Editing Intertextuality

{{Short description|Shaping of a text's meaning by another text in literary studies}}
{{Redirect|Intertext|the publisher|Intertext Publications}}
'''Intertextuality''' is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate [[Composition (language)|compositional]] strategies such as [[quotation]], [[allusion]], [[calque]], [[plagiarism]], [[translation]], [[pastiche]] or [[parody]],<ref name="Genette97">[[Gerard Genette]] (1997) ''Paratexts'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=AmWhQzemk2EC&pg=PR18 p.18]</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kaźmierczak|first=Marta|date=2019-12-15|title=Intertextuality as Translation Problem: Explicitness, Recognisability and the Case of "Literatures of Smaller Nations"|journal=Russian Journal of Linguistics|volume=23|issue=2|pages=362–382|doi=10.22363/2312-9182-2019-23-2-362-382|issn=2312-9212|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Hallo2010">Hallo, William W. (2010) ''The World's Oldest Literature: Studies in Sumerian Belles-Lettres'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=WjNqb1G88b0C&pg=PA608 p.608]</ref><ref name="Cancogni1985">Cancogni, Annapaola (1985) [https://books.google.com/books?id=XLOwAAAAIAAJ ''The Mirage in the Mirror: Nabokov's Ada and Its French Pre-Texts''] pp.203-213</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Intertextuality, Allusion, and Quotation: An International Bibliography of Critical Studies (Bibliographies and Indexes in World Literature)|last=Hebel|first=Udo J|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=1989|isbn=978-0313265174}}</ref> or by interconnections between similar or related works perceived by an audience or reader of the text.<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intertextuality "Definition of Intertextuality"], "Dictionary.com", Retrieved on 15 March 2018.</ref>  These references are sometimes made deliberately and depend on a reader's prior knowledge and understanding of the referent, but the effect of intertextuality is not always intentional and is sometimes inadvertent.  Often associated with strategies employed by writers working in imaginative registers (fiction, poetry, and drama and even non-written texts like performance art and digital media),<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3bzpxp_FHj8C&q=intertextuality&pg=PR7|title=Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History|last=Clayton|first=John B.|date=1991|publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press|isbn=9780299130343|language=en}}</ref><ref>Gadavanij, Savitri. [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.484.8982&rep=rep1&type=pdf "Intertextuality as Discourse Strategy"], School of Language and Communication, Retrieved 15 March 2018.</ref> intertextuality may now be understood as intrinsic to any text.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Roozen|first=Kevin|title=Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies|publisher=Utah State UP|year=2015|isbn=978-0-87421-989-0|location=Logan|pages=44–47|chapter=Texts Get Their Meaning from Other Texts}}</ref>

Intertextuality has been differentiated into referential and typological categories. Referential intertextuality refers to the use of fragments in texts and the typological intertextuality refers to the use of pattern and structure in typical texts.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mayer |first=Rolf |date=1990 |journal=Theoretical Linguistics |volume=16 |issue=2–3 |doi=10.1515/thli.1990.16.2-3.101|issn=0301-4428|title=Abstraction, Context, and Perspectivization – Evidentials in Discourse Semantics|s2cid=62219490}}</ref>  A distinction can also be made between iterability and [[presupposition]]. Iterability makes reference to the "repeatability" of certain text that is composed of "traces", pieces of other texts that help constitute its meaning. Presupposition makes a reference to assumptions a text makes about its readers and its context.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Porter|first=James E.|date=1986|title=Intertextuality and the discourse community|journal=Rhetoric Review|volume=5|issue=1|pages=34–47|doi=10.1080/07350198609359131|s2cid=170955347|issn=0735-0198}}</ref> As philosopher [[William Irwin (philosopher)|William Irwin]] wrote, the term "has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to [[Julia Kristeva]]'s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about [[allusion]] and [[Social influence|influence]]".<ref name="Irwin,2 p227–242, 228">Irwin,2, October 2004, pp. 227–242, 228.</ref>

