Literary canon and mashups: encouraging reading through fanfic adaptations

Abstract

In this paper, we address aspects of the production, diffusion, and reception of a relatively recent genre, forged in a cultural and technical environment increasingly familiar to new generations exposed from an early age to the universe of digital productions, which provides and encourages the experimentation and mixing of languages and the desecration of cultural references or canons. From the set of these productions, we dedicate ourselves to the study of literary mashups, specifically those produced from classics of national literature, published in printed form, in an editorial stamp aimed at the young readership. With its analysis, we seek to deduce currently shared representations about reading and the readership targeted by these productions. We can find indications of the profile of this reader in some writing strategies employed in this kind of adaptation, in addition to the books’ cover texts and the advertisement texts that publicize them, combined with the comments of readers, of the informative media and academic texts that evaluated them when the books were published in Brazil. The language used in these fanfic productions and the comments about these mashups place us in front of discourses about literate culture, books and literature, about the role of the school in reader training, and especially about the writing and reading practices of young native readers of digital culture. We articulate in this analysis principles and concepts from Discourse Analysis and Cultural History and the contributions of Brazilian studies dedicated to literary literacy practices in the youth universe.