CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Article Title

Towards a History of Intertextuality in Literary and Culture Studies

Authors

Marko Juvan, University of Ljubljana

Abstract

In his paper "Towards a History of Intertextuality in Literary and Culture Studies" Marko Juvan argues that the theory of intertextuality reshaped fundamentally the understanding of influence in literature. It showed that supposedly primary sources are themselves but intertextual transformations dependent on cultural "encyclopedia." Intertextuality as a framework offers a refined terminology of forms and functions of both domestic and foreign literatures' creative reception while respecting specific linguistic and cultural spaces, traditions, and literary systems. It deconstructed the postulates of influence; for example, the concepts of author, the logic of cause and effect, and boundaries between texts. It revealed the socio-political power of influence -- of hierarchy, colonialism, and hegemony -- as well as its negative and positive role in identity formation. For these reasons, intertextuality in literary and culture scholarship provokes the appearance of polycentric and pluralistic models of influence and other inter-literary discursive forces. It made central the interactive, dialogic or bi-level contacts between a literary text and a literary or non-literary context whose national framings are no more self-evident.

Recommended Citation

Juvan, Marko. "Towards a History of Intertextuality in Literary and Culture Studies." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 10.3 (2008): <http://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1370>

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