==History==
[[File:ulyssesCover.jpg|thumb|upright|[[James Joyce]]'s 1922 novel ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' bears an intertextual relationship to [[Homer]]'s ''[[Odyssey]]''.]]
[[Julia Kristeva]] coined the term "intertextuality" (''intertextualité'')<ref>analysis of ''Jehan de Saintré'', (in the collective volume ''Théorie d'ensemble'', Paris, Seuil, 1968).</ref> in an attempt to synthesize [[Ferdinand de Saussure]]'s [[semiotics]]: his study of how [[Sign (semiotics)|signs]] derive their meaning from the structure of a text ([[Mikhail Bakhtin|Bakhtin's]] [[dialogic|dialogism]]); his theory suggests a continual dialogue with other works of literature and other authors; and his examination of the multiple meanings, or "[[heteroglossia]]", of texts (especially novels) or individual words.<ref name="Irwin,2 p227–242, 228" /> According to Kristeva,<ref name="desire">{{Cite book |title=Desire in language : a semiotic approach to literature and art |last=Kristeva |first=Julia |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1980 |isbn=0231048068 |location=New York |pages=66 |oclc=6016349}}</ref> "the notion of intertextuality replaces the notion of [[intersubjectivity]]" when we realize that meaning is not transferred directly from writer to reader but is instead mediated or filtered by "codes" imparted to the writer and reader by other texts. For example, when we read [[James Joyce]]'s ''[[Ulysses (novel)|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 many 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 both to the text in question and the complex network of texts evoked by the reading process.

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 [[Nevi'im|prophet]]s refer to the events described in [[Book of Exodus|Exodus]] (for discussions on using 'intertextuality' to describe the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, see [[Stanley E. Porter|Porter]] 1997; [[B. J. Oropeza|Oropeza]] 2013; Oropeza & Moyise, 2016).{{Citation needed|date=March 2025|reason=Which scholarly papers exactly are being referenced?}} Whereas a [[Redaction criticism|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 antiquity|Classical]] history and mythology.

=== Post-structuralism ===
More recent [[Post-structuralism|post-structuralist]] theory, such as that formulated in Daniela Caselli's ''[[Samuel Beckett|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<ref>Gerard Genette, ''Palimpsests: literature in the second degree'', Channa Newman and Claude Doubinsky (trans.), University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln NE and London.</ref> like to talk about the relationship between "intertextuality" and "hypertextuality" (not to be confused with [[Hypertext (semiotics)|hypertext]], another semiotic term coined by [[Gérard Genette]]); intertextuality makes each text a "living hell of hell on earth"<ref>Kristeva, 66.</ref> 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]]. The World-Wide Web has been theorized as a unique realm of reciprocal intertextuality, in which no particular text can claim centrality, yet the Web text eventually produces an image of a community—the group of people who write and read the text using specific discursive strategies.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Mitra|first=Ananda|year=1999|title=Characteristics of the WWW Text: Tracing Discursive Strategies|url=http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol5/issue1/mitra.html|journal=Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication|volume=5|issue=1|page=1|doi=10.1111/j.1083-6101.1999.tb00330.x|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

