Merry K's great post on fanfiction over at Beth Spera in Domino got me to thinking about the modern view of fanfiction as opposed to original, published fiction. I've always seen fanfiction as inferior to "original" fiction, on principle, but the more I read the less I am inclined to think so. I confess, most of the fanfiction I find is of poor quality (am I just looking in the wrong places?), but I think this is due more to our culture's perception of fanfiction than something inherent in the genre. Nowadays we esteem originality so much that anything derivative is automatically considered poorer work: our copyright laws even prohibit the publishing of most derivative work. But this hasn't always been the case. In the Middle Ages, "originality" as we think of it was unheard of: the structure of their mythical universe was already in place, and all the great works--the Canterbury Tales, the Inferno, Paradise Lost, even Shakespeare's plays--were stories told within that universe. Classics such as the Iliad and the Aeneid were part of the accepted history of the universe, and historians like Geoffrey of Monmouth made it a point to show how their histories were connected with these earlier stories--to prove, in other words, that they were writing a sequel and not merely making up something new. The very fact that their work was "fanfiction", something derived from a great work rather than the invention of a single mind, gave it a higher status in the eyes of both author and reader. Of course it was still possible to write an awful book, but then the quality of a book doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether it's original or derivative.
And just to prove that I'm working from authority and not making up something original, I'll end with two quotes. First from Ezra Pound (whom I don't care for generally): "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different."--But no poet makes something completely new. And then from C.S. Lewis, from his book The Discarded Image, which is all about the Medieval worldview. I've just read it, can you tell?
"I doubt if [the Medieval authors] would have understood our demand for originality or valued those works in their own age which were original any more on that account. If you had asked Layamon or Chaucer 'Why do you not make up a brand-new story of your own?' I think they might have replied (in effect) 'Surely we are not yet reduced to that?' Spin something out of one's own head when the world teems with so many noble deeds, wholesome examples, pitiful tragedies, strange adventures, and merry jests which have never yet been set forth quite so well as they deserve? The originality which we regard as a sign of wealth might have seemed to them a confession of poverty."
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