009-02-02. Retrieved 2009-01-25.]

  • "Morrison on Magical Realism" (PDF).

  • "Austrian Alfred Kubin spent a lifetime wrestling with the uncanny,...[and] in 1909 [he] published Die andere Seite (The Other Side), a novel illustrated with fifty-two drawings. In it, Kubin set out to explore the 'other side' of the visible world—the corruption, the evil, the rot, as well as the power and mystery. The border between reality and dream remains consistently nebulous... in certain ways an important precursor [to Magic Realism],...[he] exerted significant influence on subsequent German and Austrian literature." Guenther, Irene, "Magic realism in the Weimar Republic" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 57.

  • Hartlaub, Gustav, "Werbendes Rundschreiben"

  • Guenther, Irene. 1995. "Magic Realism, New Objectivity, and the Arts during the Weimar Republic." Pp. 33–73 in Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, edited by L. P. Zamora and W. B. Faris. Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-1640-4.

  • Westheim, Paul. 1922. "Ein neuer Naturalismus?? Eine Rundfrage des Kunstblatts." Das Kunstblatt 9.

  • See also: Schmied, Wieland. 1980. "'Neue Sachlichkeit' and German Realism of the Twenties." In German Realism of the Twenties: The Artist as Social Critic, edited by L. Lincoln. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts. p. 42.

  • Miller, Dorothy C., and Alfred Barr, eds. 1943. American Realists and Magic Realists. New York: Museum of Modern Art.

  • "Magical Realism: Definitions". www.public.asu.edu. Archived from the original on 25 September 2017. Retrieved 25 April 2018.

  • "Swords and Silver Rings". www.uh.edu. Archived from the original on 2009-01-26.

  • Luber, Katherine Crawford (1998). "Recognizing Van Eyck: Magical Realism in Landscape Painting". Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin. 91 (386/387): 7–23. doi:10.2307/3795460. JSTOR 3795460.

  • Raynor, Vivien (1991-05-19). "ART; The Skill of the Watercolorist". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2009-02-02. Retrieved 2010-05-12.

  • "John Ingle - Artist Biography for John Ingle". www.askart.com. Archived from the original on 25 February 2006. Retrieved 25 April 2018.

  • Camp, Roswell Anthony. "The Eye and the Heart: The Watercolors of John Stuart Ingle". www.johnsandford.org. Archived from the original on 6 September 2012. Retrieved 25 April 2018.

  • Christina's World in the MoMA Online Collection

  • "Magic Realism". www.artcyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on 1 October 2009. Retrieved 25 April 2018.

  • Elga Perez-Laborde:"Marcela Donoso," jornal do Brasilia, 10/10/1999

  • Elga Perez-Laborde:"Prologo,"Iconografía de Mitos y Leyendas, Marcela Donoso, ISBN 978-956-291-592-2. 12/2002

  • "with an impressive chromatic delivery, images come immersed in such a magic realism full of symbols," El Mercurio - Chile, 06/22/1998

  • Dr. Antonio Fernandez, Director of the Art Museum of Universidad de Concepción:"I was impressed by her original iconographic creativity, that in a way very close to magic realism, achieves to emphasize with precision the subjects specific to each folkloric tradition, local or regional," Chile, 29/12/1997

  • http://www.marceladonoso.cl Archived 2008-12-02 at the Wayback Machine

  • Johnson, Ken (2000-09-22). "ART IN REVIEW; Gregory Gillespie". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2009-02-02. Retrieved 2010-05-12.

  • "Gregory Gillespie Online". www.artcyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on 23 July 2012. Retrieved 25 April 2018.

  • Johnson, Ken (2003-05-23). "ART IN REVIEW; James Valerio". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2009-02-02. Retrieved 2010-05-12.

  • Hurd, Mary (November 30, 2006). Women directors and their films. Praeger. pp. 73. ISBN 978-0-275-98578-3.

  • Jameson, Fredric (1986). "On Magic Realism in Film". Critical Inquiry. University of Chicago Press. 12 (2): 311. doi:10.1086/448333. JSTOR 1343476. S2CID 161057644.

  • Zamora, Lois Parkinson; Faris, Wendy B (November 30, 1995). Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Duke University Press Books. pp. 426. ISBN 978-0-8223-1640-4.

  • Hegerfeld, Anne (January 13, 2005). Lies that Tell the Truth: Magic Realism Seen through Contemporary Fiction from Britain (Costerus NS 155). Rodopi. p. 147. ISBN 978-90-420-1974-4.

  • "20 Great Magical Realism Movies That Are Worth Your Time".

  • Rushdie, Salam. "Salam Rushdie talks with Terry Gilliam". The Believer. believermag.com. Archived from the original on 16 June 2017. Retrieved 25 June 2017.

  • Zeitchik, Steven (16 September 2013). "'The Wind Rises': Five things to know about Miyazaki's new movie". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 22 July 2017. Retrieved 25 June 2017.

  • Thomas, Kevin (9 February 1990). "Entering the Oscar Race Via Magic and Realism". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 25 April 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2017.

  • Juul, Jesper (2015). Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds (Hardcover ed.). Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262101103.

  • Roger Tringham, Neal (2015). Science Fiction Video Games. Boca Raton, USA: CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-4822-0389-9.

