Marvellous
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| :''I went to a '''marvellous''' party last week.'' | :''I went to a '''marvellous''' party last week.'' | ||
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| + | == Ambiguity == | ||
| + | The term marvelous has two meanings. The first is causing wonder or astonishment (such as supernatural phenomena), the second denotes something of the highest or best kind or quality. | ||
| ===Etymology=== | ===Etymology=== | ||
| First attested from [[w:1300|1300]], from [[Old French]], from [[merveillos]], from [[merveille]] ''a wonder''. See also: [[marvel]]. | First attested from [[w:1300|1300]], from [[Old French]], from [[merveillos]], from [[merveille]] ''a wonder''. See also: [[marvel]]. | ||
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| + | == As a generic category: the marvelous == | ||
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| + | == Related terms== | ||
| + | [[fantastic]] - [[greatness]] - [[fantastique]] - [[supernatural]] - [[the uncanny]] | ||
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| + | == Theory of marvelous fiction == | ||
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| + | [[Tsvetan Todorov]] and [[Ado Kyrou]] | ||
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| + | == As seen by Breton == | ||
| + | :"Let us not mince words: the marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful." --Surrealist Manifesto (1924) - André Breton | ||
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| + | :"Historically speaking, prior to what we refer to as the "Enlightenment," there could be no such hesitation [by which Todorov defined the fantastic]. The supernatural was accepted as a part of life. Witches and God co-existed with men and women, and a story could, in Todorov's terms, be "marvelous," but never "fantastic." Examples abound: Sinbad the Sailor, fairy tales, chivalric romances. At the other end—our end—of the nineteenth century, with the psychoanalytic discovery of the unconscious, there is again no hesitation. The witness to bizarre events, or at least the reader of the story, knows them to be the creations of his or her own mind. A story then may be "strange" (étrange, inexplicably translated as "uncanny" by Richard Howard), but, again, never "fantastic," science fiction and Todorov's careless remarks about it notwithstanding. For Todorov, science-fiction is a species of the marvelous, but the sense in which "robots, extraterrestrial beings, the whole interplanetary context" are supernatural is entirely different. Here the marvelous and the strange intersect without creating that cognitive hesitation characteristic of the fantastic, for the explanation of the events, while currently impossible (we as yet know no interplanetary beings) is implicitly rational (we recognize the possibility that we will know such beings in another time)." --http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/6/lemtodorov6forum.htm | ||
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Revision as of 08:33, 24 July 2007
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Exciting wonder or surprise; astonishing; wonderful.
- I went to a marvellous party last week.
Contents |
Ambiguity
The term marvelous has two meanings. The first is causing wonder or astonishment (such as supernatural phenomena), the second denotes something of the highest or best kind or quality.
Etymology
First attested from 1300, from Old French, from merveillos, from merveille a wonder. See also: marvel.
As a generic category: the marvelous
Related terms
fantastic - greatness - fantastique - supernatural - the uncanny
Theory of marvelous fiction
As seen by Breton
- "Let us not mince words: the marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful." --Surrealist Manifesto (1924) - André Breton
- "Historically speaking, prior to what we refer to as the "Enlightenment," there could be no such hesitation [by which Todorov defined the fantastic]. The supernatural was accepted as a part of life. Witches and God co-existed with men and women, and a story could, in Todorov's terms, be "marvelous," but never "fantastic." Examples abound: Sinbad the Sailor, fairy tales, chivalric romances. At the other end—our end—of the nineteenth century, with the psychoanalytic discovery of the unconscious, there is again no hesitation. The witness to bizarre events, or at least the reader of the story, knows them to be the creations of his or her own mind. A story then may be "strange" (étrange, inexplicably translated as "uncanny" by Richard Howard), but, again, never "fantastic," science fiction and Todorov's careless remarks about it notwithstanding. For Todorov, science-fiction is a species of the marvelous, but the sense in which "robots, extraterrestrial beings, the whole interplanetary context" are supernatural is entirely different. Here the marvelous and the strange intersect without creating that cognitive hesitation characteristic of the fantastic, for the explanation of the events, while currently impossible (we as yet know no interplanetary beings) is implicitly rational (we recognize the possibility that we will know such beings in another time)." --http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/6/lemtodorov6forum.htm
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