Intertextuality
Encyclopedia
Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva
in 1966. As critic William Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion
and influence
.”
’s semiotics
—his study of how signs
derive their meaning within the structure of a text—with Bakhtin’s dialogism
—his examination of the multiple meanings, or “heteroglossia
”, in each text (especially novels) and in each word. For Kristeva, “the notion of intertextuality replaces the notion of intersubjectivity
” when we realize that meaning is not transferred directly from writer to reader but instead is mediated through, or filtered by, “codes” imparted to the writer and reader by other texts. For example, when we read James Joyce
’s Ulysses
we decode it as a modernist literary experiment, or as a response to the epic tradition, or as part of some other conversation
, or as part of all of these conversations at once. This intertextual view of literature, as shown by Roland Barthes
, supports the concept that the meaning of a text does not reside in the text, but is produced by the reader in relation not only to the text in question, but also the complex network of texts invoked in the reading process.
More recent post-structuralist theory, such as that formulated in Daniela Caselli's Beckett
's Dante
s: Intertextuality in the Fiction and Criticism (MUP 2005), re-examines "intertextuality" as a production within texts, rather than as a series of relationships between different texts. Some postmodern theorists like to talk about the relationship between "intertextuality" and "hypertextuality
"; intertextuality makes each text a "living hell of hell on earth" and part of a larger mosaic of texts, just as each hypertext
can be a web of links and part of the whole World-Wide Web.
One can also make distinctions between the notions of "intertext", "hypertext" and "supertext". Take for example the Dictionary of the Khazars
by Milorad Pavić
. As an intertext it employs quotations from the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions. As a hypertext it consists of links to different articles within itself and also every individual trajectory of reading it. As a supertext it combines male and female versions of itself, as well as three mini-dictionaries in each of the versions.
as an object of literary study while lacking the latter term's clear definition. Linda Hutcheon
argues that excessive interest in intertextuality rejects the role of the author, because intertextuality can be found "in the eye of the beholder" and does not entail a communicator's intentions. By contrast, in A Theory of Parody Hutcheon notes parody
always features an author who actively encodes a text as an imitation with critical difference. However, there have also been attempts at more closely defining different types of intertextuality. The Australian media scholar John Fiske
has made a distinction between what he labels 'vertical' and 'horizontal' intertextuality. Horizontal intertextuality denotes references that are on the 'same level' i.e. when books make references to other books, whereas vertical intertextuality is found when, say, a book makes a reference to film or song or vice versa. Similarly, Linguist Norman Fairclough
distinguishes between 'manifest intertextuality' and 'constitutive intertextuality.' The former signifies intertextual elements such as presupposition, negation, parody , irony, etc. The latter signifies the interrelationship of discursive features in a text, such as structure, form, or genre. Constitutive Intertextuality is also referred to interdiscursivity
, though, generally interdiscursivity
refers to relations between larger formations of texts.
passages quote from the Old Testament
and Old Testament books such as Deuteronomy
or the prophet
s refer to the events described in Exodus (though on using 'intertextuality' to describe the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, see Porter 1997). Whereas a redaction critic would use such intertextuality to argue for a particular order and process of the authorship of the books in question, literary criticism
takes a synchronic view that deals with the texts in their final form, as an interconnected body of literature
. This interconnected body extends to later poems and paintings that refer to Biblical narratives, just as other texts build networks around Greek and Roman Classical
history and mythology. Bullfinch's 1855 work The Age Of Fable served as an introduction to such an intertextual network; according to its author, it was intended "...for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets...".
Sometimes intertextuality is taken as plagiarism
as in the case of Spanish writer Lucía Etxebarria
whose poem collection Estación de infierno (2001) was found to contain metaphors and verses from Antonio Colinas.
Etxebarria claimed that she admired him and applied intertextuality.
Some examples of intertextuality in literature include:
Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, psychoanalyst, sociologist, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who has lived in France since the mid-1960s. She is now a Professor at the University Paris Diderot...
in 1966. As critic William Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion
Allusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
and influence
Influence
Influence may refer to:In science and technology:*Sphere of influence , the region around a celestial body in which it is the primary gravitational influence on orbiting objects...
.”
Intertextuality and poststructuralism
Kristeva’s coinage of “intertextuality” represents an attempt to synthesize Ferdinand de SaussureFerdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
’s semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
—his study of how signs
Sign (semiotics)
A sign is understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics. It is defined as "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity" It includes words, images, gestures, scents, tastes, textures, sounds – essentially all of the ways in which information can be...
derive their meaning within the structure of a text—with Bakhtin’s dialogism
Dialogic
The English terms dialogic and dialogism often refer to the concept used by the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin in his work of literary theory, The Dialogic Imagination. Bakhtin contrasts the dialogic and the "monologic" work of literature. The dialogic work carries on a continual dialogue...
—his examination of the multiple meanings, or “heteroglossia
Heteroglossia
The term heteroglossia describes the coexistence of distinct varieties within a single "linguistic code". In Greek hetero = different + glōssa = tongue, language...
