Prescriptivists vs. Descriptivists: Defining Steampunk
2011; Volume: 38; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.5621/sciefictstud.38.3.0513
ISSN2327-6207
Autores Tópico(s)Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies
ResumoThere was a time, not so long ago, when the definition of steampunk was generally agreed upon. As late as 2005, F. Brett Cox’s entry in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy defined steampunk in essentially the same way as Peter Nicholls did in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993), whose definition was little changed from K.W. Jeter’s coining of the term in a letter published in the April 1987 issue of Locus magazine to refer to his “gonzo-historical” explorations of “Victorian fantasies” and alternative technologies (57). How things have changed. As of summer 2011, the term has become an intense semantic and philosophical battleground, albeit one whose combatants have little time for or interest in their opponents. The combatants are the prescriptivists, who maintain that only the Jeter/Nicholls definition is the correct one, and the descriptivists, whose preferred definition of the term is far broader than Jeter/Nicholls and reflects its current (shambolic) status rather than its past (traditional) use. The descriptivists are winning. “Steampunk” appears as a designation for everything from the Western-flavored space opera Firefly (2005) to pseudoEdwardian colonialist high adventure anime, from the industrial dance music of the band Abney Park to the current alternative fashion of mock-Victorian clothing. The struggle between the descriptivists and the prescriptivists is by no means over—at the moment steampunk is a fad, but once the faddists move on, steampunk will in all likelihood return to being primarily a literary category. Until then, steampunk will remain a catch-all term without an agreed-upon definition, and thus a term of little critical utility. The articles and books reviewed here reflect this lack of consensus and clarity. Steampunk Prime is thoroughly traditional, as befits its late-nineteenthand early-twentieth-century contents. The authors of the articles in the special issue of Neo-Victorian Studies only partially accept the developments of the past six years and are as much traditional, and prescriptivist, as they are descriptivist. Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded firmly embraces the descriptivist position. In the foreword to Steampunk Prime, Paul di Filippo perhaps wisely avoids any attempt at defining steampunk, instead portraying it as a kind of cadet branch of mainstream science fiction—the 2010s version of the New Wave and
Referência(s)