Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[missdaredevil]

*flights of fancy *are grounded in solid classical tradition

WHat does that mean?

THANKS

[bud]

A "flight of fancy" is something that is a great leap in imagination, but is probably not realsitic. That would be for, say, a political idea or a thought for an invention.

Your quote could possibly be about music. In that case, it would be a piece of music that has a very imaginative part. "Grounded in" means "based upon/on." "Classical tradition" means long established and often-used conventions.

What the quote means to me is that you must know the foundations very well before you can be wildly creative.

(It is sometimes said that good writers often break English rules. They cannot do that without having an enormous foundation in good English. And charicature cartoonists break all the rules of how to draw faces. They need to know how to draw faces correctly before their "violations" will be effective.)