The Fantastic is a literary term that describes a quality of other literary genres, and, in some cases, is used as a genre in and of itself, although in this case it is often conflated with the Supernatural. The term was originated in the structuralist theory of critic Tzvetan Todorov in his work The Fantastic. He describes the fantastic as being the hesitation of characters and readers when presented with questions about reality.

The fantastic genre can be subtly seen in works where the reader has a sense of confusion about the work and whether or not the described phenomenon was real. Todorov states that this genre never solely encompasses a novel as the ending always drives the hesitation towards one of two decisions which he titles as the uncanny or the marvelous. The uncanny, wherein the phenomenon turns out to have a rational explanation such as in the Gothic works of Ann Radcliffe; or the marvelous, where there truly is a supernatural explanation for the phenomenon:

The fantastic requires the fulfillment of three conditions. First, the text must oblige the reader to consider the world of the characters as a world of living persons and to hesitate between a natural or supernatural explanation of the events described. Second, this hesitation may also be experienced by a character; thus the reader's role is so to speak entrusted to a character, and at the same time the hesitation is represented, it becomes one of the themes of the work -- in the case of naive reading, the actual reader identifies himself with the character. Third, the reader must adopt a certain attitude with regard to the text: he will reject allegorical as well as "poetic" interpretations.

Charles Joseph John "Joe" Hart (born 19 April 1987) is an English football goalkeeper who plays for Premier League club Manchester City and the England national football team and was previously a regular for the England under-21 team. Having made his competitive international debut in September 2010, Hart is now recognised as England's first choice goalkeeper.

Hart was nominated for the PFA Young Player of the Year in 2010 but lost out to eventual new team-mate at Manchester City, James Milner but was voted as the Premier League goalkeeper of the 2009–10 season in recognition of his performances at Birmingham City. He returned to Manchester City for the 2010–11 season and won the Barclays Golden Glove for keeping the most clean sheets throughout the Premier League season, an award he received again in the 2011-12 season.

Hart was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire to Charles and Louise Hart , and attended Oxon Primary School, followed by Meole Brace School Science College in Shrewsbury, where he was Head Boy in his final year. Whilst he was still a Year 11 pupil at the school, he travelled with the first team squad of his hometown club, Shrewsbury Town, to Exeter City on 1 February 2003. He was a non-playing substitute on that occasion and fulfilled that role again versus Rochdale at Gay Meadow on 1 March 2003, still some six weeks short of his 16th birthday. This match yielded Shrewsbury's final victory in a season that culminated in relegation to the Conference. During the one season that Shrewsbury spent in the Conference, Hart made his senior debut on 20 April 2004, a day after his 17th birthday. He played the full 90 minutes in the match against Gravesend & Northfleet. Four days later, he conceded three at Morecambe.