  • McMullan, Thomas (2014-07-27). "Where literature and gaming collide". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2020-03-24. Some of our first points of reference when sketching and imagining Kentucky Route Zero were in fiction - the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Márquez and the southern gothic of Flannery O'Connor

  • "Memoranda". Steam. Digital Dragon. Archived from the original on 22 June 2017. Retrieved 24 June 2017.

  • Moira, Hicks (August 3, 2019). "How Metal Gear Eschewed Realism to Convey the Horror of Imperial Violence". Gematsu. Retrieved June 12, 2021.

  • Keogh, Brendan (September 18, 2015). "On Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain". Brkeogh.com. Retrieved June 12, 2021.

  • Davenport, James (August 27, 2015). "Become a Metal Gear expert before The Phantom Pain comes out". PC Gamer. Retrieved June 12, 2021.

  • Valle, Nathaniel (April 29, 2014). "Marquez, Vamp, and Me – Metal Gear Solid and the Supernatural". Christ and Pop Culture. Retrieved June 12, 2021.

    1. Walker, Jill. "Piecing together and tearing apart: finding the story in afternoon". jill/txt. ACM Hypertext 1999 conference. Archived from the original on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 24 June 2017.

    External links


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    This article is about the use of the moral in storytelling. For other uses, see Morality and Moral (disambiguation).
    "Moral of the story" redirects here. For the song by Ashe, see Moral of the Story (song).

    A moral (from Latin morālis) is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A moral is a lesson in a story or in real life.

    Finding morals

    As an example of an explicit maxim, at the end of Aesop's fable of the Tortoise and the Hare, in which the plodding and determined tortoise won a race against the much-faster yet extremely arrogant hare, the stated moral is "slow and steady wins the race". However, other morals can often be taken from the story itself; for instance, that arrogance or overconfidence in one's abilities may lead to failure or the loss of an event, race, or contest.

    The use of stock characters is a means of conveying the moral of the story by eliminating complexity of personality and depicting the issues arising in the interplay between the characters, enabling the writer to generate a clear message. With more rounded characters, such as those typically found in Shakespeare's plays, the moral may be more nuanced but no less present, and the writer may point it out in other ways (see, for example, the Prologue to Romeo and Juliet).

    Arts

    Throughout the history of recorded literature, the majority of fictional writing has served not only to entertain but also to instruct, inform or improve their audiences or readership. In classical drama, for example, the role of the chorus was to comment on the proceedings and draw out a message for the audience to take away with them; while the novels of Charles Dickens are a vehicle for morals regarding the social and economic system of Victorian Britain.

    Morals have typically been more obvious in children's literature, sometimes even being introduced with the phrase: "The moral of the story is …". Such explicit techniques have grown increasingly out of fashion in modern storytelling, and are now usually only included for ironic purposes.

    Some examples are: "Better to be safe than sorry" (precautionary principle), "The evil deserves no aid", "Be friends with whom you don't like", "Don't judge people by the way they look", "Slow and steady wins the race", "Once started down the dark path, forever will it hold your destiny", and "Your overconfidence is your weakness".[1] Aesop's Fables are the most famous of stories with strong moral conclusions.

    Moral tales

    Morals were one of the main purposes of literature during 1780–1830, especially in children's literature. Part of the reason for this was the writings of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century, which brought attention to children as an audience for literature. Following in their line of thought, Thomas Day (1748–1789) wrote Sandford and Merton, elevating the outstanding morals of one young boy above the rapscallion nature of another. Maria Edgeworth (1776–1849) was another prominent author of moral tales, writing about how a wise adult can educate a child; one of her more famous stories is "The Purple Jar". During this time, the theme of "a young heroine or hero gaining wisdom and maturity was taken up by many other writers".[2]

    The ability of children to derive moral lessons from stories and visual media develops around the age of 9 or 10 years.[3]

    See also

    References


  • "Aesop's Fables: Online Collection - Selected Fables". Retrieved 18 March 2013.

  • Dennis Butts (2006). Jack Zipes (ed.). Children's Literature. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 93–96. ISBN 0195146565.

    1. Pai, Seeta. "And The Moral Of The Story Is ... Kids Don't Always Understand The Moral". NPR.

    External links

    The dictionary definition of moral at Wiktionary

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    In classical tragedies, the catastasis (pl. catastases) is the third part of an ancient drama, in which the intrigue or action that was initiated in the epitasis, is supported and heightened, until ready to be unravelled in the catastrophe. It also refers to the climax of a drama.[1]

    In rhetoric, the catastasis is that part of a speech, usually the exordium, in which the orator sets forth the subject matter to be discussed.[2]

    The term is not a classical one; it was invented by Scaliger in his Poetics (published posthumously in 1561).[3] It "is more or less equivalent to the summa epitasis of Donatus and Latomus and to what Willichius sometimes called the extrema epitasis,"[4] and was first used in 1616 in England.[5]

    See also

    Apocatastasis

    References


  • Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). "Catastasis". Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al.

  • Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

  • John Lewis Walker, Shakespeare and the Classical Tradition: An Annotated Bibliography, 1961-1991 (Taylor & Francis, 2002: ISBN 0-8240-6697-9), p. 639; Scaliger wrote: "catastasis est vigor ac status fabulae, in qua res miscetur in ea fortunae tempestate, in quam subducta est."

  • Marvin T. Herrick, Comic Theory in the Sixteenth Century (University of Illinois Press, 1950), p. 119.

