Kay’s Tigana is most accurately described as a fantasy novel combined with a modulation of the historical novel’s repertoire, since the narrative structure of fantasy dominates. One of the primary ways the genres hybridize is through his application of fantasy’s structural characteristics, such as thinning and eucatastrophe, to a historically probable narrative. However, Guy Gavriel Kay synthesizes these diverse literary forms in a way that highlights the value of fantasy literature. Kay afterwards engaged with the Tolkienesque epic fantasy tradition in Fionavar Tapestry before turning, in Tigana (1992), towards a genre termed “historical fantasy.”1 The historical novel, which depends upon mimesis and realism for its effectiveness, is opposed to the anti-mimetic impulse of fantasy. Possessing a certain pedigree among fantasists-he knew Christopher Tolkien through Christopher’s second wife’s family-he became an editor of The Silmarillion in 1974 (Ordway 140). Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, fantasy literature has simultaneously seen the rise of formulaic fantasy and the appearance of authors who escape the constraints of genre and renew its powerful effects on readers. This is the 2012 honours thesis by Matthew Rettino written when while attending McGill University.
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