Earliest fanfic?

[rhu]

Among other things on our Manhattan day, H and I spent an hour or so at the NYPL, taking in the portrait gallery on the third floor and the "Mapping NYC" and "Candide at 350" exhibits off the lobby. Well worth it, and one thing from the Candide exhibit that struck me was the placard that described some of the early Candide-inspired derivative works as "among the earliest fan fiction."

First, how awesome is it that the concept of fanfic is mainstream enough that it can be referenced in this way?

Second, it got me wondering what earlier works could be considered fanfic. Was there contemporary fanfic on Shakespeare? Homer? Are midrashim fanfic on the Bible? "Hey, check out this Adam/Lilith slash I found!"

Comments

[gingicat]

Midrashim are absolutely fanfic on the Bible. After all, who's to say what works are divinely inspired?

Here's a fanfic which could well be a modern Midrash: http://archiveofourown.org/works/30449

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

I've frequently heard the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) of the Christian New Testament called fanfic; and just last week someone posted a typical rant at fanficrants that turned out to be aimed at the CNT, as a joke. (Definitely mixed reactions there.)

I've also heard the Greek and Roman mythologies described as fanfic.

Whether those are Real Person Fanfic (RPF) or not depends on your faith. (RPF. Bleh. Not my thing.)

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

But how could Greek and Roman mythologies be "fanfic"? What definitive authorial source are they new stories derived from?

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

In part, that's where the RPF thing comes in; if these figures are real people to you, it's RPF. And fanfic doesn't only seem to apply to definitive authorial sources, at least any more; there are some seriously weird fandoms out there. It seems more to apply to communally developed amateur narratives based on a shared cultural theme of some kind, speaking in just a general sense.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Adam/Lilith wouldn't be slash. It's a het pairing. :P

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Shows what I know. I thought slash just meant non-canon.

So what's the term, if there is one, for non-canonical fanfic sex?

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's a general term for the sex--it's slash, het, or femmeslash. If there's no sex in the story, it's gen.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be much call for a descriptive term beyond the standard gen/het/slash/femslash/poly (though there are subcategories like yaoi and yuri and loli, etc.).

Speaking more broadly, some folk also refer to their chosen pairing as "OTP" (One True Pairing) or refer to themselves as X/Y shippers.

In theme with my prior comment about Christianity-as-fandom, check out the animated icon, keyword "Christianity", here. It amuses me. I would've mentioned it before, but I forgot.

[bourbon-cowboy.livejournal.com]

The earliest fanfic--in anything that resembles the modern version (fiction that people know is fiction that people steal for their own uses)--would have to be Don Quixote, which spawned so many fake and variant versions that Cervantes wrote Part Two just to take control of a creation that had escaped.

That said, it doesn't surprise me at all that Candide inspired similar copying, since you have a fun distinct character, a single clever premise, and a world to explore. I always knew there had to be some other fandoms like this between Don Quixote and Sherlock Holmes.

[bourbon-cowboy.livejournal.com]

Oh, and since Falstaff also escaped off the page and got used in other people's plays, I'd put Shakespeare on the list too. But as far as I know, only Falstaff had this happen to him. (There were dozens of Hamlets out there at the time, but they were all based on the original story, not cribbed off of, or playing deliberate variations on, Shakespeare's version.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed, by John Fletcher, some time between 1604 and 1625 certainly counts as a fanfic. Petruchio is now a widow; Kate died some time before. Petruchio has remarried to Maria -- and she starts using similar tactics on Petruchio as he used on Kate . . . .