    1. Frank N. Magill, Critical Survey of Literary Theory: Authors, A-Sw (Salem Press, 1987: ISBN 0-89356-393-5), p. 1284.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastasis

    Character
    Plot
    Setting
    Theme
    Style
    Structure
    Form
    Genre
    (List)
    Narration
    Tense
    Related

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

    A frame story (also known as a frame tale, frame narrative, sandwich narrative, or intercalation) is a literary technique that serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, where an introductory or main narrative sets the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories. The frame story leads readers from a first story into one or more other stories within it. The frame story may also be used to inform readers about aspects of the secondary narrative(s) that may otherwise be hard to understand. This should not be confused with narrative structure.[1][2][3]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_story

    In religion, ethics, philosophy, and psychology "good and evil" is a very common dichotomy. In cultures with Manichaean and Abrahamic religious influence, evil is perceived as the dualistic antagonistic opposite of good, in which good should prevail and evil should be defeated.[1] In cultures with Buddhist spiritual influence, both good and evil are perceived as part of an antagonistic duality that itself must be overcome through achieving Śūnyatā meaning emptiness in the sense of recognition of good and evil being two opposing principles but not a reality, emptying the duality of them, and achieving a oneness.[1]

    Evil is often used to denote profound immorality.[2] Evil has also been described as a supernatural force.[2] Definitions of evil vary, as does the analysis of its motives.[3] However, elements that are commonly associated with evil involve unbalanced behavior involving expediency, selfishness, ignorance, or neglect.[4]

    The modern philosophical questions regarding good and evil are subsumed into three major areas of study: metaethics concerning the nature of good and evil, normative ethics concerning how we ought to behave, and applied ethics concerning particular moral issues.[5]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_and_evil 

    Tellability is quality for which a story is told and examined as remarkable with its constructed merit. Ochs and Capps examine tellability as the reason a narrative is told. Namely speakers can transform any instance into a meaningful narrative, but most are tellable due to how they deviate from everyday happenings and the prototypical.[1] A narrative changes dependent on its level of tellability, and these elements are largely contextual. The tellability of a story often parallels the perceived truth of the story.  

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellability

    In literature, the tritagonist (from Ancient Greek τριταγωνιστής (tritagōnistḗs) 'third actor') or tertiary main character is the third most important character of a narrative, after the protagonist and deuteragonist. In ancient Greek drama, the tritagonist was the third member of the acting troupe.

    As a character, a tritagonist may act as the instigator or cause of the sufferings of the protagonist. Despite being the least sympathetic character of the drama, they occasion the situations by which pity and sympathy for the protagonist are excited.[1]: 451  

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritagonist

    The straight man is a stock character in a comedy performance, especially a double act, sketch comedy, or farce.[1] When a comedy partner behaves eccentrically, the straight man is expected to maintain composure. The direct contribution to the comedy a straight man provides usually comes in the form of a deadpan. A straight man with no direct comedic role has historically been known as a stooge. Typically, he is expected to feed the funny man lines that he can respond to for laughs (and is hence sometimes known as a feed), while seeking no acclamation for himself. If a straight man unintentionally breaks composure and laughs, it is known in British English as corpsing.  

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_man

    In literature, the deuteragonist (/ˌdjuːtəˈræɡənɪst/ DEW-tə-RAG-ə-nist; from Ancient Greek δευτεραγωνιστής (deuteragōnistḗs) 'second actor') or secondary main character[1] is the second most important character of a narrative, after the protagonist and before the tritagonist.[2] The deuteragonist often acts as a constant companion to the protagonist or someone who continues actively aiding a protagonist.[3] The deuteragonist may switch between supporting and opposing the protagonist, depending on their own conflict or plot.[4] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuteragonist

    Sherlock Holmes wrestling against archenemy Professor Moriarty.

    In literature, an archenemy (sometimes spelled as arch-enemy) is the main enemy of someone.[1][2][3] In fiction, it is a character who is the protagonist's, commonly a hero's, most prominent and most-known enemy. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archenemy

    Worldbuilding is the process of constructing a world, originally an imaginary one, sometimes associated with a fictional universe.[1] Developing an imaginary setting with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers.[2] Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a backstory, flora, fauna, inhabitants, technology and often if writing speculative fiction, different races. This may include social customs as well as invented languages for the world.[3][4][5][6]: PT103 

    The world could encompass different planets spanning vast distances of space or be limited in scope to a single small village.[6]: 104  Worldbuilding exists in novels, tabletop role-playing games, and visual media such as films, video games and comics.[7][8][9][10][11] Prior to 1900 most worldbuilding was conducted by novelists, who could leave imagination of the fictional setting in part to the reader.[6]: 106  Some authors of fiction set multiple works in the same world. This is known as a fictional universe.[12] For example, science fiction writer Jack Vance set a number of his novels in the Gaean Reach, a fictional region of space.[8] A fictional universe with works by multiple authors is known as a shared world. One example of such is the Star Wars Expanded Universe.[13] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldbuilding

    The Gothic double is a literary motif which refers to the divided personality of a character. Closely linked to the Doppelgänger, which first appeared in the 1796 novel Siebenkäs by Johann Paul Richter, the double figure emerged in Gothic literature in the late 18th century due to a resurgence of interest in mythology and folklore which explored notions of duality, such as the fetch in Irish folklore which is a double figure of a family member, often signifying an impending death.[1]

    A major shift in Gothic literature occurred in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, where evil was no longer within a physical location such as a haunted castle, but expanded to inhabit the mind of characters, often referred to as "the haunted individual."[2] Examples of the Gothic double motif in 19th-century texts include Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre (1847) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), which use the motif to reflect on gender inequalites in the Victorian era,[3] and famously, Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886).

