Spanish high fantasy as a canonical exo-genre: audience, consumption, and institutional acceptability (Laura Gallego’s case)

Abstract

This paper discusses the possible existence of a high fantasy canon in Spain, a literary genre of increasing popular and academic interest. Based on the common element of high fantasy being set in a secondary world and following a review and theoretical synthesis of the controversial issue of the literary canon, Even-Zohar's polysystem theory is used as a methodological tool of analysis. This allows us to verify how the interference of elements from the literary system strive to modify the current canon: the periphery disputes its place with the centre. On the one hand, there is the infiltration of cultural institutions, especially university research, and on the other hand, the push of the book market and new literary consumption prescribers (booktubers) in addition to general and reader social networks. These actors have exalted the successful writer Laura Gallego, who is the source of derivative works such as sequels by her followers and the first Spanish anime on Netflix. Thus, a "canon of the day" emerges, in Harris's terms, in contrast to the traditional notion (valid, but not unique) of the canon as the anthology of an epoch selected with aesthetic criteria, defended by scholars such as Bloom. This dynamic canon facilitates in-depth historical, critical, and sociological research, in its context, of high fantasy literature in Spain.