== Examples in literature ==
Some examples of intertextuality in literature include:
* Perhaps the earliest example of a non-anonymous author alluding to another is when [[Euripides]], in his ''[[Electra (Euripides play)|Electra]]'' (410s BC), spoofs (in lines 524-38) the recognition scene from [[Aeschylus]]'s ''[[Oresteia#The Libation Bearers|The Libation Bearers]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lefkowitz |first1=Mary |author-link=Mary Lefkowitz |last2=Romm |first2=James |title=The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides |date=2016 |publisher=Modern Library |location=New York |isbn=9780812993004 |page=102}}</ref>
* ''[[The House of Asterion]]'' (1947) by [[Jorge Luis Borges]]: A retelling of the [[Greek mythology|Greek myth]] of [[Theseus|Theseus and the Minotaur]] told from the perspective of Asterion, the [[Minotaur]].
* ''[[East of Eden (novel)|East of Eden]]'' (1952) by [[John Steinbeck]]: A retelling of the account of Genesis, set in the Salinas Valley of Northern California.
* ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' (1922) by [[James Joyce]]: A retelling of Homer's ''[[Odyssey]]'', set in Dublin.
* ''[[Absalom, Absalom!]]'' (1936) by [[William Faulkner]]: A retelling of the [[Absalom]] story from [[Books of Samuel|Samuel]], set in antebellum Mississippi.
* ''[[Earthly Powers]]'' (1980) by [[Anthony Burgess]]: A retelling of [[Anatole France]]'s ''Le Miracle du grand saint Nicolas'' during the 20th century.
* ''[[The Dead Fathers Club]]'' (2006) by [[Matt Haig]]: A retelling of Shakespeare's ''[[Hamlet]]'', set in modern England.
* ''[[A Thousand Acres]]'' (1991) by [[Jane Smiley]]: A retelling of Shakespeare's ''[[King Lear]]'', set in rural Iowa.
* ''[[Perelandra]]'' (1943) by [[C. S. Lewis]]: Another retelling of the account of Genesis, also leaning on Milton's ''[[Paradise Lost]]'', but set on the planet Venus.
* ''[[Wide Sargasso Sea]]'' (1966) by [[Jean Rhys]]: A [[transtextuality|metatextual intervention]] on [[Charlotte Brontë]]'s ''[[Jane Eyre]]'', the story of the "[[Bertha Mason|mad woman in the attic]]" told from her perspective.
* ''[[The Legend of Bagger Vance (novel)|The Legend of Bagger Vance]]'' (1996) by [[Steven Pressfield]]: A retelling of the Bhagavad Gita, set in 1931 during an epic golf game.
* ''[[Bridget Jones's Diary (novel)|Bridget Jones's Diary]]'' (1996) by [[Helen Fielding]]: A modern "[[chick lit]]" romantic comedy replaying and referencing [[Jane Austen]]'s ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]''.
* ''[[Tortilla Flat]]'' (1935) by [[John Steinbeck]]: A retelling of the Arthurian legends, set in [[Monterey, California]], during the interwar period.
* ''[[Mourning Becomes Electra]]'' (1931) by [[Eugene O'Neill]]: A retelling of Aeschylus' ''[[The Oresteia]]'', set in post-American Civil War New England.
* ''The [[Gospel of Matthew]]'' narrates the early years of the life of Jesus while following a pattern from the [[Hebrew Bible]]'s [[Book of Exodus]].<ref>{{citation |url=https://intertextual.bible/text/matthew-2.20-exodus-4.19 |title= intertextual.bible/text/matthew-2.20-exodus-4.19}}</ref>
* ''[[Frankissstein]]'' (2019) by [[Jeanette Winterson]]: A retelling of [[Mary Shelley]]'s 1818 classic ''[[Frankenstein]]'', examining updated issues of the monstrous, i.e. sex-bots and [[cryonics]].

=== Related concepts ===
Linguist Norman Fairclough states that "intertextuality is a matter of [[recontextualization]]".<ref>Fairclough, Norman. ''Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research.'' New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 51.</ref> According to Per Linell, recontextualization can be defined as the "dynamic transfer-and-transformation of something from one discourse/text-in-context ... to another".<ref>Linell, Per. "Discourse across boundaries: On recontextualizations and the blending of voices in professional discourse," ''Text'', 18, 1998, p. 154.</ref> Recontextualization can be relatively explicit—for example, when one text directly quotes another—or relatively implicit—as when the "same" generic meaning is rearticulated across different texts.<ref name="Oddo2014">Oddo, John. ''Intertextuality and the 24-Hour News Cycle: A Day in the Rhetorical Life of Colin Powell's U.N. Address.'' East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2014.</ref>{{rp|132–133}}

A number of scholars have observed that recontextualization can have important ideological and political consequences. For instance, Adam Hodges has studied how White House officials recontextualized and altered a military general's comments for political purposes, highlighting favorable aspects of the general's utterances while downplaying the damaging aspects.<ref>Hodges, Adam. "The Politics of Recontextualization: Discursive Competition over Claims of Iranian Involvement in Iraq, " ''Discourse & Society'', 19(4), 2008, 483-505.</ref> Rhetorical scholar Jeanne Fahnestock has found that when popular magazines recontextualize scientific research they enhance the uniqueness of the scientific findings and confer greater certainty on the reported facts.<ref>Fahnestock, Jeanne. "Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical life of Scientific Facts," ''Written Communication'', 3(3), 1986, 275-296.</ref> Similarly, John Oddo stated that American reporters covering Colin Powell's 2003 U.N. speech transformed Powell's discourse as they recontextualized it, bestowing Powell's allegations with greater certainty and warrantability and even adding new evidence to support Powell's claims.<ref name="Oddo2014" />

Oddo has also argued that recontextualization has a future-oriented counterpoint, which he dubs "precontextualization".<ref>Oddo, John. "Precontextualization and the Rhetoric of Futurity:  Foretelling Colin Powell's U.N. Address on NBC News," ''Discourse & Communication'', 7(1), 2013, 25-53.</ref> According to Oddo, precontextualization is a form of anticipatory intertextuality wherein "a text introduces and predicts elements of a symbolic event that is yet to unfold".<ref name="Oddo2014" />{{rp|78}} For example, Oddo contends, American journalists anticipated and previewed Colin Powell's U.N. address, drawing his future discourse into the normative present.