    In the early 20th century, the Gothic double motif was featured in new mediums such as film to explore the emerging fear of technology replacing humanity.[4] A notable example of this is the evil mechanical double depicted in the German expressionist film Metropolis by Fritz Lang (1927). Texts in this period also appropriate the Gothic double motif present in earlier literature, such as Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance novel Rebecca (1938), which appropriates the doubling in Jane Eyre.[5] In the 21st century, the Gothic double motif has further been featured in horror and psychological thriller films such as Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (2010) and Jordan Peele's Us (2019).[1] In addition, the Gothic double motif has been used in 21st century Anthropocene literature, such as Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation (2014). 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_double

    A narrative typically ends in one set way, but certain kinds of narrative allow for multiple endings.  

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_fiction_with_multiple_endings

    Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes tales, myths, legends,[a] proverbs, poems, jokes and other oral traditions.[2] They include material culture, such as traditional building styles common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, and the forms and rituals of celebrations such as Christmas, weddings, folk dances, and initiation rites.[2] Each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact or traditional cultural expression. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next. Folklore is not something one can typically gain in a formal school curriculum or study in the fine arts. Instead, these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another, either through verbal instruction or demonstration. The academic study of folklore is called folklore studies or folkloristics, and it can be explored at undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. levels.[3] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore

    The three-act structure is a model used in narrative fiction that divides a story into three parts (acts), often called the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution. It was popularized by Syd Field in his 1979 book Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. Based on his recommendation that a play have a "beginning, middle, and end," the structure has been falsely attributed to Aristotle, who in fact argued for a two-act structure consisting of a "complication" and "denouément" split by a peripeteia.[1]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure

    A utopia (/juːˈtoʊpiə/ yoo-TOH-pee-ə) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members.[1] It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the New World. However, it may also denote an intentional community. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia

    Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realism.

    In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal. The works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s. In the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The term "symbolist" was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, who invented the term to distinguish the Symbolists from the related Decadents of literature and of art. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolism_(arts)

    Fictional locations are places that exist only in fiction and not in reality, such as the Negaverse or Planet X. Writers may create and describe such places to serve as backdrop for their fictional works. Fictional locations are also created for use as settings in role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons.

    They may also be used for technical reasons in actual reality for use in the development of specifications, such as the fictional country of Bookland, which is used to allow EAN "country" codes 978 and 979 to be used for ISBN numbers assigned to books, and code 977 to be assigned for use for ISSN numbers on magazines and other periodicals.

    Fictional locations vary greatly in their size. Very small places like a single room are kept out of the umbrella of fictional locations by convention, as are most single buildings.

    A fictional location can be the size of a university (H. P. Lovecraft's Miskatonic University), a town (Stephen King's Salem's Lot), a county (William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County), a state (Winnemac in various Sinclair Lewis stories), a large section of continent (as in north-western Middle-earth, which supposedly represents Europe), a whole planet (Anne McCaffrey's Pern), a whole galaxy (Isaac Asimov's Foundation books), even a multiverse (His Dark Materials).

    In a larger scale, occasionally the term alternate reality is used, but only if it is considered a variant of Earth rather than an original world. Austin Tappan Wright's Islandia has an invented continent, Karain, on our world. However in fanfiction, along with pastiche and/or parody, it is not considered canon unless they get authorized. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_location

    A parallel universe, also known as a parallel dimension, alternate universe, or alternate reality, is a hypothetical self-contained plane of existence, co-existing with one's own. The sum of all potential parallel universes that constitute reality is often called a "multiverse".

    While the four terms are generally synonymous and can be used interchangeably in most cases, there is sometimes an additional connotation implied with the term "alternate universe/reality" that implies that the reality is a variant of our own, with some overlap with the similarly named alternate history. Fiction has long borrowed an idea of "another world" from myth, legend and religion. Heaven, Hell, Olympus, and Valhalla are all "alternative universes" different from the familiar material realm. Plato reflected deeply on the parallel realities, resulting in Platonism, in which the upper reality is perfect while the lower earthly reality is an imperfect shadow of the heavenly.

    The concept is also found in ancient Hindu mythology, in texts such as the Puranas, which expressed an infinite number of universes, each with its own gods. Similarly in Persian literature, "The Adventures of Bulukiya," a tale in the One Thousand and One Nights, describes the protagonist Bulukiya learning of alternative worlds/universes that are similar to but still distinct from his own.[1]

    One of the first science fiction examples is Murray Leinster's short story, Sidewise in Time published in 1934, in which portions of alternative universes replace corresponding geographical regions in this universe. Sidewise in Time analogizes time to the geographic coordinate system, with travel along latitude corresponding to time travel moving through past, present and future, and travel along longitude corresponding to travel perpendicular to time and to other realities, hence the name of the story. Thus, another common term for a parallel universe is "another dimension," stemming from the idea that if the 4th dimension is time, the 5th dimension—a direction at a right angle to the fourth—is an alternate reality.

    In modern literature, parallel universes can serve two main purposes: to allow stories with elements that would ordinarily violate the laws of nature; and to serve as a starting point for speculative fiction, asking oneself "What if [event] turned out differently?". Examples of the former include Terry Pratchett's Discworld and C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, while examples of the latter include Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series.

