Anyone interested in stories always wonders about their point of origin. So, when was the first peace of fiction created? Not an historical tale, technically, that’s taken to be the truth. I want to know when someone took in a story they knew was a complete fabrication. Where in the world did it finally become okay to take a flight of fancy into our imagination, away from the real world, as brutal as it may have been?
As with most people, my first inclination was to do an online search using Google. I typed in the “first work of fiction” and got The Epic of Gilgamesh. But that can’t be the right answer. The Epic of Gilgamesh was the first recorded story, for sure, but it was based on a king that once lived. That means anyone listening thought they were getting history, not a work of fiction. I had another thought. Didn’t scientists use a technique normally used in genetics to figure out which was the oldest fairy tale in the world? The answer was The Smith and the Devil. Basically, a blacksmith wants to be the best in the world and so is willing to sell his soul to the Devil. He outwits the Devil and gets what he wants without losing anything. Perhaps this story is the first work of fiction? I mean, it’s 7,000 years old and the Devil doesn’t show up in any historical records. Well, not really. Some people do believe in the Devil and therefore, in their minds, they could still be listening to history. In fact, to say it’s fiction because they Devil is in it might be considered sacrilege.
What I’m really looking for is a work of fiction that is accepted by the listeners as a complete work of imagination. That means it’s socially acceptable to use one’s imagination in this way, that they’re willing to listen to a story that isn’t based on any event in the real world. The point of origin is literally the mind. I’m thinking that stories couldn’t be told without religion or history to back them up. Wasn’t it the Hebrews who banned any form of art because of Yahweh? Or, is this a dumb question? Lying is another form of storytelling. And I’m sure that they told some big fat ones back then. So, that’s fiction of sorts. But I’m talking about a society that accepts imaginary works as being okay.
Why is fiction so important anyway? I believe that we live in two worlds: The physical world and the subconscious one. The subconscious realm is a part of the brain that incorporates everything that we know, hear and feel into a set of natural media combined in a way that’s so original it could never be found in the world. This experience is nothing short of psychedelic and many believe we enter a psychedelic state when we dream. For an audience to accept a work of fiction as being completely fabricated means they are willing to accept the imagination as part of regular living. In other words, these images have a place in our world and, that it’s okay to take part in them without guilt or fear. Much like sex used for procreation at first then used for recreation without any bad feelings. Creativity, for some societies, wasn’t always a welcomed guest. Freedom of expression issues. To be able to engage in recreational storytelling does represent a certain social progress towards a society fully accepting its humanness.
I did more research online and looked through some Wikipedia pages. I found one on “speculative fiction” and it listed the very first work of pure fiction to be from Middle Kingdom Egyptian called, The Shipwrecked Sailor. When told, it was known to be a work of fiction, a morality tale designed to give people hope of getting back home should they find trouble out on the sea. This story wasn’t based on an actual person or event. It wasn’t a divine story about creation. I found what I was looking for – at least the online version. I will explore this topic in a university library and get back to you with a more detailed explanation. But for now, the answer is a Middle Kingdom story that’s pretty old and accepted as the first fiction. I knew it would be poetry, mainly because that’s how non-literate societies remembered stories and therefore, the first kind of story they would write down.
I’m skeptical guy, so I know it’s probably not the actual first work of fiction. I think with storytelling one can only look for the earliest possible because no one can really know when the first actually happened. Again, it would need to be on a social level and not interpersonal or even tribal. I’m looking for a significant change that could spread throughout the world. That is how the ancient world operated. Yes, they had their trend-setters too. That’s why every story probably had a giant flood. Once one civilization does it, it wouldn’t be civilized if you didn’t do it too.
All in all, I think you can tell a lot about a society by how much free-imagining is allowed. Take a look at the books you read. Or the movies you watch. How far does our imagination go? Why do we imagine these stories and not others? How does imagination change over time? Which imaginary pieces weren’t allowed a place in our society? Why not? Be inquisitive like me. You’ll find some interesting answers as to why we’ve got these story arcs rather than others. The language of imagination plays a major role in how we define our reality. Reality is after all a kind of dream, when you think about it. But don’t think about it too much, or you’ll miss out on all the fun.