INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE LITERATURE

Literature is not the product of a specific nation; rather it is a combination of the experiences
of all nations. So, to speak, there is inheritance amongst the literary texts all over the world
literature. In her work "Word, Dialogue and Novel", Kristeva (1986) had defined this
inheritance as the “intertextuality” which is "a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption
and transformation of another”. According to Kaplan (2005), any literature displays the
characteristics of a nation through different means, the most important of which is the language.
Thinking of the global changes and technological development, it is quite easy to see the issue
of interaction between the nations. In this sense, all nations borrow or lend some items from
each other and in terms of literature, this literary shopping occurs through the languages, that
eventually brings the subject of intertextuality before us. Intertextuality appears in a literary
work within different interactions. Social events concerning all the humans in the universe are
effective in this action. Especially the religions, trade, wars, social and or economic movement,
internet and technology have significant roles in this because this interaction is International
Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies provided through these factors in the society.
Now that, the society is mirrored up in the literature, these affects necessarily will be seen in
the literature and the scholars deal with finding formic, contently and stylistic resemblances
among the cultures and literary areas in a literary work. In this study, two aspects of these
interactions in the literature will be handled as theme-based and form based. The stylistic
resemblances will be treated under the form-based part.

2. Content and Theme Interaction

Every nation has similar mythologies and wherever it is gone, it seems that the stories bear
resemblances. Somehow, the colours of the tears, fears and love are the same even though the
colors of people are different from each other so the subject of literary works thematically are
more or less the same. Romeo and Juliet of British literature shows many similarities with
Leyla and Mecnun of Turkish Literature. Although sometimes, there is no time synch between
the texts, yet, the themes and the content show the same utterances told by the heroes and
heroines of the stories. Parla (1990, p. 14) mentions that some themes stand still the same for
each society unless the form is imitated by poet or author, since the rest is mostly the same and
“what literature reflects are the common things; “in literature there is nothing strange‟ or „from
outside ‟”. Carl Jung (1968), in his The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, leads
attentions to the archetypes in literary cultures. Observing this work, it can be easily said that
“every nation in the world has been following the same traces throughout the history and this
situation will go on in a cyclical movement in the coming years since literature is the work of
mankind”. In other words, now that language is the mirror of any culture, this is essentially an
interaction among the cultures. While observing the literature, scholars come across with
essentially “intertextuality” in every literature. To Parla (1990):“What literature reflects are the
common things; “in literature there is nothing „strange‟ or „from outside.

Another subject related with this interaction is the concept “metalanguage” that is used by post
structuralists while examining a literary work. According to this examination, “every literary
work includes many other meanings and languages; namely a work is not only composed of
what is seen but also composed of unseen themes and contents that can be called „context‟ or„
background‟” (Barthes, n.d.). For instance, while reading J. D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”,
it is possible to find Jung. Theme is a child’s incapability of adapting the life that is resulted in
missing the past always, namely to have a clear sight into the works, it is needed other texts
written in that language or not. Or while reading Henrik Ibsen, it is impossible not to see
Darwin’s and Socialism’s effect on both author and the work for example “A Doll’s House”.
Or in Shaw’s “Pygmalion”, Marx’s “class distinction” exists there though Marx is nor an Irish
or English unlike George Bernard Shaw is an Irish and writes is in English and for English.

3. Form Interaction

The matter of intertextuality shows itself in the literary text not only in terms of meanings,
themes, events etc., but also it is seen that world literature covers similar formic elements.
These elements can be examined under several subtitles.

3.1 Genre

There is nothing strange in the literature because every unit in the literature owes some to other
literatures. When genre is observed, it is visible that there is a common point within all
literatures: all works have been written either in prose or verse.

Later these two writing forms have gotten new names according to their contents; or form of
literary works is either prose or verse or mixture of both. Going back the history, for example
in the Poetics, although Aristotle strongly suggested to use poetical language for an effective
product, this idea is followed by later theatre writers; however, not all of them have agreed to
use it in the same way. William Shakespeare, for instance, did not use rhyme (Shakespeare,
n.d.). Another striking point that can be derived from the Poetics by Aristotle is that the history
of tragedy and comedy depends on the earlier times than Greek works. Aristotle mentions: “…
The Dorians claim the invention both of Tragedy and Comedy. The claim to Comedy is put
forward by the Megarians, --not only by those of Greece proper, who allege that it originated
under their democracy, but also by the Megarians of Sicily, for the poet Epicharmus, who is
much earlier than Chionides and Magnes, belonged to that country. Tragedy too is claimed by
certain Dorians of the Peloponnese. In each case they appeal to the evidence of language.”
(Harmon, 2005, p. 35).

