The Transformation of the Canon, the Struggle With the Canon, the Re-creation of the Canon as the Basis of Fanfiction Culture

Abstract

To understand the transformation of canons and the struggle with them, we may productively explore fanfiction, a particular reader's, viewer's, and author's practice, within non-professional and non-commercial texts based on the plots and heroes of other people's works. Fanfiction is a paradoxical phenomenon: it is wholly based on a specific canon — collectively selected film and literary texts, moves by worship, emotional attachment, and attention, while initially working as a criticism of the canons and changing the canons. Canon is not only a research concept but also an intra-cultural designation of the original work as the basis of a fan text. Fans also create their canon — “fanon”, a set of characteristic plot solutions and ways to change characters established in fanfiction. The article examines the intersections of the cultural canon of high and popular culture, the national literary canon, and the canon and the fanon in the understanding of fans with different types of attitudes to the canons — disintegration, transformation, struggle, re-creation. The argument is based on a critical analysis of the research literature with a focus on metaphors that help authors describe the relationship of fiction writers with the canons and on the experience of empirical research about fanfiction devoted to samples of popular culture (“Harry Potter” franchise, “Doctor Who” series, “Sherlock” series, and others), fanfiction and sequels to novels by Jane Austen, the British writer of the 19th century, and fanfiction devoted to Russian classical literature.