Apocrypha Now
Jul. 3rd, 2003 08:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Leafing through Jacobus de Voragine's 13th C. Legenda Aurea (as one does -- well, if Homer, why not Jacobus? Although, of course, I may be influenced by an upcoming movie starring someone like Orlando as Saint Sebastian and Bernard Hill as John the Baptist.... ok, where was my track?)
Right: Leafing through the Golden Legend, it occurred to me that fanfic is a kind of apocryphal writing.
Okay, no, I lied for rhetorical effect. I had the thought first and then went to the Legend to look for an example.
The Golden Legend and all other apocryphal writings fill in gaps in the Bible. They are called apocryphal because they are not officially approved as God's truth by the Catholic authorities (i.e. they are not canon). But people wrote them because they were fans of the Holy Stories and wanted to know what happened in between the lines.
E.g. they asked themselves: Okay, in the New Testament it says that Jesus was dead for 3 days and then rose on the 3rd. So what did he do while away? Answer: went down to Hell, of course, liberated Adam, Eve, Abraham and other righteous souls and deposited them up above (thus creating the proverbial bosom of Abraham). There are loads of pics of this in Byzantine churches, for example. It's called the Harrowing of Hell.
Now this apocryphal Harrowing of Hell is not so much different from fanfic. Is it?
Fps writer fill in the gaps left in the narrative. Tolkien: The Fellowship took several weeks to reach the Mountains. Fan writers: Hm, what exactly were they doing during all those days and especially nights? Result:
Pure apocrypha.
Except, possibly, that spinning tales about Jesus is more rps than fps. Or isn't it?
So, what I'm saying is, that on one level we are not doing anything radically new or weird at all. Fanfic is everywhere. Another example: When my son was younger, I used to tell him a long and convoluted Odyssee-like story in the car; it went on for years and at intervals I had to incorporate his favourite characters into the plot: Batman, James Bond, Pikachu. What else is this but oral fanfic?
We swim in the interstices of canonic masterplots and weave our own subversive narratives with the silken threads unravelling from their frayed edges.
Right: Leafing through the Golden Legend, it occurred to me that fanfic is a kind of apocryphal writing.
Okay, no, I lied for rhetorical effect. I had the thought first and then went to the Legend to look for an example.
The Golden Legend and all other apocryphal writings fill in gaps in the Bible. They are called apocryphal because they are not officially approved as God's truth by the Catholic authorities (i.e. they are not canon). But people wrote them because they were fans of the Holy Stories and wanted to know what happened in between the lines.
E.g. they asked themselves: Okay, in the New Testament it says that Jesus was dead for 3 days and then rose on the 3rd. So what did he do while away? Answer: went down to Hell, of course, liberated Adam, Eve, Abraham and other righteous souls and deposited them up above (thus creating the proverbial bosom of Abraham). There are loads of pics of this in Byzantine churches, for example. It's called the Harrowing of Hell.
Now this apocryphal Harrowing of Hell is not so much different from fanfic. Is it?
Fps writer fill in the gaps left in the narrative. Tolkien: The Fellowship took several weeks to reach the Mountains. Fan writers: Hm, what exactly were they doing during all those days and especially nights? Result:
Pure apocrypha.
Except, possibly, that spinning tales about Jesus is more rps than fps. Or isn't it?
So, what I'm saying is, that on one level we are not doing anything radically new or weird at all. Fanfic is everywhere. Another example: When my son was younger, I used to tell him a long and convoluted Odyssee-like story in the car; it went on for years and at intervals I had to incorporate his favourite characters into the plot: Batman, James Bond, Pikachu. What else is this but oral fanfic?
We swim in the interstices of canonic masterplots and weave our own subversive narratives with the silken threads unravelling from their frayed edges.