{"id":737,"date":"2009-07-30T07:29:02","date_gmt":"2009-07-30T07:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paulj.myzen.co.uk\/blog\/spheres\/?page_id=737"},"modified":"2020-08-22T13:07:24","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T13:07:24","slug":"intertextuality","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.paulj.myzen.co.uk\/blog\/teaching\/reinventions\/lectures\/intertextuality\/","title":{"rendered":"0: Intertextuality"},"content":{"rendered":"
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‘A text is … a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations … The writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them.’ (Barthes, 1977)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This quotation, taken from The Death of the Author<\/a>, by the French semiotician <\/a>

From the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica:<\/b> (born Nov. 12, 1915,\u00a0Cherbourg<\/a>, France<\/a>\u2014died March 25, 1980,\u00a0Paris<\/a>),\u00a0French essayist and social and literary critic whose writings on semiotics<\/a>, the formal study of symbols and signs pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure<\/a>, helped establish structuralism<\/a> and the New Criticism<\/a> as leading intellectual movements.\n

Barthes studied at the University of Paris, where he took a degree in classical letters in 1939 and in grammar and philology<\/a> in 1943. After working (1952\u201359) at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, he was appointed to the \u00c9cole Pratique des Hautes \u00c9tudes. In 1976 he became the first person to hold the chair of literary semiology at the Coll\u00e8ge de France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His first book, <\/a>Le Degr\u00e9 z\u00e9ro de l\u2019\u00e9criture<\/em> (1953; Writing Degree Zero<\/a><\/em>), was a literary manifesto that examined the arbitrariness of the constructs of language<\/a>. In subsequent books\u2014including Mythologies<\/a><\/em> (1957), Essais critiques<\/em> (1964; Critical Essays<\/em>), and La Tour Eiffel<\/em> (1964; The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies<\/em>)\u2014he applied the same critical apparatus to the \u201cmythologies\u201d (i.e.,<\/em> the hidden assumptions) behind popular cultural phenomena from advertising and fashion to the Eiffel Tower and wrestling. His <\/a>Sur Racine<\/em> (1963; On Racine<\/a><\/em>) set off a literary furor in France, pitting Barthes against traditional academics who thought this \u201cnew criticism,\u201d which viewed texts as a system of signs, was desecrating the classics. Even more radical was S\/Z<\/em> (1970), a line-by-line semiological analysis of a short story by Honor\u00e9 de Balzac in which Barthes stressed the active role of the reader in constructing a narrative based on \u201ccues\u201d in the text.<\/p>\n

Barthes\u2019s literary style, which was always stimulating though sometimes eccentric and needlessly obscure, was widely imitated and parodied. Some thought his theories contained brilliant insights, while others regarded them simply as perverse contrivances. But by the late 1970s Barthes\u2019s intellectual stature was virtually unchallenged, and his theories had become extremely influential not only in France but throughout Europe and in the United States<\/a>. Other leading radical French thinkers who influenced or were influenced by him included the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan<\/a>, socio-historian Michel Foucault<\/a>, and philosopher Jacques Derrida<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two of Barthes\u2019s later books established his late-blooming reputation as a stylist and writer. He published an \u201cantiautobiography,\u201d Roland Barthes<\/a> par Roland Barthes<\/em> (1975; Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes<\/em>), and his Fragments d\u2019un discours amoureux<\/em> (1977; A Lover\u2019s Discourse<\/em>), an account of a painful love affair, was so popular it quickly sold more than 60,000 copies in France. Barthes died at the age of 64 from injuries suffered after being struck by an automobile. Several posthumous collections of his writings have been published, including A Barthes Reader <\/em>(1982), edited by his friend and admirer Susan Sontag<\/a>, and <\/a>Incidents<\/em> (1987). The latter volume revealed Barthes\u2019s homosexuality, which he had not publicly acknowledged. Barthes\u2019s Oeuvres compl\u00e8tes<\/em> (\u201cComplete Works\u201d) were published in three volumes in 1993\u201395.<\/p><\/div>, captures the notion that texts exist – if they exist at all – as a complex network of the inter-relations of previously made material, reinterpreted, not just by the author, but also by the reader.<\/p>\n

\"kristeva\"<\/a>

Julia Kristeva<\/p><\/div>\n

The origins of the idea of intertextuality can be traced back to the work of the Swiss linguist <\/a>

