Intertextuality: Ariadne’s Thread in the Exploration of Literature

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This essay is devoted to the phenomenon of intertextuality as an essential aspect of text generation and analysis. Following Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the dialogic nature of the text and culture, it deals with such aspects of the text as polyfunctionality, polysemy and anthropocentricity. It seeks to show that the text combines three functions: cognitive, communicative and aesthetic and focuses on quotations and allusions as omnipresent elements of literary texts. Applying text and genre analysis, I explore intertextual links in poetic and prosaic pieces by Russian, British and American authors. In these analyses intertextuality emerges as a way to connect times and experiences and stimulate creative thinking. They also illustrate that a literary text is distinguished by two seemingly contradictory tendencies: stability and constant innovation. It is the symbiosis of the two that stimulates the preservation of the old and generation of new knowledge.

About the authors

Zinaida Yakovlevna Turaeva

Independent scholar

Email: zinaida.turaeva@mail.ru
14, Furtwanger Str., 71034, Boeblingen, Deutschland

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