SecrecyCuriosityand the Sacrilage of fiction

Lecture in Contemporary English Literatures

University of Silesia

Marcin Sarnek

Dan Brown The DaVinci Code

• Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood, Holy Grail

• I must pass on the secret • "All descriptions of

artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate"

Secret – Sacred

• secenere, lat, sift apart, to separate as with a sieve

• secrecy – calculated exclusion form participation• experience and practice of secrecy elevates the

secret• secret – sacred – privacy• secrecy highlights the value of all revelations• protection and distribution of secrets – power• dissemination of information: sociology of

secrecy - sociology of curiosity• secrets – truth – deception – lying

Dan Brown The DaVinci Code

• Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood, Holy Grail

• I must pass on the secret • "All descriptions of

artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate"

Secret - Truth

• more fiction than facts • exposition of the secret – sacrilage• Passion of the Christ / The Da Vinci Code• secrets have to remain secret to be secret • telephone• an interplay of the thrill of desecrating

defacement with the horror of blasphemy• energy liberated by acts of sacrilege • literary semi-sacrilege

Robert Harris, Enigma, 1995

• Enigma, 2001, directed by Michael Apted, screenplay by Tom Stoppard