Chaos i ład — odwieczna wojna w światach fantasy

Abstrakt

Chaos and order – everlasting war in fantasy worlds

Chaos as a religious, philosophical or mathematical concept, is very important in culture. Initially a part of myth, the notion of chaos was transformed throughout the ages by many legends and stories and thus its basic idea was differently interpreted. In simple terms, chaos designates a situation or condition whereby there is no order between elements and nothing works correctly. Fantasy literature makes use of chaos as struggle between antagonistic powers, between aspirations to establish harmony in the domains of the physical, the intellect and the spirit. The present article is concerned with the functioning of chaos as an element of the world represented in fantasy literature. Among other issues taken up here are: chaos and the problem of good and evil; personal chaos; chaos in the structures of the universe and of the world. As for the structure of text, the composition pattern of fantasy books – with its variants and invariants – is essential for the very functioning of the genre since what the reader recognizes and accepts is the structure itself.