What I'm trying to get at is that the medieval audience had a different view on what fiction could and could not be. Building a world for the sake of creation is something we can understand (it is something I would enjoy doing if I had more time), but they wouldn't. They would need some additional element to justify the fiction.
Take the reception of Ovid's stories in the Middle Ages. Sometimes they would be read "as is" in schools, in this case to study Latin. No doubt the students enjoyed these tales, but they would not have created something like this themselves, and they probably would not have been exposed to the unaltered sources if it weren't for their language learning benefits.
Ovid was also disseminated in wider circles, for example as the "Ovide Moralise". These editions follow a certain pattern: first, a modified version of the story is told. Then, the author says: "you have read this weird story, now this is what is means", and then he will go on explicitly mentioning the Christian values or truths each character represents in his modified story, and the lesson that can be learned.
In the Marco Polo example, he was actually travelling. That there were fantastical elements is probably unavoidable, and will certainly have added to the appeal. But there was nothing wrong with learning about the world and distant lands.
My point is that inventing a world simply for the sake of inventing was a foreign concept in the early 15th century. There is always a higher purpose.
Edit: just to add, there was a period in television when some shows still justified their existence by weaving in moral threads. When I was a kid, there would often be reruns of shows like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air on tv, and I was surprised by how often there was an explicit moral message. Will Smith would first display wrong behavior, and then he'd get a lecture at the end. Not to mention shows like 7th Heaven. So the thought that proper fiction educates is not entirely of the past.
Take the reception of Ovid's stories in the Middle Ages. Sometimes they would be read "as is" in schools, in this case to study Latin. No doubt the students enjoyed these tales, but they would not have created something like this themselves, and they probably would not have been exposed to the unaltered sources if it weren't for their language learning benefits.
Ovid was also disseminated in wider circles, for example as the "Ovide Moralise". These editions follow a certain pattern: first, a modified version of the story is told. Then, the author says: "you have read this weird story, now this is what is means", and then he will go on explicitly mentioning the Christian values or truths each character represents in his modified story, and the lesson that can be learned.
In the Marco Polo example, he was actually travelling. That there were fantastical elements is probably unavoidable, and will certainly have added to the appeal. But there was nothing wrong with learning about the world and distant lands.
My point is that inventing a world simply for the sake of inventing was a foreign concept in the early 15th century. There is always a higher purpose.
Edit: just to add, there was a period in television when some shows still justified their existence by weaving in moral threads. When I was a kid, there would often be reruns of shows like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air on tv, and I was surprised by how often there was an explicit moral message. Will Smith would first display wrong behavior, and then he'd get a lecture at the end. Not to mention shows like 7th Heaven. So the thought that proper fiction educates is not entirely of the past.
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