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Fandom as Ekphrasis: One Man’s Contention
What are the bounds of ekphrasis? How far can one describe or elucidate upon a work of art in another work of art? Where do the lines between ekphrasis and reference and inspiration and homage lie? I propose that these lines are actually quite muddied, and that an arena like fanwork not only encompasses, but seeks to embellish, all that muddied territory.
Ekphrasis, in simple terms, is a form of art created about another work of art. Of course, given the relative simplicity of the concept, what makes an ekphrastic work and what makes an ekphrastic work effective covers a broad swath. My personal proclamation about ekphrasis is that it should not only provide a description of what the subjected work of art is (whether that be literature, visual art, music, film, etc.), but also an additional layer above or below the description (supertext or subtext, if you will). What the ekphrasis communicates are ideas, thoughts, and/or emotions through the vehicle of its subject, and, if an ekphrasis is effective, will simulate what it feels like to experience the subject to begin with.
To consider fanwork as ekphrasis, we must ask the following questions: is it considered ekphrasis if it does not contain a direct description of the original work, or if it exists within the bounds of the work and does not include an outside observer drawing conclusions about the work? Is meta, a fandom term meaning detailed analysis of the work or of a particular aspect of the work, ekphrasis? Where is the line between artful analysis and ekphrasis? Can fandom as a whole be considered collective ekphrasis, especially if the fandom is so active and collaborative that fanon (aspects that are not stated in the original work but are largely accepted as “true” by the fandom) is created? Even if one is not fully invested in the idea of fandom as a fruitful creative space like I am, I think these are useful questions to ask about ekphrasis, as they draw attention to the aforementioned “muddied territory” that ekphrasis can trespass into. These tricky lines within fandom are perhaps the most generative areas of creating work derived from other work.
Of course, I write this essay to assert the affirmative — to me, fanwork is ekphrasis as it does exactly what I believe effective ekphrasis does. Fanfiction, fanart, fan comics, and other transformative work is often deeply personal, forging avenues in which creators can talk about themselves or their thoughts/emotions through the vehicle of the original work, which tends to be the catalyst of said thoughts/emotions to begin with. A moving piece of fanwork, just like ekphrasis, is capable of transmitting what it felt like to experience the original work and to move through its themes, arcs, and narrative, which can of course vary by creator and viewer. To use myself as example, much of my fanfiction was written precisely because I was left with questions about characters or plots that I wished to continue exploring in my own words, and fanfiction became an arena in which I could expand upon small details that obsessed me while I experienced the original work. Fanwork can sometimes even result in its own ekphrasis — a collaborative space like fandom means that creators are often building upon others’ ideas, resulting in a chain effect where completely new and fresh works can be generated from a single origin point.
One of the most notable microcosms of “fandom as ekphrasis” is, in my opinion, Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red (and indeed, Carson is a queen of ekphrasis, using her frightening breadth of cultural knowledge to create entirely original works of her own). Most readers will remember the “novel in verse” that comprises the majority of Red, but she precedes the novel with a series of essays and poems-as-essays, as well as her own translation of the Geryoneis fragments. The essays put forth her arguments about Geryoneis poet Stesichorus’s reinvention on Homeric poetry, and ruminate on Stesichorus’s own mythmaking. These layered analyses (“meta,” if you will) provide a framework for how one should read the incoming novel, while her translated fragments familiarize us with the “plot points” and imagery that she remixes in her own take on the epic poem, which all fanwork aims to do. Indeed, I felt the same excitement that I do when I read fanfiction when I recognized the poppy imagery from the translated fragments reappearing many pages later in a different context, used to underscore the emotional weight during a moment between Geryon and Heracles. Murder transformed to a romantic blight. The idea of “reinterpreting facts” and an instability of historical truth arise in the earlier poems-as-essays as well, forming a thematic backbone of the book (and one of its many theses). Such are the resulting effects of satisfying ekphrasis — and, of course, fanwork.