Sanders Blog Post
Introduction
· Literature is made by literature
o Texts feed off and create other texts
· Tracing of intertext is self-confirming
o More texts you read, more parallels you find
o Readers add their own meaning, and their own intertexts
· Intertextuality
o Coined by Julia Kristeva
o How texts encompass and respond to other texts
o Functions as a web, not linearly
o Does not consume sources
§ Does the opposite: aids the survival of the source
o Stretches the horizons of a single work
· Late 20th century: Originality not necessary
o Rewriting is important (not imitation, but adaptation)
o Originality is impossible
o Brings up the question of ownership: copyright and property laws
· T.S. Eliot
o Questioned ‘ the tendency to insist, when we praise a poet, upon those aspects of his work in which he least resembles anyone else.’
o Response to past texts more important than originality
§ Not advocating blind copying and plagiarism
o Created new material built upon the foundation laid by past works
o Encourages contrast and comparison
o Concludes the reinterpretation of texts is inevitable
· Transcends imitation
o Authors add, supplement, improvise, innovate, expand
o New work is not a clone, but more like a child
o Incorporates current affairs and movements
· Readers benefit
o Enjoy seeing overlap between the familiar and the new
o Proud when they unde rstand allusions
· Constant and ongoing process
o Like Darwin’s evolution (finches and moths)
o EX: Romeo and Juliet è West side story è Romeo + Juliet
o EX: The Taming of the Shrew è Kiss Me Kate è 10 Things I Hate about You
Definitions
· Hypotext
o Hypotext is an earlier text which serves as the source of a subsequent piece of literature
· Re-visionary writing is
o “the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction”
o Important to read historical works to break the hold of tradition
· Bricolage
o French for DIY
o A construction or creation from a diverse range of available things
· Pastiche
o French term
o An artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period
o Often has a satiric undertone or parodic intention
o Originally used to refer to melodies made up of fragments pieced together
· Misprision
o deliberate concealment of one's knowledge of a treasonable act
What is adaptation?
· Adjusting something to fill a need
· Piece is reinterpreted, but clearly still related to the original work
· Can feature
o Proximation – change of genre (novel to film, play to musical… etc)
o Parallelism – parallels the text
o Amplification/Reduction – expansion/trimming of text
o Commentary – revised point of view
· Commonly used for
o Making classics accessible to a new audience
o Brings it closer to the audience’s frame of reference
· Three types
o Transposition
§ All second performances are transpositions to some degree
§ EX: Baz Luhrman, Romeo + Juliet (1996)
· Changes temporal and geographic setting
o Commentary
§ More culturally loaded than simple transposition
§ Comments through alteration and addition
§ Requires pre-existing knowledge of another text
§ Often explicitly connect to a source with a shared title
§ EX: Aimé Césaire, A Tempest
· Sycorax appears on stage, as opposed to the original, where she was only mentioned
· Imposes negative ideas of colonization
o Analogue
§ Do not require knowledge of its intertext: can stand alone
§ EX: Amy Heckerling, Clueless
· an adaptation of Jane Austin’s Emma
§ EX: Disney, The Lion King
· An adaptation of Hamlet
What is appropriation?
· Taking something for own use
· Wholesale rethinking of the terms of the original
· Transforming original into new product, journeying away from the source
· Piece does not always clearly identify the source
· Can feature
o Embedded texts and interplay
o Sustained change
EX: Romeo and Juliet vs. West Side Story
· Overlaps but changes. Can stand on its own without the Shakespeare.
· Highlights issue of race conflict in New York
o Tony : Maria :: Romeo : Juliet
o Jets : Sharks :: Montagues : Capulets
o Fire-escape : Balcony
o Doc : Friar
o Anita : Nurse
o Musical vs play
o Marias parents never feature on stage
o Anita is gang raped
EX: Our Country’s Good vs. The Recruiting Officer
· Both feature a play within a play
· Performed alongside each other with same actors performing in both
· The Recruiting officer
o highlights controversy over Australian land and property rights
· Our Country’s Good
o popular among prison drama groups
o highlights the social and cultural importance of the arts
Sustained Appropriation: Homage or Plagiarism?
· Graham Swift’s Last Orders
o Won Booker Prize in 1996
o Criticized for being too similar to William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
§ Featured juxtaposed monologues
§ Featured somewhat circuitous narratives
§ Relied on the same archetype
· Presence of the dead on the living, wake of death
· Swift called his work an homage to Faulkner
· Others called him intellectually dishonest for not crediting Faulkner
o Called his book inauthentic and devalued because it borrowed
· Acknowledging Faulkner would have closed the door for possible associations with other texts
· Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
o Polymonic (many voices or points of view)
o Relied on same archetype:
§ Physical pilgrimage that correlates to a spiritual/inner journey
o Not as linear as Chaucer
· Old English poems Wanderer and Seafarer
o Different landscapes (land, terra firma, sea) and
· Biblical references
o Cain and Abel
· Showed how no work has one intertext, but functions as a symphony of intertexts
o Like Baroque music
§ Improvised performances layered on top of patterns
§ Repeated harmonic base was the foundation, as intertexts are for appropriations
§ Like Jazz music (Jazz riffs) and rap/hip-hop (re-contextualization)
· Suggests we are enriching, not robbing
o Sheds adaptation in a more positive light
o Creates new cultural possibilities
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