Megatext is a term used by scholars of speculative fiction that describes the elaborate fictional background,

trope Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things ...

s, images, and conventions that

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama ...

narratives share.

History

This collective body of knowledge, utilized by writers and recognized by readers, was first described by

Christine Brooke-Rose Christine Frances Evelyn Brooke-Rose (16 January 1923 – 21 March 2012) was a British writer and literary critic, known principally for her experimental novels.

in her 1981 work, ''A Rhetoric of the Unreal: Studies in Narrative and Structure, Especially of the Fantastic''. Brooke-Rose builds on the culture or referential code first described by

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popul ...

in his work '' S/Z''.

Background

Brooke-Rose describes a subconsciously familiar set of images, attributes and ideas that are shared within a particular genre. She cites examples in several genres, but goes into critical detail when considering

, specifically the work of

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...

Damien Broderick Damien Francis Broderick (born 22 April 1944) is an Australian science fiction and popular science writer and editor of some 74 books. His science fiction novel ''The Dreaming Dragons'' (1980) introduced the trope of the generation time machine ...

builds on this concept, separating Brooke-Rose's criticism of Tolkien and the specific exposition in Tolkien's work, from the megatext concept itself and introducing other comparable

theories, such as the work of

Gary K. Wolfe Gary K. Wolfe (born Gary Kent Wolfe in 1946) is an American science fiction editing, editor, critic and biographer. He is an emeritus Professor of Humanities in Roosevelt University's Evelyn T. Stone College of Professional Studies. Life Wol ...

in ''The Known and the Unknown: The Iconography of Science Fiction'' (1979). The "mega-text" in Broderick's description is much more clearly identified as a shared cultural experience and interaction between writer and reader. In his essay "The Evolving Megatext of Fantasy"

Allen Stroud Allen Stroud is a researcher and university lecturer at Coventry University. He is currently leading the Creative Futures project, a funded research partnership between Coventry University and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DST ...

identifies the distinction between the author's specific fictional world mythos (macrotext or world bible) and the way in which the megatext of fantasy has changed, spreading out across multiple media to incorporate many shared concepts into hundreds of different fictions. Stroud notes that many of these concepts are washed of their cultural origins in their new forms, relying instead on more popular contemporary images and archetypes.

References

Sources

*''S/Z'' by

. 1970. *''The Known and the Unknown: the Iconography of Science Fiction'' by

. 1979 *''A Rhetoric of the Unreal: Studies in Narrative and Structure, Especially of the Fantastic'' by

Christine Brooke-Rose Christine Frances Evelyn Brooke-Rose (16 January 1923 – 21 March 2012) was a British writer and literary critic, known principally for her experimental novels.

. 1981. *''Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction'' by

. 1995. *Introduction to ''The Norton Book of Science Fiction'' by

Ursula Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was f ...

. 1993. *''Science Fiction: The New Critical Idiom'' by Adam Roberts. 2000. *''The Evolving Megatext of Fantasy'' in ''The BFS Journal 18'' edited by

. 2018. * Speculative fiction {{fantasy-stub