”, in each text (especially novels) and in each word. For Kristeva, “the notion of intertextuality replaces the notion of intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity is a term used in philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology to describe a condition somewhere between subjectivity and objectivity, one in which a phenomenon is personally experienced but by more than one subject....
” when we realize that meaning is not transferred directly from writer to reader but instead is mediated through, or filtered by, “codes” imparted to the writer and reader by other texts. For example, when we read James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
’s Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
we decode it as a modernist literary experiment, or as a response to the epic tradition, or as part of some other conversation
Conversation
Conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication between two or more people who are following rules of etiquette.Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational...
, or as part of all of these conversations at once. This intertextual view of literature, as shown by Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...
, supports the concept that the meaning of a text does not reside in the text, but is produced by the reader in relation not only to the text in question, but also the complex network of texts invoked in the reading process.
More recent post-structuralist theory, such as that formulated in Daniela Caselli's Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
s: Intertextuality in the Fiction and Criticism (MUP 2005), re-examines "intertextuality" as a production within texts, rather than as a series of relationships between different texts. Some postmodern theorists like to talk about the relationship between "intertextuality" and "hypertextuality
Hypertextuality
Hypertextuality is a postmodern theory of the inter-connectedness of all literary works and their interpretation.The prefix 'hyper' is derived from the Greek 'above, beyond or outside'...
"; intertextuality makes each text a "living hell of hell on earth" and part of a larger mosaic of texts, just as each hypertext
Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
can be a web of links and part of the whole World-Wide Web.
One can also make distinctions between the notions of "intertext", "hypertext" and "supertext". Take for example the Dictionary of the Khazars
Dictionary of the Khazars
Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel is the first novel by Serbian writer Milorad Pavić, published in 1984. Originally written in Serbian, the novel has been translated into many languages...
by Milorad Pavić
Milorad Pavic (writer)
Milorad Pavić was a Serbian poet, prose writer, translator, and literary historian. He was also a candidate for Nobel Prize in Literature....
. As an intertext it employs quotations from the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions. As a hypertext it consists of links to different articles within itself and also every individual trajectory of reading it. As a supertext it combines male and female versions of itself, as well as three mini-dictionaries in each of the versions.
'Intertextuality' and competing terms
Some critics have complained that the ubiquity of the term "intertextuality" in postmodern criticism has crowded out related terms and important nuances. Irwin (227) laments that intertextuality has eclipsed allusionAllusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
as an object of literary study while lacking the latter term's clear definition. Linda Hutcheon
Linda Hutcheon
Linda Hutcheon, O.C. is a Canadian academic working in the fields of literary theory and criticism, opera, and Canadian Studies. Hutcheon describes her herself as "intellectually promiscuous", as she brings a cross-disciplinary approach to her work She is University Professor in the Department of...
argues that excessive interest in intertextuality rejects the role of the author, because intertextuality can be found "in the eye of the beholder" and does not entail a communicator's intentions. By contrast, in A Theory of Parody Hutcheon notes parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
always features an author who actively encodes a text as an imitation with critical difference. However, there have also been attempts at more closely defining different types of intertextuality. The Australian media scholar John Fiske
John Fiske
John Fiske was an American philosopher and historian.-Biography:John Fiske was born Edmund Fiske Green at Hartford, Connecticut, March 30, 1842. He was the only child of Edmund Brewster Green, of Smyrna, Delaware, and Mary Fiske Bound, of Middletown, Connecticut...
has made a distinction between what he labels 'vertical' and 'horizontal' intertextuality. Horizontal intertextuality denotes references that are on the 'same level' i.e. when books make references to other books, whereas vertical intertextuality is found when, say, a book makes a reference to film or song or vice versa. Similarly, Linguist Norman Fairclough
Norman Fairclough
Norman Fairclough is emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Lancaster University. He is one of the founders of critical discourse analysis as applied to sociolinguistics. CDA is concerned with how power is exercised through language...
distinguishes between 'manifest intertextuality' and 'constitutive intertextuality.' The former signifies intertextual elements such as presupposition, negation, parody , irony, etc. The latter signifies the interrelationship of discursive features in a text, such as structure, form, or genre. Constitutive Intertextuality is also referred to interdiscursivity
Interdiscourse
Interdiscourse is the implicit or explicit relations that a discourse has to other discourses. Interdiscursivity is the aspect of a discourse that relates it to other discourses. Norman Fairclough prefers the concept "orders of discourse". Interdiscursivity is often mostly an analytic concept, e.g....
, though, generally interdiscursivity
Interdiscourse
Interdiscourse is the implicit or explicit relations that a discourse has to other discourses. Interdiscursivity is the aspect of a discourse that relates it to other discourses. Norman Fairclough prefers the concept "orders of discourse". Interdiscursivity is often mostly an analytic concept, e.g....
refers to relations between larger formations of texts.
