Sanctions and Strategies of Control

Abstract

Chapter 4 examines the ways in which authors, publishers, and critics punished violations of the customary norms that governed the production and dissemination of fan fiction in eighteenth-century Germany. Sanctions included official complaints, advertisements, negative reviews, and literary and personal attacks—norms that scholars refer to as public shaming or truthful negative gossip. This chapter then examines the effectiveness of these mechanisms and their wider fallout. In some instances the sanctions motivated third parties, like the famous engraver Chodowiecki, to refuse to deal with perpetrator authors. In other cases, the sanctions inspired the creation of memorable texts, like Goethe’s ribald poem, “Nicolai at Werther’s Grave.” Authors’ critical notes in prefaces, footnotes, and the texts themselves were among the most common form of sanction. Traces of these enforcement mechanisms linger in the texts we read today, long after the censured fan fiction has disappeared from our collective memory. This chapter concludes by analyzing additional strategies authors used to maintain exclusive control over the characters they invented, offering a new explanation for familiar practices in the book trade, such as the practice of announcing the final volume of a novel and soliciting reader feedback for ongoing works.