From the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica:<\/b> (born Nov. 26, 1857,\u00a0Geneva<\/a>, Switz.\u2014died Feb. 22, 1913,\u00a0Vufflens-le-Ch\u00e2teau),\u00a0Swiss linguist whose ideas on <\/a>structure<\/a> in language<\/a> laid the foundation for much of the approach to and progress of the <\/a>linguistic<\/a> sciences in the 20th century. While still a student, Saussure established his reputation with a brilliant contribution to comparative linguistics, <\/a>M\u00e9moire sur le syst\u00e8me primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-europ\u00e9ennes<\/a><\/em> (1878; \u201cMemoir on the Original System of Vowels in the Indo-European Languages\u201d). In it he explained how the knottiest of vowel alternations in Indo-European, those of a,<\/em> take place. Though he wrote no other book, he was enormously influential as a teacher, serving as instructor at the \u00c9cole des Hautes \u00c9tudes (\u201cSchool of Advanced Studies\u201d) in Paris from 1881 to 1891 and as professor of Indo-European linguistics<\/a> and Sanskrit (1901\u201311) and of general linguistics (1907\u201311) at the University of Geneva<\/a>. His name is affixed, however, to the Cours de linguistique g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/em> (1916; <\/a>Course in General Linguistics<\/a><\/em>), a reconstruction of his lectures on the basis of notes by students carefully prepared by his junior colleagues Charles Bally and Albert S\u00e9chehaye. The publication of his work is considered the starting point of 20th-century structural linguistics.\n

Saussure contended that language must be considered as a social phenomenon, a structured system that can be viewed synchronically (as it exists at any particular time) and diachronically (as it changes in the course of time). He thus formalized the basic approaches to language study and asserted that the principles and methodology of each approach are distinct and mutually exclusive. He also introduced two terms that have become common currency in linguistics\u2014\u201c<\/a>parole<\/a>,\u201d or the speech of the individual person, and \u201c<\/a>langue<\/a>,\u201d the system underlying speech activity. His distinctions proved to be mainsprings to productive linguistic research and can be regarded as starting points on the avenue of linguistics known as structuralism<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>, whose lectures were posthumously published as Course in General Linguistics<\/a>. <\/em>The literary theorist, <\/a>

From the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica:<\/b>\u00a0 (born June 24, 1941,\u00a0Sliven<\/a>, Bulg.),\u00a0Bulgarian-born French psychoanalyst, critic, novelist, and educator, best known for her writings in structuralist linguistics<\/a>, psychoanalysis<\/a>, semiotics<\/a>, and philosophical feminism<\/a>. Kristeva received a degree in linguistics<\/a> from the University of Sofia in 1966 and later that year immigrated to France<\/a> on a doctoral fellowship. In Paris she worked with the structuralist<\/a> and Marxist<\/a> critic Lucien Goldmann, the social and literary critic Roland Barthes<\/a>, and the structuralist anthropologist Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss<\/a>. She soon became a member of the group of intellectuals associated with the journal Tel Quel<\/a><\/i>, and her articles appeared in scholarly journals and in Maoist<\/a> publications. Kristeva received her doctorate in linguistics in 1973 from the \u00c9cole Pratique des Hautes \u00c9tudes (Practical School of Advanced Studies). Her doctoral dissertation, La R\u00e9volution du langage po\u00e9tique<\/em> (1974; partial translation, Revolution in Poetic Language<\/a><\/em>), was hailed for its application of psychoanalytic theory to language and literature<\/a>. She was appointed to the faculty of linguistics at the University of Paris VII\u2013Denis Diderot in 1974. In 1979 she became a practicing psychoanalyst.\n

Kristeva\u2019s theories synthesized elements from such dissimilar thinkers as the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan<\/a>, the French philosopher Michel Foucault<\/a>, and the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin<\/a>. Two distinct trends characterize her writings: an early structuralist-semiotic phase and a later psychoanalytic-feminist phase. During the latter period Kristeva created a new study she called \u201csemanalysis,\u201d a combination of the psychoanalysis<\/a> of Sigmund Freud<\/a> and the semiology, or semiotics<\/a> (the study of signs), of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure<\/a> and the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce<\/a>. Her most important contribution to the philosophy of language<\/a> was her distinction between the semiotic<\/a> and the symbolic aspects of language. The semiotic, which is manifested in rhythm and tone, is associated with the maternal body. The symbolic, on the other hand, corresponds to grammar<\/a> and syntax<\/a> and is associated with referential meaning. With this distinction, Kristeva attempted to bring the \u201cspeaking body\u201d back into linguistics and philosophy. She proposed that bodily drives are discharged in language and that the structure of language is already operating in the body.<\/p><\/div>, introduced the term ‘intertextuality’ in the late 1960s, her early works being translated into English in 1980 as Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art<\/a>. In her 1966 essay, Word, Dialogue and Novel, Kristeva built on <\/a>