Examples and history of intertextuality
While the theoretical concept of intertextuality is associated with post-modernism, the device itself is not new. New TestamentNew Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
passages quote from the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
and Old Testament books such as Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy
The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...
or the prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
s refer to the events described in Exodus (though on using 'intertextuality' to describe the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, see Porter 1997). Whereas a redaction critic would use such intertextuality to argue for a particular order and process of the authorship of the books in question, literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
takes a synchronic view that deals with the texts in their final form, as an interconnected body of literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
. This interconnected body extends to later poems and paintings that refer to Biblical narratives, just as other texts build networks around Greek and Roman Classical
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
history and mythology. Bullfinch's 1855 work The Age Of Fable served as an introduction to such an intertextual network; according to its author, it was intended "...for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets...".
Sometimes intertextuality is taken as plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
as in the case of Spanish writer Lucía Etxebarria
Lucía Etxebarría
Lucía Etxebarría de Asteinza is a Spanish writer. She was born in Valencia in 1966, of Basque parents as her name suggests, the youngest of seven children. The Basque surname Etxebarria has no diacritics, although its Spanish version Echevarría has...
whose poem collection Estación de infierno (2001) was found to contain metaphors and verses from Antonio Colinas.
Etxebarria claimed that she admired him and applied intertextuality.
Some examples of intertextuality in literature include:
- East of Eden (1952) by John SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
: A retelling of the story of Genesis, set in the Salinas Valley of Northern California. - UlyssesUlysses (novel)Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
(1918) by James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
: A retelling of Homer's OdysseyOdysseyThe Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
, set in Dublin. - The Dead Fathers Club (2006) by Matt HaigMatt HaigMatt Haig is a British novelist and journalist.-Biography:Haig was born in Sheffield. As a journalist, he collaborated with The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Face....
: A retelling of Shakespeare's HamletHamletThe Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, set in modern England. - A Thousand AcresA Thousand AcresA Thousand Acres is a 1991 novel by American author Jane Smiley. It won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1991 and was adapted to a 1997 film of the same name....
(1991) by Jane SmileyJane SmileyJane Smiley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.-Biography:Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained an A.B. at Vassar College, then earned an M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the...
: A retelling of Shakespeare's King LearKing LearKing Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
, set in rural Iowa. - PerelandraPerelandraPerelandra is the second book in the Space Trilogy of C. S. Lewis, set in the Field of Arbol...
(1943) by C. S. LewisC. S. LewisClive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
: Another retelling of the story of Genesis, also leaning on Milton's Paradise LostParadise LostParadise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
, but set on the planet Venus. - The Legend of Bagger VanceThe Legend of Bagger VanceThe Legend of Bagger Vance is a 2000 American film directed by Robert Redford and starring Will Smith, Matt Damon and Charlize Theron. It is based on the 1995 book of the same title by Steven Pressfield and takes place in the U.S. state of Georgia in 1931...
(1996) by Steven PressfieldSteven PressfieldSteven Pressfield is an American novelist and author of screenplays, principally of military historical fiction set in classical antiquity...
: A retelling of the Bhagavad Gita, set in 1931 during an epic golf game. - Tortilla FlatTortilla FlatTortilla Flat is an early John Steinbeck novel set in Monterey, California. The novel was the author's first clear critical and commercial success....
(1935) by John SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
: A retelling of the Arthurian legends, set in Monterey, CA during the interwar period. - The Anger of Achilles Peterson (2011) by Craig Janacek: A retelling of Homer's IliadIliadThe Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
, set in 1927 during an epic professional basketball playoff series.
Works cited
- Agger, Gunhild Intertextuality Revisited: Dialogues and Negotiations in Media Studies. Canadian Journal of Aesthetics, 4, 1999.
- Griffig, Thomas. Intertextualität in linguistischen Fachaufsätzen des Englischen und Deutschen (Intertextuality in English and German Linguistic Research Articles). Frankfurt a.M. et al.: Lang, 2006.
- Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms. New York: Methuen, 1985.
- Irwin, William.
Against Intertextuality . Philosophy and Literature, v28, Number 2, October 2004, pp. 227–242. - Kristeva, Julia. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.
- Pasco, Allan H. Allusion: A Literary Graft. 1994. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 2002.
- Porter, Stanley E. "The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament: A Brief Comment on Method and Terminology." In Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals (eds. C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders; JSNTSup 14; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 79-96.
See also
- Literary theoryLiterary theoryLiterary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of...
- Post-structuralismPost-structuralismPost-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
- SemioticsSemioticsSemiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
- Umberto EcoUmberto EcoUmberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
- MetaMetaMeta- , is a prefix used in English to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter....
- Transmedia storytellingTransmedia storytellingTransmedia storytelling, also known as multi-platform storytelling, cross-platform storytelling, or transmedia narrative, is the technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies...
- HonkadoriHonkadoriIn Japanese poetry, is an allusion within a poem, to an older poem which would be generally recognized by its potential readers. Honkadori possesses qualities of yūgen and in Japanese art. The concept emerged in the 12th century during the Kamakura period...