    A parallel universe—or more specifically, continued interaction between the parallel universe and our own—may serve as a central plot point, or it may simply be mentioned and quickly dismissed, having served its purpose of establishing a realm unconstrained by realism. The aforementioned Discworld, for example, only very rarely mentions our world or any other worlds, as Pratchett set the books in a parallel universe instead of "our" reality to allow for magic on the Disc. The Chronicles of Narnia also utilizes to a lesser extent the idea of parallel universes; this is brought up but only briefly mentioned in the introduction and ending, its main purpose to bring the protagonist from "our" reality to the setting of the books. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_universes_in_fiction

    The title character in a narrative work is one who is named or referred to in the title of the work. In a performed work such as a play or film, the performer who plays the title character is said to have the title role of the piece. The title of the work might consist solely of the title character's name – such as Michael Collins[1] or Othello – or be a longer phrase or sentence – such as The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alice in Wonderland or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The title character is commonly – but not necessarily – the protagonist of the story. Narrative works routinely do not have a title character, and there is some ambiguity in what qualifies as one.

    Examples in various media include Figaro in the opera The Marriage of Figaro, Giselle in the ballet of the same name, the Doctor in the TV series Doctor Who, Harry Potter in the series of novels and films,[2] Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet in the play Romeo and Juliet,[3] Amos Jones and Andy Brown in the radio and TV dramas Amos 'n' Andy, Mario and Luigi in the game Super Mario Bros., and Naruto Uzumaki in the manga and anime franchise Naruto. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_character

    Dream worlds (also called dream realms or illusory realms) are a commonly used plot device in fictional works, most notably in science fiction and fantasy fiction. The use of a dream world creates a situation whereby a character (or group of characters) is placed in a marvellous and unpredictable environment and must overcome several personal problems to leave it. The dream world also commonly serves to teach some moral or religious lessons to the character experiencing it – a lesson that the other characters will be unaware of, but one that will influence decisions made regarding them. When the character is reintroduced into the real world (usually when they wake up), the question arises as to what exactly constitutes reality due to the vivid recollection and experiences of the dream world.

    According to J. R. R. Tolkien, dream worlds contrast with fantasy worlds, in which the world has existence independent of the characters in it.[1] However, other authors have used the dreaming process as a way of accessing a world which, within the context of the fiction, holds as much consistency and continuity as physical reality.[2] The use of "dream frames" to contain a fantasy world, and so explain away its marvels, has been criticized and has become much less prevalent.[3] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_world_(plot_device)

    A literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech.[1] Keith and Lundburg describe a trope as "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase."[2] The word trope has also undergone a semantic change and now also describes commonly recurring or overused literary and rhetorical devices,[3][4][5] motifs or clichés in creative works.[6][7] Literary tropes span almost every category of writing, such as poetry, film, plays, and video games.  

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trope_(literature)

    A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a type of character in a narrative (e.g. a novel, play, television show, or film) whom audiences recognize across many narratives or as part of a storytelling tradition or convention. There is a wide range of stock characters, covering men and women of various ages, social classes and demeanors. They are archetypal characters distinguished by their simplification and flatness. As a result, they tend to be easy targets for parody and to be criticized as clichés. The presence of a particular array of stock characters is a key component of many genres, and they often help to identify a genre or subgenre. For example, a story with the stock characters of a knight-errant and a witch is probably a fairy tale or fantasy.

    There are several purposes to using stock characters. Stock characters are a time- and effort-saving shortcut for story creators, as authors can populate their tale with existing well-known character types. Another benefit is that stock characters help to move the story along more efficiently, by allowing the audience to already understand the character and their motivations.[1][2] Furthermore, stock characters can be used to build an audience's expectations and, in some cases, they can also enhance narrative elements like suspense, irony, or plot twists if those expectations end up subverted. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_character

    A plot twist is a literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot in a work of fiction.[1] When it happens near the end of a story, it is known as a twist or surprise ending.[2] It may change the audience's perception of the preceding events, or introduce a new conflict that places it in a different context. A plot twist may be foreshadowed, to prepare the audience to accept it, but it usually comes with some element of surprise. There are various methods used to execute a plot twist, such as withholding information from the audience, or misleading them with ambiguous or false information. Not every plot has a twist, but some have multiple lesser ones, and some are defined by a single major twist.

    Since the effectiveness of a plot twist usually relies on the audience's not having expected it, revealing a plot twist to readers or viewers in advance is commonly regarded as a spoiler. Even revealing the fact that a work contains plot twists – especially at the ending – can also be controversial, as it changes the audience's expectations. However, at least one study suggests that this does not affect the enjoyment of a work.[3] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_twist

    Superhero fiction is a genre of speculative fiction examining the adventures, personalities and ethics of costumed crime fighters known as superheroes, who often possess superhuman powers and battle similarly powered criminals known as supervillains. The genre primarily falls between hard fantasy and soft science fiction spectrum of scientific realism. It is most commonly associated with American comic books, though it has expanded into other media through adaptations and original works.  

