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What Is Intertextuality

The document defines and discusses the concept of intertextuality in literature. Intertextuality refers to when a literary work references or alludes to another work through elements like characters, plots or titles. This invites comparisons between the original work and how it is represented in the new work. Intertextuality can transform understanding of both works, create a dialogue between them, and destabilize interpretations of them.

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192 views

What Is Intertextuality

The document defines and discusses the concept of intertextuality in literature. Intertextuality refers to when a literary work references or alludes to another work through elements like characters, plots or titles. This invites comparisons between the original work and how it is represented in the new work. Intertextuality can transform understanding of both works, create a dialogue between them, and destabilize interpretations of them.

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WHAT IS INTERTEXTUALITY?

In a broad sense, intertextuality is the reference to or application of a literary, media, or social text within another literary, media, or social text. In literature, intertextuality is when a book refers to a second book by title, scene, character, or storyline, or when a book refers to a social text such as a media, social, or cultural story. This borrowing invites a comparison between your understanding of the text outside of the book, and its use inside of the book. Intertextuality asks us to think about why the author is choosing this particular literary or social text, how they are including the text in the book, and to what effect is the text re-imagined by the book, or the book shaped by the text. Forms 1. Book in a Book One form of intertextuality is a brief or prolonged reference to a literary text in a second literary text. For example, this reference might involve the author simply giving the title of another book, adopting a famous character name from another book, or revisiting a famous scene from another book. These brief references are meant to call attention to themselves as borrowing an outside text, and to how it is being applied and reworked in the primary book. Examples of longer interttexual references might include the adopting of an entire storyline from another book, or a lengthy scene from another book. 2. Other Text in a Book A second form of intertextuality is a brief or prolonged reference to a media or social text in a literary text. For example, an author might reference a film, tv show, or song, or a well-known social text like the story of John F. Kennedys assassination or Rosa Parkss bus ride. What makes intertextuality different from literatures common mention of things in the media and society is that the text which the book references has a narrative quality. Therefore, we still have reference to a story within a book, even though the story is not a piece of literature. Functions 1. Comparison Intertextuality involves an implicit comparison by putting two texts together. When literature references another text, we are asked to draw from our knowledge of the text in its original form, and compare this to how it is being used, changed, or reframed by the primary book. Intertextuality functions on comparison and contrast of similarities and differences. 2. Dialogue Intertextuality invites a conversational dialogue between two texts. Because both the primary book and its intertext are narratives, rather than static items or images, we can engage the full storyline that each contains to create a narrative conversation. Sometimes, the two narratives are very different and can therefore create competing dialogues about which is dominant, or most important. 3. Destabilization Intertextuality can sometimes destabilize, or shake up our understanding of, the original text being referenced or a scene or idea in the primary book. The original text may be a story that most feel very familiar with, but its use or reframing by the primary book changes our feelings or reveals something new about this original story. Conversely, the book may be presenting a scene, character, or argument that we feel we are beginning to understand when it is disrupted and destabilized by entry of this intertext. Effects 1. Transformation of the Primary Book The first influence intertexuality can have is on a readers understanding of the primary book. This is a matter of evaluating effect on the book at hand. Why does the primary book choose this similar or dissimilar intertext, where is it used, how does it add to or change our understanding of the scene it is in, and how does it evoke important arguments the book is making overall? 2. Transformation of a Prior Text Intertextuality can also influence our understanding of the original text, causing us to reflexively re-read, or reconsider, our understanding of the original text. Even if the outside text is not being reworded or rewritten in any way, by placing it in a new book, the outside text is reframed and therefore changed. Does the author explicitly or implicitly change the intertext from its original form and in what ways? 3. Reinterpretation of Both Intertextuality can create a simultaneous re-reading of both the primary book and its intertext. This involves a back-and-forth rereading of each text based on what their similarities and differences reveal about one another.
Teaching The God of Small Things in Wisconsin Great World Texts: A Program of the Center for the Humanities, University of Wisconsin-Madison Written by Tracy Lemaster 2012 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

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