===Allusion===
While intertextuality is a complex and multileveled literary term, it is often confused with the more casual term 'allusion'. Allusion is a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication.<ref name="dictionary.com plagiarism">{{Cite web|url=http://www.dictionary.com/browse/plagiarism|title=the definition of plagiarism|website=Dictionary.com|access-date=2018-03-19}}</ref> This means it is most closely linked to both obligatory and accidental intertextuality, as the 'allusion' made relies on the listener or viewer knowing about the original source. It is also seen as accidental, however, as the allusion is normally a phrase so frequently or casually used that the true significance is not fully appreciated. Allusion is most often used in conversation, dialogue or metaphor. For example, "I was surprised his nose was not growing like Pinocchio's." This makes a reference to ''[[The Adventures of Pinocchio]]'', written by [[Carlo Collodi]] when the little wooden puppet lies.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.yourdictionary.com/allusion|title=Allusion dictionary definition {{!}} allusion defined|website=www.yourdictionary.com|language=en|access-date=2018-03-19}}</ref> If this was obligatory intertextuality in a text, multiple references to this (or other novels of the same theme) would be used throughout the hypertext.

==Plagiarism==
[[File:Arnaldo Dell'Ira (1903-1943), Parsifal Act 3, Picture composition.jpg|thumb|Intertextuality in art: "Nur eine Waffe taugt" (Richard Wagner, Parsifal, act III), by [[Arnaldo dell'Ira]], ca. 1930]]
Sociologist Perry Share describes intertextuality as "an area of considerable ethical complexity".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Share|first=Perry|date=January 2005|title=Managing intertextuality–meaning, plagiarism and power|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228770980|journal=ResearchGate}}</ref> Intertextuality does not necessarily involve citations or referencing punctuation (such as quotation marks) and can be mistaken for [[plagiarism]].<ref name="Ivanić 1998">{{Cite book|last=Ivanić|first=Roz|title=Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Co.|year=1998|location=Amsterdam, Netherlands|author-link=Rosalind Ivanić}}</ref>{{rp|86}}
While the two concepts are related, the intentions behind using another's work is critical in distinguishing the two. When making use of intertextuality, usually a small excerpt of a hypotext assists in the understanding of the new hypertext's original themes, characters, or contexts.<ref name="Ivanić 1998" />{{page needed|date=October 2020}} Aspects of existing texts are reused, often resulting in new meaning when placed in a different context.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jabri|first=Muayyad|date=December 2003|title=Change as shifting identities: a dialogic perspective|url=http://www.msu.ac.zw/elearning/material/temp/1372165169dialogism%20-%20identities.pdf|journal=Journal of Organizational Change Management|volume=17|access-date=2018-03-19|archive-date=2018-03-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180320165712/http://www.msu.ac.zw/elearning/material/temp/1372165169dialogism%20-%20identities.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Intertextuality hinges on the creation of new ideas, while plagiarism attempts to pass off existing work as one's own.

Students learning to write often rely on imitation or emulation and have not yet learned how to reformulate sources and cite them according to expected standards, and thus engage in forms of "patchwriting," which may be inappropriately penalized as intentional plagiarism.<ref>Howard, Rebecca Moore. (1995). Plagiarisms, authorships, and the academic death penalty. ''College English 57.7'', 788-806.</ref> Because the interests of [[Composition studies|writing studies]] differ from the interests of literary theory, the concept has been elaborated differently with an emphasis on writers using intertextuality to position their statement in relation to other statements and prior knowledge.<ref>C. Bazerman (2004). Intertextualities: Volosinov, Bakhtin, literary theory, and literacy studies.  In A. Ball & S. W. Freedman (Eds.), Bakhtinian perspectives on languages, literacy, and learning (pp. 53-65). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref> Students often find it difficult to learn how to combine referencing and relying on others' words with marking their novel perspective and contribution.<ref>Berkenkotter, C., Huckin, T., & Ackerman, J. (1991). Social Context and Socially Constructed Texts: The Initiation of a Graduate Student into a Writing Research Community. In ''Textual dynamics of the professions'' (pp. 191-215). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.</ref>