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superhero_fiction

    An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised.[1] They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters.[2] The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction.[1][3] While unreliable narrators are almost by definition first-person narrators, arguments have been made for the existence of unreliable second- and third-person narrators, especially within the context of film and television, and sometimes also in literature.[4]

    Sometimes the narrator's unreliability is made immediately evident. For instance, a story may open with the narrator making a plainly false or delusional claim or admitting to being severely mentally ill, or the story itself may have a frame in which the narrator appears as a character, with clues to the character's unreliability. A more dramatic use of the device delays the revelation until near the story's end. In some cases, the reader discovers that in the foregoing narrative, the narrator had concealed or greatly misrepresented vital pieces of information. Such a twist ending forces readers to reconsider their point of view and experience of the story. In some cases the narrator's unreliability is never fully revealed but only hinted at, leaving readers to wonder how much the narrator should be trusted and how the story should be interpreted. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

    Flash fiction, also called minimalist fiction, is a fictional work of extreme brevity[1] that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story;[2] the 280-character story (also known as "twitterature");[3] the "dribble" (also known as the "minisaga," 50 words);[2] the "drabble" (also known as "microfiction," 100 words);[2] "sudden fiction" (750 words);[4] "flash fiction" (1,000 words); and "microstory".[5]

    Some commentators have suggested that flash fiction possesses a unique literary quality in its ability to hint at or imply a larger story.[6] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction

    In literature, the tone of a literary work expresses the writer's attitude toward or feelings about the subject matter and audience.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

    Overview

    Depending upon the personality of the writer and the effect the writer wants to create, the work can be formal or informal, sober or whimsical, assertive or pleading, straightforward or sly.[9] In determining the attitude, mood, or tone of an author, one could examine the specific diction used.

    When one writes, images and descriptive phrases can transmit emotions across—guarded optimism, unqualified enthusiasm, objective indifference, resignation, or dissatisfaction.[10] Some other examples of literary tone are: airy, comic, condescending, facetious, funny, heavy, intimate, ironic, light, modest, playful, sad, serious, sinister, solemn, somber, and threatening.

    Difference from mood

    Tone and mood are not the same, although they are frequently confused.[11] The mood of a piece of literature is the feeling or atmosphere created by the work, or, said slightly differently, how the work makes the reader feel. Mood is produced most effectively through the use of setting, theme, voice and tone, while tone is how the author feels about something.

    Usage

    All pieces of literature, even official documents and technical documents, have some sort of tone. Authors create tone through the use of various other literary elements, such as diction or word choice; syntax, the grammatical arrangement of words in a text for effect; imagery, or vivid appeals to the senses; details, facts that are included or omitted; and figurative language, the comparison of seemingly unrelated things for sub-textual purposes.[how?]

    While now used to discuss literature, the term tone was originally applied solely to music. This appropriated word has come to represent attitudes and feelings a speaker (in poetry), a narrator (in fiction), or an author (in non-literary prose) has towards the subject, situation, and/or the intended audience. It is important to recognize that the speaker, or narrator is not to be confused with the author and that attitudes and feelings of the speaker or narrator should not be confused with those of the author.[why?] In general, the tone of a piece only refers to attitude of the author if writing is non-literary in nature.[further explanation needed][12]

    In many cases, the tone of a work may change and shift as the speaker or narrator's perspective on a particular subject alters throughout the piece.

    Official and technical documentation tends to employ a formal tone throughout the piece.

    Setting tone

    Authors set a tone in literature by conveying emotions/feelings through words. The way a person feels about an idea/concept, event, or another person can be quickly determined through facial expressions, gestures and in the tone of voice used. In literature an author sets the tone through words. The possible tones are bounded only by the number of possible emotions a human being can have.

    Diction and syntax often dictate what the author's (or character's) attitude toward his subject is at the time. An example: "Charlie surveyed the classroom but it was really his mother congratulating himself for snatching the higher test grade, the smug smirk on his face growing brighter and brighter as he confirmed the inferiority of his peers."

    The tone here is one of arrogance; the quip "inferiority of his peers" shows Charlie's belief in his own prowess. The words "surveyed" and "congratulating himself" show Charlie as seeing himself better than the rest of his class. The diction, including the word "snatching", gives the reader a mental picture of someone quickly and effortlessly grabbing something, which proves once again Charlie's pride in himself. The "smug smirk" provides a facial imagery of Charlie's pride.

    In addition, using imagery in a poem is helpful to develop a poem's tone.

    See also

    Notes


  • Baldick (2004)

  • Beckson & Ganz (1989)

  • Brownstein et al. (1992, p. 66)

  • Carey & Snodgrass (1999)

  • Hacker (1991, p. 51)

  • Holman (1975)

  • Wendy Scheir (2004). Roadmap To The California High School Exit Exam: English Language Arts. The Princeton Review. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-375-76471-4.

  • Turco (1999, p. 11)

  • Crews (1977, p. 6)

  • Brownstein et al. (1992, p. 98)

  • Stone, Lucia (14 November 2022). "What is the Difference between Mood and Tone?". Definitions and Examples. Oregon State Guide to English Literary Terms. Oregon State School of Writing, Literature and Film. Retrieved 22 December 2022.

    1. Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays, eds. "Theme and Tone." The Norton Introduction to Literature, Portable 10th ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 475-6. Print.

