![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
May. 28th, 2012 06:55 pmI spotted an in-joke on the second viewing of 'A Scandal in Belgravia' - green_trilobite says he got it on the first take: the hits counter on John H. Watson's blog is always 1895.
This got me to thinking about fanfiction. I've recently been leaning towards a definition of fanfic as "any work that depends on the readers'/viewer's knowledge of an earlier work." For the purposes of this argument I have to exclude sequels, serial and interrelated works by the same artist: Anne of Avonlea is not a fanfic of Anne of Green Gables, for instance. Ulysses is not a fanfic of Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, but it is a fanfic of The Odyssey. Actually, that last bit is true in practical terms as well - if you want to be less confused by Ulysses, reading Portrait beforehand will help a little, but knowing some version of The Odyssey will help more.
As you can see, by the definition I'm pushing for, a lot of literature is fanfic of mythology.
This got me thinking about Lewis' Till We Have Faces - at first I considered it a Cupid/Psyche fanfic, but it's a sufficiently complete and coherent story that it would make sense, I think, to a reader who'd never encountered the myth; so I think "adaptation" must be a different thing from "fanfic;" even if it's an adaptation that picks an untraditional PoV character.
This brings me back to Sherlock - I'm not sure if it's fanfic or adaptation or both. I suspect it would make sense as a detective show even to those who haven't read the original (which is likely part of its popularity); but there are so many in-jokes for the long-time fans, and this last one wasn't even an allusion to cannon, but to a sonnet which is definitely fanfic: '221B' never identifies anyone by name, but depends on the reader's recognition of an address and a quote.
Adaptation with loads of fanservice, perhaps.
This got me to thinking about fanfiction. I've recently been leaning towards a definition of fanfic as "any work that depends on the readers'/viewer's knowledge of an earlier work." For the purposes of this argument I have to exclude sequels, serial and interrelated works by the same artist: Anne of Avonlea is not a fanfic of Anne of Green Gables, for instance. Ulysses is not a fanfic of Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, but it is a fanfic of The Odyssey. Actually, that last bit is true in practical terms as well - if you want to be less confused by Ulysses, reading Portrait beforehand will help a little, but knowing some version of The Odyssey will help more.
As you can see, by the definition I'm pushing for, a lot of literature is fanfic of mythology.
This got me thinking about Lewis' Till We Have Faces - at first I considered it a Cupid/Psyche fanfic, but it's a sufficiently complete and coherent story that it would make sense, I think, to a reader who'd never encountered the myth; so I think "adaptation" must be a different thing from "fanfic;" even if it's an adaptation that picks an untraditional PoV character.
This brings me back to Sherlock - I'm not sure if it's fanfic or adaptation or both. I suspect it would make sense as a detective show even to those who haven't read the original (which is likely part of its popularity); but there are so many in-jokes for the long-time fans, and this last one wasn't even an allusion to cannon, but to a sonnet which is definitely fanfic: '221B' never identifies anyone by name, but depends on the reader's recognition of an address and a quote.
Adaptation with loads of fanservice, perhaps.
