Intertextuality

[Seagull Fred]

No, that's not a dirty word, no matter wot some of you might think. It's based on the concept of texts linking together, and therefore creating new levels of meaning by being linked.

Like, thanks to Shrek 2, I'll never be able to take Pinocchio seriously again.

Or the Empire series by Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts, or the Liveship Traders series by Robin Hobb - although you can read these series without reading anything else by the authors, by reading the connected series, you get little pieces of insight into the entirety of the plot.

Or Moulin Rouge, in the way that it's a bit of a collage of the music and scenery and plotlines and sets. Apparenetly that's intertextuality in a strong form.

The point of this msg is for me to scab other possible intertextual texts from all of you :-) Have you seen any movies or read any books or seen any famous paintings/websites which, although are extremely good in their own right, become more meaningful when you know the words/pictures/sounds come from other places...?

Here's hoping I'm making sense...

Anyway, any other references would be much appreciated.

Cheerio,

Lauren :-)

[Dameon]

I've just finished studying Oedipus Rex. Although you can read any of Sophokles three Theban plays: Antigone, Oedipus Rex and Oedipus Colonos, without reading the others, the whole experience is much enriched by reading all three of them.

Just thought I'd make that quick mention, seeing as I've studied so hard!

KSL

[Lix]

oh my poor darling antigone, never mind i named my cat after ur sister here little izzy wizzy

[Lol]

Every discourse exists only within a rich complex of other discourses and traditions. Intertextuality is not merely the conscious use of a pre-text within an author’s work, though that is one of the more recognisable forms it can take; it is encoded into the fabric of a text, a part of the discursive formation of textual practises. Every decision an author makes when constructing a discourse is regulated by a subjective and unconscious experience with other texts, and his or her construction of the audience’s similar experience.

Yay for Artsy wank

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is rich in intertextuality Some of the really obvious ones are:

Blake - 'Songs of Innocence and Experience'
Blake - 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'
Milton - 'Paradise Lost'
C S Lewis - Narnia series
Barrie - Peter Pan

I remember noticing a lot of Intertextuality in the third Harry Potter movie. One of the more prominant ones was Harry doing the Titanic thing when he was riding Buckbeak, but there were heaps. Actually there is a lot of interetextuality in Harry Potter to start with - JKR plays with stereotypes of both wizards and of boarding schools, inverting them while also remaining true to them, if that makes sense.

Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbon is an absolutely hilarious p!ss-take on gothic rural novels, like Wuthering heights.

Oh! Oh! Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair and its sequels are the perfect example! There are thousands of allusions, mostly to Western literature, and the more you've read the more of them you pick up on. The title gives away that one of the main plots has to do with Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte.

Hope that's helpful. What's this for, anyway? If it's an essay or something I can give you the names of a few theory books with sections on intertextuality...

Lol

[Lol]

Oh, and an extra few:

Tha Simpsons
Terry Pratchet's Discworld novels
The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Austin Powers

[brydie]

hehe:Di think theyre the obvious ones...especially the simpsons...

[Seagull Fred]

Hee hee, yeah, I'm such a Simpsons fanatic - it came straight to mind, right after I thought of Shrek

Lol> many thanks, matey! It's not an essay, exactly - we had to think up some ideas about intertextuality for an in-class discussion (that's where I got the notes about Moulin Rouge and stuff), and we need to keep a journal of things we learn each week. Since this week's topic is intertextuality (need to think of a shortcut for typing that!) I figured I'd ask around to find out some other examples. BRILLIANT! THANK YE KINDLY!!

I'm also currently reading Peter Pan, so I'm now twice as interested in it. Hadn't really thought of seeing it from an intertextual point of view but *smacks forehead* duh, Lauren!!

Kayt> Also a big THANK YE for mentioning the Oedipus (sp?) trilogy thingummy - can remember seeing all three plays in year 10, but totally did not think of that type of text.

Am very grateful (!!)

Lauren

[brydie]

is intertextuality the same as discursive background? or cultural ideology?

[Duria]

umm, right.

miss misery by eliott smith. i heard that song and it was so beautifully painful. great. then my sister told me about how he died, he commited suicide.
it all seemed suddenly that miss misery was a metaphor for his life, distrust, fears and drinking. good song too.

also the jersey five (you know jay and silent bob). watch one of the movies, say dogma. then go watch all of the five movies together. suddenly you understand who these people are, you understand the in-jokes AND YOU FINALLY GET WHO WALTER THE FAN BOY WHO GETS CATS STUCK UP IS ASS IS!

there's this lyric in a song called fuel, it says
"because we can choose between the lipstick on the (bad word they don't like = streetwalker) because we know the difference between the font of 20% more and the font of teriyaki
you tell me how does it make you feel
you tell me what's real"
well, i was thinking "yep, uh huh, WHAT THE HELL!"
then I read about this study, where someone cut out say the 'o' from a coke bottle and gave it to these people and they all said "oh, that's the coca-cola logo"
or a section of the hut from the pizza hut logo and people go "that's a part of pizza hut's symbol right, they have great mini-marshmallows"
and what it means is that we are getting these symbols so drilled into our heads by ads and pop culture that we just see the font or the right colour and know the product. it's like mind control. all the b.s. involved with marketing owns you know. thought it was interesting anyway.

[Ceirwan]

I thought Lol's example of Austin Powers was a great one. There are so many jokes in those movies (particularly the second one) that many people wouldn't understand because they're so specific to the culture (songs etc) of the time

Eg there's a joke about calling the laser gun the Alan Parsons Project... and Scott points out that it's actually the name of an 80s band. How many people would even know that band? I do because I used to listen to it as a kid. But I think heaps of people would miss that joke.