Intertextuality - Examples and History of Intertextuality

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 Testament in the New Testament, see Porter 1997). Whereas a 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 history and mythology. Bullfinch's 1855 work The Age Of Fable served as an introduction to such an intertextual network; according to its author, it was intended "...for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets...".

Even the nomenclature "new" and "old" (testament) reframes the real context that the Jewish Torah had been usurped by followers of a new faith wishing to co-opt the original one.

Sometimes intertextuality is taken as plagiarism as in the case of Spanish writer Lucía Etxebarria whose poem collection Estación de infierno (2001) was found to contain metaphors and verses from Antonio Colinas. Etxebarria claimed that she admired him and applied intertextuality.

Some examples of intertextuality in literature include:

• East of Eden (1952) by John Steinbeck: A retelling of the story of Genesis, set in the Salinas Valley of Northern California.
• Ulysses (1918) by James Joyce: A retelling of Homer's Odyssey, set in Dublin.
• 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 story of Genesis, also leaning on Milton's Paradise Lost, but set on the planet Venus.
• Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) by Jean Rhys: A textual intervention on Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, the story of the "mad women in the attic" told from her perspective.
• The Legend of Bagger Vance (1996) by Steven Pressfield: A retelling of the Bhagavad Gita, set in 1931 during an epic golf game.
• Tortilla Flat (1935) by John Steinbeck: A retelling of the Arthurian legends, set in Monterey, CA during the interwar period.
• Mourning Becomes Electra (1931) by Eugene O'Neill: A retelling of Aeschylus' The Oresteia, set in the post-American Civil War South.