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Invented by the Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin, intertextuality simply refers to the relationship between different literary works. It might help to think of all texts as existing in a giant network or web, with inherent connections between one book and others. Note that intertextuality is at play even when texts aren’t explicitly borrowing from or referring to other literary works. Intertextual elements often come in subtle forms, and can be difficult to identify—especially to the less experienced reader.
Intertextuality Quotes in How to Read Literature Like a Professor
The How to Read Literature Like a Professor quotes below are all either spoken by Intertextuality or refer to Intertextuality. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Introduction
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Memory. Symbol. Pattern. These are the three items that, more than any other, separate the professorial reader from the rest of the crowd.
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Chapter 4
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There is only one story. Ever. One. It's always been going on and it's everywhere around us and every story you've ever read or heard or watched is part of it.
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Interlude: One Story
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Don't bother looking for the originals, though. You can't find the archetype, just as you can't find the pure myths. What we have, even in our earliest recorded literature, are variants, embellishments, versions, what Frye called "displacement" of the myth.
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We—as readers or writers, tellers or listeners—understand each other, we share knowledge of the structures of our myths, we comprehend the logic of symbols, largely because we have access to the same swirl of story.
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Intertextuality Term Timeline in How to Read Literature Like a Professor
The timeline below shows where the term Intertextuality appears in How to Read Literature Like a Professor. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4: Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?
...thus the connection between Sarkin Aung Wan and Sacajawea is part of a network of intertextuality.
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Foster claims that the reason this network of intertextuality exists is because “there is only one story.” This universal story has always been happening...
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...who is well-practiced in pattern recognition. As a result, many readers will fail to identify intertextual references within a literary work. There is nothing wrong with this, as almost all works...
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Contemporary writers in particular are known to deliberately play around with intertextuality, and the results can be difficult to untangle. Angela Carter’s novel Wise Children (1992) portrays...
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This brings Foster back to the earlier point that recognizing intertextual features is not necessary to understanding and enjoying a book; rather, it is a “bonus”...
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Chapter 5: When in Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare…
...fraught) relationship of writers to their literary predecessors is all part of the web of intertextuality. In T.S. Eliot’s “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1917) the main character bashfully declares...
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Interlude: Does He Mean That?
...argument so far, authors seem to be doing a great many things at once: juggling intertextual references, creating multiple layers of symbolic meaning, following preexisting patterns, and so on. Foster acknowledges...
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...groups of writers who we know made conscious choices in the way they including symbolic, intertextual, archetypical, and ironic meaning; these are called the “Intentionalists,” and many were part of the...
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Chapter 12: Is That a Symbol?
...completely different meaning. This is not to say that there is never any overlap or intertextual resonance, but that a river in one work can have a totally distinct and contradictory...
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Interlude: One Story
For the first time, Foster explicitly introduces the concept of intertextuality. This was an idea invented by the Russian formalist scholar Mikhail Bakhtin, which highlights the...
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