    References

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(literature)

     

    A flashback (sometimes called an analepsis) is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story.[1] Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story's primary sequence of events to fill in crucial backstory.[2] In the opposite direction, a flashforward (or prolepsis) reveals events that will occur in the future.[3] Both flashback and flashforward are used to cohere a story, develop a character, or add structure to the narrative. In literature, internal analepsis is a flashback to an earlier point in the narrative; external analepsis is a flashback to a time before the narrative started.[4]

    In film, flashbacks depict the subjective experience of a character by showing a memory of a previous event and they are often used to "resolve an enigma".[5] Flashbacks are important in film noir and melodrama films.[6] In films and television, several camera techniques, editing approaches and special effects have evolved to alert the viewer that the action shown is a flashback or flashforward; for example, the edges of the picture may be deliberately blurred, photography may be jarring or choppy, or unusual coloration or sepia tone, or monochrome when most of the story is in full color, may be used. The scene may fade or dissolve, often with the camera focused on the face of the character and there is typically a voice-over by a narrator (who is often, but not always, the character who is experiencing the memory).[7] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashback_(narrative)

    A backstory, background story, back-story, or background is a set of events invented for a plot, presented as preceding and leading up to that plot. It is a literary device of a narrative history all chronologically earlier than the narrative of primary interest.

    In acting, it is the history of the character before the drama begins, and is created during the actor's preparation.

    It is the history of characters and other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start. Even a purely historical work selectively reveals backstory to the audience.[1][2] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backstory

    In entertainment, an origin story is an account or backstory revealing how a character or group of people become a protagonist or antagonist, and it adds to the overall interest and complexity of a narrative, often giving reasons for their intentions.

    In American comic books, it also refers to how characters gained their superpowers and/or the circumstances under which they became superheroes or supervillains. In order to keep their characters current, comic book companies, as well as cartoon companies, game companies, children's show companies, and toy companies, frequently rewrite the origins of their oldest characters. This goes from adding details that do not contradict earlier facts to a totally new origin which makes it seem that it is an altogether different character.

    A pourquoi story, also dubbed an "origin story", is also used in mythology, referring to narratives of how a world began, how creatures and plants came into existence, and why certain things in the cosmos have certain yet distinct qualities. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_story

    A leitmotif or leitmotiv[1] (/ˌlaɪtmoʊˈtiːf/) is a "short, recurring musical phrase"[2] associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of idée fixe or motto-theme.[2] The spelling leitmotif is an anglicization of the German Leitmotiv (IPA: [ˈlaɪtmoˌtiːf]), literally meaning "leading motif", or "guiding motif". A musical motif has been defined as a "short musical idea ... melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic, or all three",[1] a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition: "the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity."[3]

    In particular, such a motif should be "clearly identified so as to retain its identity if modified on subsequent appearances" whether such modification be in terms of rhythm, harmony, orchestration or accompaniment. It may also be "combined with other leitmotifs to suggest a new dramatic condition" or development.[1] The technique is notably associated with the operas of Richard Wagner, and most especially his Der Ring des Nibelungen, although he was not its originator and did not employ the word in connection with his work.

    Although usually a short melody, it can also be a chord progression or even a simple rhythm. Leitmotifs can help to bind a work together into a coherent whole, and also enable the composer to relate a story without the use of words, or to add an extra level to an already present story.

    By association, the word has also been used to mean any sort of recurring theme (whether or not subject to developmental transformation) in literature, or (metaphorically) the life of a fictional character or a real person. It is sometimes also used in discussion of other musical genres, such as instrumental pieces, cinema, and video game music, sometimes interchangeably with the more general category of theme. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitmotif

    A cliché (UK: /ˈkliːʃeɪ/ or US: /kliːˈʃeɪ/) is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.[1] In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning, referring to an expression imposed by conventionalized linguistic usage.[2]

    The term is often used in modern culture for an action or idea that is expected or predictable, based on a prior event. Typically pejorative, "clichés" may or may not be true.[3] Some are stereotypes, but some are simply truisms and facts.[4] Clichés often are employed for comedic effect, typically in fiction.

    Most phrases now considered clichéd originally were regarded as striking but have lost their force through overuse.[5] The French poet Gérard de Nerval once said, "The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile."[6]

    A cliché is often a vivid depiction of an abstraction that relies upon analogy or exaggeration for effect, often drawn from everyday experience.[7][8] Used sparingly, it may succeed, but the use of a cliché in writing, speech, or argument is generally considered a mark of inexperience or a lack of originality. 

    Extract from a cartoon by Priestman Atkinson, from the Punch Almanack for 1885, mocking clichéd expressions in the popular literature at the time

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clich%C3%A9

     

    Deus ex machina (/ˌdeɪəs ɛks ˈmækɪnə, ˈmɑːk-/ DAY-əs ex-MA(H)K-in-ə,[1] Latin: [ˈdɛ.ʊs ɛks ˈmaːkʰɪnaː]; plural: dei ex machina; English "god from the machine")[2][3] is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly or abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.[4][5] Its function is generally to resolve an otherwise irresolvable plot situation, to surprise the audience, to bring the tale to a happy ending or act as a comedic device.[6] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

    A supporting character is a character in a narrative that is not the focus of the primary storyline, but is important to the plot/protagonist, and appears or is mentioned in the story enough to be more than just a minor character or a cameo appearance. Sometimes, supporting characters may develop a complex backstory of their own, but this is usually in relation to the main character, rather than entirely independently. In television, supporting characters may appear in more than half of episodes per season. Some examples of well-known supporting characters include Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories, Donkey in the Shrek films, and Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter series.

