An Analysis of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as a Revisonary Work
In The Anxiety of Influence, Harold Bloom describes his theory of poetry by breaking concepts down into six revisionary ratios: clinamen, tessera, kenosis, daemonization, askesis, and apophrades. Each of these explains a way in which poets, or authors, are influenced by existing work, and in turn modify it in their own works. In his analysis of The Dark Knight as a revisionary text, Geoffrey Klock points out that for the authors of comics, past works are even more prevalent, because the events of past works have literally happened to the characters being written. The ways the creators of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse grapple with the past of its titular character align with several of Bloom’s concepts of revision. Though the character of Miles Morales as Spider-Man originated in comic books, for this analysis I will exclusively be looking at the Spider-Verse film, among other reasons because of the wider audience it has reached, and the ways it explicitly recognizes previous works.
Spider-Verse’s premise itself is self-recognizing of the previous work which came before it. The film puts forth the concept that there are a multitude of versions of Spider-Man, each with variation of a version of the story audiences know. The end result is a strange variant of Bloom’s concept of Kenosis, when a work humbles itself as a means to deflate the power of its predecessors. Putting forth the concept of a multiverse of Spider-People in some ways lessens the gravitas of the immediate story in the movie; Mile Morales’ story is not the only one despite its importance. However it does more to lessen the sanctity of the original Spider-Man and to diffuse the power of the story in a way that allows more humble stories to shine through and gain resonance.
The film also by its nature employs what Bloom describes as Daemonization. The story of Miles Morales draws on many of same themes and concepts as the original work, and in doing so the original becomes less unique. Though all recent adaptations of Spider-Man hold the same themes — the line “with great power comes great responsibility” is so well known Spider-Verse makes a joke at its expense, this film is different because the character we see engaging in these struggles is someone new. Rather than just taking a new approach to the original The Amazing Spider-Man comic, this film reimagines who occupies the leading role. Miles Morales being Spider-Man as a black hispanic boy helps to deconstruct the image of the character as exclusively something belonging to a white teenager, even (or especially) when depicted alongside a version of Spider-Man more recognizable as a version of the original. Peter Parker is no longer uniquely has claim to the story.
Most holistically, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse engages in Bloom’s concept of Tessera. The film furthers the work of that which came before it. As much as Spider-Verse removes the sanctity from previous versions of the work, it never dismisses them, in fact they are embraced. The film regards its predecessors as incomplete and builds off of them, it takes the original stories and characters with open arms, and then says “but what if…?” By building off of the stories which inspired it, and by openly acknowledging them, the film embraces its nature as a revisionary work, and proves that comes with its own strength.
