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Abstract:

This article examines the role and functions of commentary in fantasy literature by the example of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Lord of the Rings, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter saga and several relatively less known works, such as The Trilogy of the Sword by E. Ratkevitch and Gleams of Aeterna series by V. Kamsha. The article considers methods and problems concerning commentary, such as the differences between researchers’ commentary, translator’s commentary (that a priori should make the original text closer to the reader’s reception); authorial commentary; possibilities of multilayered commentary with the use of Internet; transition from commentary in the ordinary sense to composition reading. Presence and abundance of the various forms of the author’s commentary to the work (both commentary in the ordinary sense and various appendixes in the shape of “encyclopedias of the world”) in fantasy, as well as their comparison to the writer’s commentary in science fiction (which is not fantasy), allows us to see the particular role of commenting in fantasy. The reader must understand the declared world and its events equivalently to the author’s intentions; and this function of the commentary (that is important for other genres, too) becomes evident, exposes itself in fantasy. The article states that the adequate commentary to fantasy demands a lot of knowledge in different areas (religion, philosophy, history, cultural science, sociology, etc.); fantasy, by means of various forms of the author’s commentary, shapes its reader in some ways