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This is an update of the previous version of this link round-up, now covering all the publications to date. There aren't a great many new entries in this version (and I'll soon be doing my topic-tagging in an entirely different way), but it seemed like a relevant post to make after spending the weekend at a queer sff convention.

Before the rise of the concept of "genre fiction (a relatively recent phenomenon), a great deal of popular literature included fantastic elements -- whether the overtly fantastic, such as tales of magic an otherworlds, or fantastic elements that the storytellers and their audiences may have understood to be parts of their own reality. Here are a some of the publications covered by the Project that address literature (or ideas) that would be considered "fantastic" by today's standards. The majority of these come out of the tradition of medieval romance, which can easily be traced as the origin of large chunks of modern fantasy literature.

Amer, Sahar. 2008. Crossing Borders: Love Between Women in Medieval French and Arabic Literatures. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. ISBN 978-0-8122-4087-0

• Chapter 1 - Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Same-Sex Love Between Women


• Chapter 2 - Crossing Linguistic Borders: Etienne de Fougères's Livre des Manières and Arabic Erotic Treatises


• Chapter 3 - Crossing Sartorial Lines: Female Same-Sex Marriage in Yde et Olive and The Story of Qamar al-Zaman and Princess Boudour from the One Thousand and One Nights


• Chapter 4 - Crossing the Lines of Friendship: Jean Renart's Escoufle, Saracen Silk, and Intercultural Encounters


• Chapter 5 - Crossing Social and Cultural Borders: Jean Renart's Escoufle and the Traditions of Zarf, Jawaris, and Qaynas in the Islamicate World


• Chapter 6 - Conclusion: Beyond Orientalist Presuppositions

The tale of Yde and Olive has the most overtly fantastic elements of the stories covered here, with the motifs of a magical sex-change or the direct intervention of Saint Michael in the form of a white stag (or both).

Brooten, Bernadette J. 1997. Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0-226-07591-5

• Part 1


• Part 2


• Part 3

The magical love-spells covered by Brooten's research are "fantastic" in intent and imply a belief in the existence and effectiveness of magic.

Clark, Robert L. A. & Claire Sponsler. 1997. "Queer Play: The Cultural Work of Crossdressing in Medieval Drama" in New Literary History, 28:219-344.

This discussion of medieval theater includes the miracle-play version of the story of Yde and Olive, which includes several fantastic elements.

Clover, Carol J. 1995. "Maiden Warriors and Other Sons" in Robert R. Edwards & Vickie Ziegler (eds). Matrons and Marginal Women in Medieval Society. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge.

To the extent that Clover's topic represents actual cultural practices, it does not necessarily represent a "fantastic" element, but the specific examples are drawn from adventurous tales from Norse and Germanic literature that include a wide variety of fantastic elements, including gods and monsters, enchanted swords and magical curses.

Donoghue, Emma. 1996. Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. Harper Perennial, New York. ISBN 0-06-092680-5

• Chapter 7: Communities

Discussion of several literary sources includes an extended discussion of the utopian fantasy and roman à clef Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality of Both Sexes from the New Atalantis, an Island in the Mediteranean (1709).

Donoghue, Emma. 2010. Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 978-0-307-27094-8

• Chapter 1: Travesties

Only the first chapter of Donoghue's study covers significantly fantastic elements, covering tales of transformation and well as the ordinary fantasies of medieval romance with their fairies, amazons, and quests.

Hotchkiss, Valerie R. 1996. Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York. ISBN 0-8153-3771-x

Again, it is largely the coverage in one chapter of medieval romances -- with their fantastic adventures and otherworldly settings -- that brings this publication into the fold.

Krueger, Roberta L. 1999. “Transforming Maidens: Singlewomen’s Stories in Marie de France’s Lais and Later French Courtly Narratives” in Bennett, Judith M. & Amy M. Froide eds. Singlewomen in the European Past 1250-1800. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. ISBN 0-8122-1668-7

Another article looking specifically at medieval French romances, where maidens encounter otherworldly quests with the aid of supernatural mentors.

Levin, Richard A. 1997. "What? How? Female-Female Desire in Sidney's New Arcadia" in Criticism, Vol. XXXIX, No. 4: 463-479.

Like many examples of medieval and Renaissance literature, Sidney's Arcadia would be classified today as fantasy, including elements such as imaginary countries and amazon warriors.

Pintabone, Diane T. “Ovid’s Iphis and Ianthe: When Girls Won’t Be Girls” in Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin & Lisa Auanger eds. 2002. Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. University of Texas Press, Austin. ISBN 0-292-77113-4

A more detailed look at a fantastic transformation story.

Roche-Mahdi, Sarah. 1999. Silence. Michigan State University Press, Lansing. ISBN 0-87013-543-0

A cross-dressing heroine in an Arthurian adventure tale.

Sautman, Francesca Canadé. 2001. “What Can They Possibly Do Together? Queer Epic Performances in Tristan de Nanteuil” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages (ed. By Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn), Palgrave, New York.

More Arthurian adventures where gender disguise results in homoerotic encounters.

Vanita, Ruth. 2001. “’At All Times Near’: Love Between Women in Two Medieval Indian Devotional Texts” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages (ed. By Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn), Palgrave, New York.

The stories covered here often include elements of gods and heroes, with overtly fantastic elements such as magical female impregnation.

Watt, Diane. 1998. "Behaving Like a Man? Incest, Lesbian Desire, and Gender Play in Yde et Olive and its Adaptations" in Comparative Literature vol. 50 no. 4: 265-285.

An in-depth look at the several versions of the Yde and Olive romance which, as previously noted, has a number of fantastic elements, including magical stags and miraculous gender transformations.

Westphal, Sarah. 1997. "Amazons and Guérillères" in Medieval Feminist Newsletter, No. 23: 24-28.

The article compares the figure of the amazon in Renaissance literature and in a modern feminist dystopian fantasy novel. By the categories of modern genre fiction, stories of amazons are reasonably counted as historic fantasy, even apart from the consideration of the modern material.