== Non-literary uses ==
In addition, the concept of intertextuality has been used analytically outside the sphere of literature and art. For example, Devitt (1991) examined how the various genres of letters composed by tax accountants refer to the tax codes in genre-specific ways.<ref>Devitt, A. (1991). Intertextuality in tax accounting. In ''Textual Dynamics of the Professions:  Historical and Contemporary Studies of Writing in Professional Communities''.  Madison WI:  University of Wisconsin Press. Pages 336-357.</ref> In another example, Christensen (2016)<ref>Christensen, L.R. (2016). On Intertext in Chemotherapy: an Ethnography of Text in Medical Practice. Computer Supported Cooperative Work: The Journal of Collaborative Computing and Work Practices. Volume 25, Issue 1, pp 1-38</ref> introduces the concept of intertextuality to the analysis of work practice at a hospital. The study shows that the ensemble of documents used and produced at a hospital department can be said to form a corpus of written texts. On the basis of the corpus, or subsections thereof, the actors in cooperative work create intertext between relevant (complementary) texts in a particular situation, for a particular purpose. The intertext of a particular situation can be constituted by several kinds of intertextuality, including the complementary type, the intratextual type and the mediated type. In this manner the concept of intertext has had an impact beyond literature and art studies.

In scientific and other scholarly writing intertextuality is core to the collaborative nature of knowledge building and thus citation practices are important to the social organization of fields, the codification of knowledge, and the reward system for professional contribution.<ref>Merton, R. K. (1957). Priorities in scientific discovery. American Sociological Review, 22(6), 635-659.</ref> Scientists can be skillfully intentional in the use of references to prior work in order to position the contribution of their work.<ref>Swales, J. (1981). Aspects of article introductions. Language Studies Unit, University of Aston in Birmingham.</ref><ref>Bazerman, C. (1993). Intertextual self-fashioning: Gould and Lewontin's representations of the literature. In R. Selzer (Ed.), Understanding scientific prose (pp. 20-41). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.</ref> Modern practices of scientific citation, however, have only developed since the late eighteenth century<ref>Bazerman, C. (1991). How natural philosophers can cooperate: The rhetorical technology of coordinated research in Joseph Priestley's History and Present State of Electricity. In C. Bazerman & J. Paradis (Eds.), Textual dynamics of the professions (pp. 13-44). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.</ref> and vary across fields, in part influenced by disciplines’ epistemologies.<ref>C. Bazerman (1987). Codifying the social scientific style: The APA Publication Manual as a behaviorist rhetoric. In J. Nelson, A. Megill, & D. McCloskey (Eds.). The rhetoric of the human sciences (pp. 125-144). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.</ref>

==See also==
* [[Citationality]]
* [[Détournement]]
* [[Honkadori]]
* [[Interdiscursivity]]
* [[Julia Kristeva]]
* [[Literary theory]]
* [[Meta (prefix)|Meta]]
* [[Post-structuralism]]
* [[Semiotics]]
* ''[[The Shape of Time|The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things]]''
* [[Transmedia storytelling]]
* [[Transtextuality]]
* [[Type scene]]
* [[Umberto Eco]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Additional citations===
*De Lange, Attie; Comhrink, Annette. 'The matrix and the echo': Intertextual re-modelling in Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. in ''Literator'', vol. 123, 1991, pp.&nbsp;69–74..
*Griffig, Thomas. ''Intertextualität in linguistischen Fachaufsätzen des Englischen und Deutschen (Intertextuality in English and German Linguistic Research Articles).'' Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 2006.
*Kliese, M. (2013). ''Little Lamb analysis''. CQUniversity e-courses, LITR19049 - Romantic and Contemporary Poetry. 
*Oropeza, B.J. "Intertextuality." In ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation''. Steven L. McKenzie, editor-in-chief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, 453–63 
*B. J. Oropeza and Steve Moyise, eds. ''Exploring Intertextuality: Diverse Strategies for New Testament Interpretation of Texts'' (Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books, 2016).
*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.

==External links==
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[[Category:Intertextuality| ]]
[[Category:Literary concepts]]
[[Category:Post-structuralism]]
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