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