维基百科 互文性

Intertextuality

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to:

navigation

,

search

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

poststructuralistJulia 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 ori

ginal vision to those who simply use it as a

stylish way of talking about

allusion

and

infl uence

.‖

[1]

Contents

[

hide

]

?

?

?

?

?

1 Intertextuality and poststructuralism

2 'Intertextuality' and competing terms

3 Examples and history of intertextuality

4 References

o

4.1 Works cited

5 See also

[

edit

]Intertextuality and poststructuralism

Kristeva’s coinage of ―intertextuality‖ represents an attempt to synthesize

Ferdinand

de Saussure

’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.

[2]

For

Kristeva,

[3]

―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 wri

ter 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

Dantes

: Intertextuality in the Fiction and Criticism

(MUP 2005),

re-examines

relationships between different texts. Some postmodern theorists

[4]

like to talk about

the relationship between

hyp ertextuality

each text a

[5]

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

Dictionary of the Khazars

by

Milorad Pavi

?

. 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.

[

edit

]'Intertextuality' and competing terms

Some critics have complained that the ubiquity of the term

postmodern criticism has crowded out related terms and important nuances. Irwin

(227) laments that intertextuality has eclipsed

allusion

as an object of literary study

while lacking the latter term's clear definition.

[6]

Linda Hutcheon

argues that excessive

interest in intertextuality rejects the role of the author, because intertextuality can be

found

contrast, in

A Theory of Parody

Hutcheon notes

parody

always features an author who

actively encodes a text as an imitation with critical difference.

[7]

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.

[

citation needed

]

Similarly, Linguist

Norman Fairclough

distinguishes between

'manifest intertextuality' and 'constitutive intertextuality.'

[8]

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

,

[9]

though,

generally

interdiscursivity

refers to relations between larger formations of texts.

[

edit

]Examples and history of intertextuality

While the theoretical concept of intertextuality is associated with

post- modernism

, the

device itself is not new.

New Testament passages quote from the Old Testament and

Old Testament books such as Deuteronomy or the prophets refer to the events

described in Exodus (though on using 'intertextuality' to describe the use of the Old