Review of Scarlett Baron. The Birth of Intertextuality: The Riddle of Creativity. Routledge, 2020. 381 pp. (original) (raw)
Related papers
History and Poetics of Intertextuality
2008
In his book History and Poetics of Intertextuality Marko Juvan argues that intertextuality is constitutive of all textuality and that it may be foregrounded in literary works, genres, or styles such as parody. Juvan surveys the field in order to ground the poetics of intertextuality in the history of its idea and presents its development as general intertextuality (from Kristeva to New Historicism) and citationality (from Genette’s late structuralism to the present text theory). He also discusses the concept’s precursors since Antiquity (imitatio, influence, etc.). In modern times the concept emerged in the 1960s from a radical theory of writing. Based in Derrida’s deconstruction, the notion and practice of intertextuality implied a relational and transformative character of identity, meaning, subject, text, and socio-historical reality. In consequence, the notion gained currency in postmodernist aesthetics while in literary studies it has been transformed from its transgressive content into a detailed descriptive methodology. However, by bringing citationality into focus, practices of intertextuality suggest that literature is an autopoetic system, living on cultural memory, and interacting with other social discourses. The poetics of intertextuality Juvan proposes in his book is based mainly on semiotics and it elucidates factors determining the socio-historically elusive border between general intertextuality and citationality (encyclopaedic literary competence, paratext, etc.). In his analysis Juvan explores modes of intertextual representation. He stresses that in intertextuality pre-texts evoked or re-written in post-texts figure as interpretants of the latter and vice versa. Juvan’s analysis suggests that intertextual derivations and references have become common in literary culture as citational figures and genres.
Inventiveness in Intertextuality
Intertextuality plays a huge role in our lives. It is seemingly inevitable to how we produce and issue a series of judgments toward two particular texts. Not only does it inhere with the way we carry our thoughts but it also governs us upon the way we manifest them, and thus manipulate, those thoughts in a much broader context, such as one's culture in particular, and his civilization in general. However, this paper analyzes how Culler scopes his own definition of intertextuality, which in the end turns out fickle as many theorists concerning the same issue offer their arguments, resulting in a fact that to intertextualize, one is not required to be principally engaged with his own culture but instead with the inventiveness he himself tends to project on the text (or context) he is being absorped into.
International Journal of Literature and Arts, 2023
The aim of the paper is to discuss the operational concepts and theory of intertextuality as a postmodern theory.Postmodern theory is a theory that emerged in the second half of the 1960s. This theory was born as a reaction to modernity and its ideals. By the 1970s, postmodern aesthetics, on which postmodern theory was based, began to be felt in almost every field of art, from architecture to painting, from literature to cinema. Intertextuality seems such a useful term because it foregrounds notions of relationality, interconnectedness, and interdependence in modern cultural life. In the Postmodern epoch, theorists often claim, it is not possible any longer to speak of originality or the uniqueness of the artistic object, be it a painting or novel, since every artistic object is so clearly assembled from bits and pieces of already existent art. An author or poet can use intertextuality deliberately for a variety of reasons. They would probably choose different ways of highlighting intertextuality depending on their intention. They may use references directly or indirectly. They might use a reference to create additional layers of meaning or make a point or place their work within a particular framework. A writer could also use a reference to create humour, highlight an inspiration or even create a reinterpretation of an existing work. The reasons and ways to use intertextuality are so varied that it is worth looking at each example to establish why and how the method was used.
Intertextuality: Definitions and Dimensions
The present article attempts to define intertextuality, an emerging term in literature and delineates its diverse dimensions. It has been derived from the Latin term 'intertexto', which means 'to intermingle while weaving'. Intertextuality has become an influential concept in modern literary theory. It is indeed one of the most leading intellectual terms that dominate contemporary critical theory. Coined and conceptualized by the French neo-structuralist Julia Kristeva in the late 1960s, it has remained a much debated term in literary and cultural studies because of its diverse interpretations. At present, intertextuality "has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva's original version to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence" (Irwin 2004:228). It has been borrowed, transformed and utilized by so many critics and theorists that it is "in danger of meaning nothing more than whatever each particular critic wishes it to mean" (Allen 2000:2). Thus even today, it lacks a universally accepted mainstream definition. However, it can be said that, confounding the realist agenda that art imitates life, intertextuality suggests that art imitates art. It reminds us that texts are instrumental not only in the construction of other texts but in the construction of experiences. ___________________________________________________________________________ Derived from the Latin term intertexto, which means 'to intermingle while weaving', intertextuality promises to be a potent and prominent concept in modern literary theory. It is indeed one of the most influential intellectual terms that dominate contemporary critical theory. Coined and conceptualized by the French neo-structuralist Julia Kristeva in the late 1960s, it has remained a much debated term in literary and cultural studies because of its diverse interpretations. As Daniel Chandler points out, Intertextuality does not seem to be simply a continuum on a single dimension and there does not seem to be a consensus about what dimensions we should be looking for. Intertextuality is not a feature of the text alone but of the 'contract' which reading it forges between its author(s) and reader(s). (Chandler 2002: 141) At present, intertextuality "has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva's original version to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence" (Irwin 2004:228). It has been borrowed, transformed and utilized by so many critics and theorists that it is "in danger of meaning nothing more than whatever each particular critic wishes it to mean" (Allen 2000:2). Thus even today, it lacks a universally accepted mainstream definition. Despite this, there are some commonly shared assumptions and tenets which throw light on this critical concept.
In traditional Chinese literary criticism, textual strategies comparable to intertextuality have governed Chinese critics' and poets' reading and writing about literature throughout the dynasties. Drawing on the intertextual theories of Kristeva and Riffaterre, the paper probes into the phenomenon of sign system-mutations in two highly influential ancient texts: the Confucian Classic of Changes of the fifth century B.C.E. and Liu Xie' s The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, an ars poetica in the third century. The transformation of sign systems from nonverbal to verbal, in the case of the Changes, and from literate to literary or "creative" to "theoretical", in the case of the Dragons, bears witness to the Hjelmslevian reciprocity of object-semiotic and meta-semiotic.
Text/Texts: Interrogating Julia Kristeva's Concept of Intertextaulity
Julia Kristeva's contribution to the notion of intertextuality is immense. She not only coined the word intertextuality but substantially stressed the importance of the potential dynamics that lay within the text. Text is not a unilinear entity but a heterogeneous combination of texts. Any text is at once literary and social, creative and cultural. They are culturally and institutionally fashioned. Most of the ideas that Kristeva puts forward is a rework or revision of Bakhtinian notion of intertextualiy. Bakhtin also held the view point that the text cannot be detached from socio-cultural textuality which is the backdrop in which a text is created. This paper is an attempt to trace and interrogate the various notionsand ideas relating to intertextuality in Kristeva's thought.
That intertextuality has come into vogue in Hebrew Bible scholarship is hardly surprising given some general trends in the field. In fact, the reconstruction of redactional activity and ‘Fortschreibung’ as well as inner-biblical interpretation is heavily dependent on the perception of intertextual relationships. But therein lies the problem. Has the perceived relationship indeed been established by the author of one of the biblical texts in question (aesthetics of production), or does it merely lie in the eye of the beholder (aesthetics of reception)? Comparing two competing claims regarding an intertextual relationship of Josh 2—viz., with Num 13–14 par. Deut 1 or with Num 25:1–5—the present paper develops criteria for identifying and analyzing intertextual relationships within the Hebrew Bible.