From the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0 (born Nov. 17 [Nov. 5, Old Style], 1895,\u00a0Orel, Russia<\/a>\u2014died March 7, 1975,\u00a0Moscow<\/a>, U.S.S.R.),\u00a0Russian literary theorist and philosopher of language<\/a> whose wide-ranging ideas significantly influenced Western thinking in cultural history, linguistics<\/a>, literary theory, and aesthetics<\/a>.\n

After graduating from the University of St. Petersburg (now St. Petersburg State University) in 1918, Bakhtin taught high school in western Russia before moving to Vitebsk (now Vitsyebsk, Belarus), a cultural centre of the region, where he and other intellectuals organized lectures, debates, and concerts. There Bakhtin began to write and develop his critical theories. Because of Stalinist censorship, he often published works under the names of friends, including P.N. Medvedev and V.N. Voloshinov. These early works include Freydizm<\/em> (1927; Freudianism<\/em>); Formalny metod v literaturovedeni<\/em> (1928; The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship<\/em>), an attack on the Formalist<\/a>s\u2019 view of history; and Marksizm i filosofiya yazyka<\/em> (1929; Marxism and the Philosophy of Language<\/em>). Despite his precautions, Bakhtin was arrested in 1929 and exiled to the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. From 1945 to 1961 he taught at the Mordovian Teachers Training College.<\/p>\n

Bakhtin is especially known for his work on the Russian writer <\/a>Fyodor Dostoyevsky<\/a>, Problemy tvorchestva Dostoyevskogo<\/em> (1929; 2nd ed., 1963, retitled Problemy poetiki Dostoyevskogo<\/em>; <\/a>Problems of Dostoevsky\u2019s Poetics<\/em>), which he published under his own name just before he was arrested. It is considered one of the finest critical works on Dostoyevsky. In the book Bakhtin expressed his belief in a mutual relation between meaning and context involving the author, the work, and the reader, each constantly affecting and influencing the others, and the whole influenced by existing political and social forces. Bakhtin further developed this<\/a> theory of polyphony, or \u201cdialogics,\u201d in Voprosy literatury i estetiki<\/em> (1975; <\/a>The Dialogic Imagination<\/a><\/em>), in which he postulated that, rather than being static, language evolves dynamically and is affected by and affects the culture<\/a> that produces and uses it. Bakhtin also wrote Tvorchestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaya kultura srednevekovya i Renessansa<\/em> (1965; Rabelais and His World)<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>‘s notions of dialogism, polyphony and heteroglossia<\/a>, describing his ‘conception of the ‘literary word’ as an intersection of textual surfaces<\/em> rather than a point<\/em> (a fixed meaning), as a dialogue among several writings: that of the writer, the addressee (or the character) and the contemporary or earlier cultural context.’<\/p>\n

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‘The word’s status is this defined horizontally<\/em> (the word in the text belongs to both writing subject and addressee) as well as vertically<\/em> (the word in the text is oriented towards an anterior or synchronic literary corpus.’ (Kristeva, 1966)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The term ‘intertextuality’ is now used much more widely and can be applied to ‘texts’ of any kind (i.e., ‘texts’ can include music). G\u00e9rard Genette coined the more over-arching term ‘Transtextuality’ in his 1997 book Palimpsestes<\/a>. The term has five sub-types, which David Chandler<\/a> summarises as:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Intertextuality: quotation, plagiarism, allusion;<\/li>\n
  2. Paratextuality: the relation between a text and its ‘paratext’ – that which surrounds the main body of the text – such as titles, headings, prefaces, epigraphs, dedications, acknowledgements, footnotes, illustrations, dust jackets, etc.;<\/li>\n
  3. Metatextuality: explicit or implicit critical commentary of one text on another text;<\/li>\n
  4. Architextuality: the designation of a text as part of a genre or genres;<\/li>\n
  5. Hypotextuality: the relation between a text and a preceding ‘hypotext’ – a text or genre on which it is based but which it transforms, modifies, elaborates or extends (including parody, spoof, sequel, translation).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    To these definitions, we might also usefully add ‘Intratextuality’ – denoting internal relations within a text – and ‘Extratextuality’ – the relation of the text to something that lies outside of the text.<\/p>\n

    Chandler proceeds to define degrees of intertextuality, which might include:<\/p>\n