# Continuator > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Continuator > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Continuator.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuator > Source revision: 1354291634 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|Writer who creates a new work based on someone else's prior text}} {{about|literary continuators|a 'continuator state' in geopolitics|succession of states}} {{More footnotes|date=June 2022}} A '''continuator''', in [literature](/source/literature), is a writer who creates a new work based on someone else's prior text, such as a [novel](/source/novel) or novel fragment. The new work may complete the older work (as with the numerous continuations of [Jane Austen](/source/Jane_Austen)'s unfinished novel ''[Sanditon](/source/Sanditon)''), or may try to serve as a [sequel](/source/sequel) or [prequel](/source/prequel) to the older work (such as [Alexandra Ripley](/source/Alexandra_Ripley)'s ''[Scarlett](/source/Scarlett_(Ripley_novel))'', an authorized continuation of [Margaret Mitchell](/source/Margaret_Mitchell)'s ''[Gone with the Wind](/source/Gone_with_the_Wind_(novel))''). This phenomenon differs from those authors who, because they share a common culture, use characters or themes from a common cultural stock. ==History== The development of [Europe](/source/Europe)an classical literature out of the common stock of oral tradition proved conducive to reworkings, revisions, and [satire](/source/satire)s. Numerous writers of [Greece](/source/Greece)'s golden age revived and reworked stories of the [Trojan War](/source/Trojan_War) and [Greek mythology](/source/Greek_mythology), although they were not strictly continuators as, for the most part, they did not invent or even extrapolate much from the received stories, choosing to alter the tone and treatment rather than the stories. [Latin literature](/source/Latin_literature), on the other hand, may be regarded as systematic continuators of Greek models. The pinnacle of [Augustan literature](/source/Augustan_literature), the ''[Aeneid](/source/Aeneid)'', is essentially a continuation of the ''[Iliad](/source/Iliad)'': not only in that it follows a minor character from his imagined origins in [Troy](/source/Troy) to his founding of [Rome](/source/Rome), but in that it continues a historical ethos. This move, by connecting the Roman empire both culturally and pseudo-historically to the Homeric myth, is commonly viewed as a move by [Virgil](/source/Virgil) to legitimize the Roman empire. For instance, the epic opens with a summary of the progress of Aeneas and his progeny (in [John Dryden](/source/John_Dryden)'s translation): :Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate, :And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate, :Expel'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore. :Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore, :And in the doubtful war, before he won :The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town; :His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine, :And settled sure succession in his line, :From whence the race of Alban fathers come, :And the long glories of majestic Rome. [W. A. Camps](/source/W._A._Camps) expresses this common analysis of Virgil when he writes, "There is more than one reminder in the poem that its hero Aeneas is ancestor of Octavian through the supposed descent of [the Julii](/source/gens_Julia) [i.e., Octavian's family] through Aeneas' son Julius."{{ref|1}} Like their medieval predecessors, [Renaissance](/source/Renaissance) authors drew inspiration from earlier writers. More significantly, the spread of printing, slow increase in literacy, and the development of capitalism conspired to shape a modern concept of text and authorship. In this context, one sees "continuators" in the modern sense: authors either inspired or hired to complete or continue a predecessor's concept. This habit was most noticeable in the most commercialized spheres of literature. [Elizabethan drama](/source/Elizabethan_drama), for example, is full of examples. As an instance of completion, [Francis Godolphin Waldron](/source/Francis_Godolphin_Waldron) completed ''[The Sad Shepherd](/source/The_Sad_Shepherd)'', a late unfinished play by [Ben Jonson](/source/Ben_Jonson). As an instance of sequel-writing, [John Fletcher](/source/John_Fletcher_(playwright))'s ''The Tamer Tamed'' continues and lampoons Shakespeare's ''[The Taming of the Shrew](/source/The_Taming_of_the_Shrew)''. Controversial literature was amenable to such continuations, as evidenced most especially by the [Martin Marprelate](/source/Martin_Marprelate) affair; [Philip Sidney](/source/Philip_Sidney)'s ''[Arcadia](/source/Countess_of_Pembroke's_Arcadia)'' was continued by [Anna Weamys](/source/Anna_Weamys). ==See also== * [Continuation novel](/source/Continuation_novel) * [List of incomplete novels finished by other authors](/source/List_of_incomplete_novels_finished_by_other_authors) *''[Tintin and Alph-Art](/source/Tintin_and_Alph-Art)'' ==Notes== #{{note|1}}Camps, W. A. ''An Introduction to Virgil's Aeneid'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969, 1–2. ==Sources== *Boitani, Piero (1989). ''The European Tragedy of Troilus''. Oxford: Clarendon Press. *Boyle, A. J., ed (1988). ''The Imperial Muse: Ramus Essays on Roman literature of the Empire to Juvenal through Ovid''. Berwick, Australia: Aureal Publications. *Braunmuller, A. R. (1990) "The Arts of the Dramatist." ''Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Drama''. A.R. Braunmuller and Daniel Hattaway, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 53–92. *Cairns, Francis (1989). ''Virgil's Augustan Epic''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Chambers, E. K. (1923). ''The Elizabethan Stage''. 4 vol. Oxford: Clarendon Press. *Clark, Sandra (1994). ''The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher: Sexual Themes and Dramatic Representation''. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. *Greg, W. W. (1905). ''Ben Jonson's The Sad Shepherd, with Francis Waldron's Continuation''. Materialien zur Kunde des älteren englischen dramasche. Louvain: A. Uystpruyst. *Knutson, Roslyn (2001). ''Playing Companies and Commerce in Shakespeare's Time''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Smith, Alden (1997). ''Poetic Allusion and Poetic Embrace in Ovid and Vergil''. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press. *Weamys, Anna (1994). ''A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia''. *Patrick Cullen Colborn, ed. Women Writers in English, 1350–1850. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Category:Fan fiction Category:Narrative forms [pt:Continuador](/source/pt%3AContinuador) --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Continuator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuator) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuator?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.