Reflections upon Childhood and Adolescence - Intertextual Dialogue in The Cement Garden

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: -, University of Gdansk, course: British literature, intertextuality, language: English, abstract: Within the full spectrum of various literary theories offered by modern criticism,the theory of intertextuality deserves a particular attention. This ambitious concept,proposed by Julia Kristeva in the 1960 s, shed new light on the understanding andapproach to a literary text. Influenced by Bakhtin s theory of dialogism, the Frenchscholar suggested a new model of communication which consists of two axes:horizontal, involving communication between subject and addressee, and vertical whichis in an interaction between a text and a context. The two axes, as she claimed, coincidewhich stresses the fact that each word (text) is an intersection of word (texts) where atleast one other word (text) can be read (Kristeva in: Allen: 2000, 39). She further drewa conclusion that any text is constructed like a mosaic of quotations; any text is theabsorption and transformation of another (Kristeva in: Allen: 2000, 39). Consequently,we can assume that any literary text does not exist on its own, but is rather in variousways linked with other literary texts.Barthes further develops Kristeva s original concept and states that:[ ] a text is [ ] a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of themoriginal, blend and clash. Text is a tissue of quotations drawn from innumerablecenturies of culture [ ] (Barthes in Allen: 2000, 13).The text exists only in respect to other, prior literary texts, called intertexts, with whichthe new text enters into a discourse. Literary plots, genres, stylistic devices, differentcultural symbols and images, methods of narration and many other aspects of a literarywork already existing in the literary tradition become a part of new text. (Allen: 2000,11) In this way a new literary text is always enriched by its intertexts whichcomplement the new text and shape its meaning. Intertextuality, thus, can be understoodas a study of those aspects of a literary work which indicate a great dependence of bothcreation and reception of a given text on the whole network of the literary tradition(Nycz: 1995, 62 ).Another important facet of the theory of intertextuality is strictly connected withan active role of the reader. As the act of reading plunges us into a network of textualrelations (Allen: 2000, 1), a considerable competence of the reader is required. In orderto grasp a full potential of the text, the readers should be aware of the rich literarydiscourse which takes place in the text. [...]