SOURCE: "Primitive, Newtonian, and Einsteinian Fantasies: Three Worldviews," in The Scope of the Fantastic-Theory, Technique, Major Authors, edited by Robert A. Collins and Howard D. Pearce, Greenwood Press, 1985, pp. 69-75.

In the following essay, Ziegler argues that the Weltanschauung—or world-view—of any given time period necessarily places restraints on the creative imagination, but remains hopeful that the fantasy genre will benefit from the societal move from a Newtonian to an Einsteinian worldview.

Fantasy, as a genre of the creative imagination, can be described as a chimerical or fantastic notion, where "fantastic" connotes unrestrained extravagance in the creations of the imaginative faculty. Despite this definition, fantasy, like all other human activities, cannot be wholly unrestrained. Restraints are placed on humans not only by their biological, psychological, and social natures but by the Weltanschauung of their times. Thus fantasy must be redefined as an extravagance in the creations of...