Fantastyka świata prymarnego

Abstract

This article is an attempt to discuss the issue of Primary World fantasy, fantasy set in the world we can identify as ours, which has so far been mostly absent in academic discourse. At the same time another type of fantasy, Secondary World fantasy, has already been widely described by researchers, such as Krzysztof M. Maj or Grzegorz Trębicki, who paid attention to its mostly allotopic, exomimetic character. As a result of my analysis of academic discourse I attempt to define Primary World as a concept, noticing the need for seeing an opposition of Primary World and Secondary World as a spectrum, not something binary. I also tried to find a conventional border between them, which allows for the categorization of known genres of fantasy as Primary or Secondary World fantasy. After that I present de Lint’s consensus reality and Clute’s wainscot society as one of the many possible models of Primary World fantasy and define ways in which it differs from typical Secondary World fantasy. This model is popular in urban fantasy, contemporary fantasy and a few other genres. In this way I attempt to show this category of fantasy as entirely different than typical, allotropic Secondary World Fantasy that we all think the most often about when we talk about fantasy.