    In some cases, especially in ongoing material such as comic books and television series, supporting characters themselves may become main characters in a spin-off if they gain sufficient approval from their audience.[1] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supporting_character

    Alternate history (also alternative history, allohistory,[1] althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life.[2][3][4][5] As conjecture based upon historical fact, alternate history stories propose What if? scenarios about crucial events in human history, and present outcomes very different from the historical record. Alternate history also is a subgenre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; as literature, alternate history uses the tropes of the genre to answer the What if? speculations of the story.

    Since the 1950s, as a subgenre of science fiction, alternative history stories feature the tropes of time travel between histories, the psychic awareness of the existence of an alternative universe, by the inhabitants of a given universe; and time travel that divides history into various timestreams.[1]

    In the Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, and Galician languages, the terms uchronie, ucronia, and ucronía identify the alternate history genre, from which derives the English term uchronia, composed of the Greek prefix οὐ- ("not", "not any", and "no") and the Greek word χρόνος (chronos) "time", to describe a story that occurs "[in] no time"; analogous to a story that occurs in utopia, "[in] no place". The term uchronia also is the name of the list of alternate-history books, Uchronia: The Alternate History List.[6] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_history

    An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters.[1] The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered to include novels composed of documents even if they do not include letters at all.[2][3] More recently, epistolaries may include electronic documents such as recordings and radio, blog posts, and e-mails. The word epistolary is derived from Latin from the Greek word ἐπιστολή, epistolē, meaning a letter (see epistle). In German, this type of novel is known as a Briefroman.

    The epistolary form can add greater realism to a story, because it mimics the workings of real life. It is thus able to demonstrate differing points of view without recourse to the device of an omniscient narrator. An important strategic device in the epistolary novel for creating the impression of authenticity of the letters is the fictional editor.[4] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistolary_novel

    A crossover is the placement of two or more otherwise discrete fictional characters, settings, or universes into the context of a single story. They can arise from legal agreements between the relevant copyright holders, unofficial efforts by fans, or common corporate ownership.  

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossover_(fiction)

    A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not follow paragraphs in a linear or ordered fashion. Gamebooks are sometimes called choose your own adventure books or CYOA after the influential Choose Your Own Adventure series originally published by US company Bantam Books. Gamebooks influenced hypertext fiction.[1]

    Production of new gamebooks in the West decreased dramatically during the 1990s as choice-based stories have moved away from print-based media, although the format may be experiencing a resurgence on mobile and ebook platforms. Such digital gamebooks are considered interactive fiction or visual novels. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebook

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characterization

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_arc

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vignette_(literature)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable

     

    Self-insertion is a literary device in which the author writes themself into the story as a fictional character.[1]

    Forms

    In art, the equivalent of self-insertion is the inserted self-portrait, where the artist includes a self-portrait in a painting of a narrative subject. This has been a common artistic device since at least the European Renaissance.

    This literary device should not be confused with a first-person narrator, an author surrogate,[clarification needed] or a character somewhat based on the author, whether the author included it intentionally or not. Many characters have been described as unintentional self-insertions, implying that their author is unconsciously using them as an author surrogate.[citation needed]

    "X-insert" or "reader-insert" fiction has the reader appear as a character in the story; their name is substituted with "you" or "y/n" ("your name").[2]

    Examples

    See also

    References


  • "Self-insertion meaning". Retrieved 20 February 2022.

  • "The A to Z of fan fiction". Inquirer Lifestyle. 22 March 2021. Retrieved 30 October 2021.

  • Mason, Fran (2009). The A to Z of Postmodernist Literature and Theater. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 338–. ISBN 9780810868557. Retrieved 22 September 2014.

  • Klinkowitz, Jerome (1992). Structuring the Void: The Struggle for Subject in Contemporary American Fiction. Duke University Press. pp. 52–. ISBN 9780822312055. Retrieved 22 September 2014.

  • The Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2014. Retrieved 17 November 2014.

    1. "Dirk Pitt Revealed | An Official Web Site for Bestselling Adventure Novelist | Author Clive Cussler".

     

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-insertion

     

     

     

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-insertion

     

     

    A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed permanently in architecture. Talismans are closely linked with amulets, fulfilling many of the same roles, but a key difference is in their form and materiality, with talismans often taking the form of objects (e.g., clothing, weaponry, or parchment) which are inscribed with magic texts.[1]

    Talismans have been used in many civilizations throughout history, with connections to astrological, scientific, and religious practices; but the theory around preparation and use has changed in some cultures with more recent, new age, talismanic theory. Talismans are used for a wide array of functions, such as: the personal protection of the wearer, loved ones or belongings, aiding in fertility, and helping crop production. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talisman

     

     

    Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking,[1] is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects.[1][2][3] Examples include the idea that personal thoughts can influence the external world without acting on them, or that objects must be causally connected if they resemble each other or have come into contact with each other in the past.[1][2][4] Magical thinking is a type of fallacious thinking and is a common source of invalid causal inferences.[3][5] Unlike the confusion of correlation with causation, magical thinking does not require the events to be correlated.[3] 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking

    (informal, casual, etc. ; may indicate fallicious reason logic or logical fallacy error etc. , fallacy in academia bias ; etc.) [order error word choice double negative long string drafting ; intent is relevant objective organization main points ; magical thinking is a process or event/structure-schematic-schema--personification-confusion-variable-overload-erroneous_flawed_conclusion   error ; imagination creativity investment in belief and malicious intent relevant reality relevant not usually dangerous or harmful sometimes causes embarassment ; etc.)

     undecidable

     

    A theoretical model of the universe.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmas_Indicopleustes

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     



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