Fantasy

A genre of literature in the form of prose fiction or drama or a style of art or other entertainment (cinema, opera, ballet, etc) in which another reality is presented deliberately accentuating its unlikelihood. Such fantasy may be directed to such things as the future, or the past or to an alternative present, and may involve also the themes of other worlds, other space-time dimensions, other intelligent beings, the supernatural or altered states of consciousness. The fantastic in any of the arts or in highly speculative but otherwise serious thought may suggest in fact new frontiers of awareness and knowledge even when approaching burlesque. On the other hand fantasy can be an exploitative and cheapening esthetic device and, in addition, may express or support schizoid and other mentally disturbed tendencies.