Phantastes: A Fairy Romance for Men and Women
, is a fantasy novel by Scottish author George MacDonald, first published in London in 1858.
The story centres on the character Anodos ("pathless", or "ascent" in Greek) and takes its inspiration from German Romanticism, particularly Novalis. The story concerns a young man who is pulled into a dreamlike world and there hunts for his ideal of female beauty, embodied by the "Marble Lady". Anodos lives through many adventures and temptations while in the other world, until he is finally ready to give up his ideals.
This story contains examples of:
- Anaphora: "What [is X]?", since fairies don't know much, said in a poem:“Sister Snowdrop died
Before we were born.”
“She came like a bride
In a snowy morn.”
“What’s a bride?”
“What is snow?
“Never tried.”
“Do not know.”
* Beneath the Earth: At one point, Anodos travels through a cavernous underworld home to goblin-like fairies. - Died in Your Arms Tonight: In one of the stories in Phantastes, Cosmo von Wehrstahl dies in the arms of the Princess von Honenweiess he has released from the mirror she has been enchanted in, but she finds him too late and cradles him as he dies in her arms.
- Fairy Land: The main setting of the story. Most of it seems to be covered in a deep, enchanted wood full of magical creatures, although deserts, seas and other areas are encountered. Overall, it seems to be composed and home of various mythical and folkloric locations and archetypes.
- Great Big Library of Everything: One exists in the fairy palace containing books so well-written that reading them is effectively indistinguishable from living out the story they contain.
- Heroic Sacrifice: A heartrending tale is related by the narrator about a man named Cosmo, who loves a princess imprisoned in a mirror, and to release her from her thrall, he shatters the mirror, but it ends up killing him, and he dies in the princess' arms.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The final conclusion Anodos comes to in Fairyland.
- Living Shadow: A dark shadow attaches itself to the protagonist, causing him to suffer a severe depression.
- My Greatest Failure: The knight in rusty armor atones for being taken in by the Alder-Tree by combating evildoers until every speck of rust is scraped off.
- One-Word Title
- Plant Person: Among the denizens of Fairy Land are the spirits of trees. Of those met, the Beech Tree is benevolent and loving, but the Ash Tree and the Alder Tree are dangerous and evil.
- Purple Prose: The prose is quite often ornate, but it doesn't detract from the pleasure derived from the perusal of the novel.
- Shadow Archetype: Appropriately enough, the Shadow is this to Anodos.
- Story Within a Story: Two actually, The Tale of Cosmo and The Magic Mirror.
- Uneven Hybrid: The mysterious "two hundred and thirty-seven years old" lady, who's implied to be Anodos's grandmother, and a fairy since he's got fairy-blood in his lineage:“You have fairy blood in you,” said [the fairy-blooded woman], looking hard at me.
- The Vamp: The Maiden of the Alder-Tree.
