Intertextuality

Intertextuality describes the ways in which texts draw upon or refer to other texts. This relationship can be deeply referential (e.g., the influence of Homer’s Odyssey in James Joyce’s Ulysses) or relatively trivial (e.g., a Trojan horse used as a plot device in another narrative). The significance of the concept is that texts (or pieces of texts) can be employed for specific ends in different contexts, implying that the real meaning of the text does not necessarily reside solely within the words themselves but rather in the way they interact with one another: Context takes primacy over text. This understanding of language, speech, and literature views text production as a social practice involving the mingling of multiple texts, discourses, genres, and voices. One controversial outcome ...