Intertextuality

The poet John Donne once wrote that "no man is an island" and for postmodernists no text is an island. Post modernism, structuralism are all about the connections between texts, including the various ways in which one text references another. There are all kinds of techniques that authors can use in order to highlight these links, including pastiche', parody, quotes, and direct references as well as subtler nods to other material. What these techniques have in common is that they're examples of intertextuality.
Julia Kristeva coined the term "intertextuality" in 1966,explaining that there are two relationships going on whenever we read a text: there's the relationship between us and the author (the horizontal axis) and between the text and other texts (the vertical axis). Its the vertical axis that gives us our definition of intertextuality; still, both axes emphasize that no text exists in a bubble and that we need to recognize how existing works shape current texts and readings.
Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. It is the interconnection between similar or related works of literature that reflect and influence an audience's interpretation of the text.For example, a writer who has viewed a certain film may be influenced by some of the ideas in that film. This influence may become apparent in their writing as they work on a novel, poem or play. Intertextuality enables us to understand texts more fully. Writers can make a text seem more realistic by referring to ideas, people or events that exist in the real world. By making reference to things we can relate to, writers help us to feel a sense of familiarity with the world they are creating for us. Intertextuality treats literature as a network and invites us to pick up on how a text relates to other texts. this textiness sets postmodernism apart from some other literary movements that are all about realism and naturalism. Postmodernism doesn't try to disguise that a text is a construct, and that's why intertextuality is so postmodern - it reminds us of the very thing that some other kinds of texts try to keep under wraps.  

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