In the modern world of today, everybody talks about theatre and every literature has theatre;
whereas it had been cited on the previous times before Greek’s works. Another outstanding
example can be the concept of “short-story”. This literary genre belongs to American literature
which was invented to be able to reply the demand of mobile men of Old India because they
were mobile and did not have enough time to read a huge ad thick Victorian novel so they
developed the concept of short story which is supposed to be as short as “one should be able to
be read it in one sitting” (Short story, 2017). This new genre has become one of the most
significant genres of the era since the speed of the life in parallel to the technological
developments has been much more increased than of those West Indians.

3.2 Style

Every writer or poet follows a style that belongs to him/herself; for instance, in orientalist way
of evaluating events, “events and intentions” are more important than the results. This can be
even seen in the structure of sentences such as in Turkish, verb is in the end of the sentence;
somehow this situation tells us that the excuses, explanations, reasons etc. are also very
important before the final action or decision. On the other hand, this is on the very contrary in
English, the verb takes place just after the subject; namely “who made” and “what happened
(result)” is more important. Literature, as said before, is a total accumulation of mankind and
essentially there must be intercourses among the writers. Every writer is affected from each
other. This interaction reflects on their works in different ways. One of the ways of this
reflection is called style. In the field of poetry, for example, the use of iambic pentameters,
which gives a pattern of ten syllable lines with an accent on every second syllable. The Italian
sonnet is sometimes called the Petrarchan sonnet after Francesco Petrarch. The Petrarchan
sonnet was brought into England by Sir Thomas Wyatt, it was adapted to the English format
because of linguistics‟ differences in each language (Masson, 1995). In the drama scope,
“unlike Shakespeare and his contemporaries, T. S. Eliot, in Murder in Cathedral, prefers to
follow Aristotle’s recommendations in the Poetics related with the art of drama.” (Translated
by Sauder).
In the area of novel, both Joyce and Woolf contributed to the drastic change of fiction by
twisting the concept of realism into something new in which experiences are represented
directly and the language used is beyond traditional expressions. For instance, James Joyce's
Ulysses experiments in types of stream-of-consciousness narrative, while Virginia Woolf's
Mrs. Dalloway is an example of a series of interior monologues (Stream of Consciousness,
2015).

4. Language Interaction

Language interaction may seem in a literary work in some perspectives. Language is the main
and vital material of a literary work. Language exists in a work both linguistically and as a
culture reflective. “In a society, there can exist either the situation of monolingual or bilingual
or multilingual.” (Ward haugh, 98) All of these have some important effects on literature.

4.1 Monolingualism

Talking about the effect of mono-language in literature is not so logical for today’s cosmopolite
world since wherever a person goes, it can be probable to encounter with English words. Also
except for a foreign language’s impact on any native language, in every nation there is a
standard language in writing. However, as to oral language, it brings many other concepts
together like “accent” and “dialect”. Moreover, as Karaagac (2001) said that “everybody
teaches each other something in social constructions in which a very variety has been lived on
“idiolect” which constitutes according to occupations, ages, geography in which is lived; in a
better word, according to the ways that is passed, and in the languages that constitute this social
construction…” (p. 95). As seen above, Karaagac adds “idiolect” into the speculation of
languages‟ effect. To this, native language, accent, dialect and (by depending on these) idiolect
effect a literary work directly both physically (formally) and contently.

4.2 Bilingualism

Bilingualism refers to the concepts “super-stratum” and “substratum”. Bilingualism in

literature means that reflections of “substratum which is represented by invaded or governed
class - it is seen when a great deal of nations live in places and times within the same
geographical and political unity- and superstratum which is represented by invaders and
governors,” into a literary work. These reflections can be either “cultural borrowings or
prestige/intimate borrowings.” The effects of double lingualism especially are visible in
today’s world as English and English culture’s influence (Gulsevin & Boz,2006).
Effects of bilingualism also have given birth to the concept of “lingua franca” that means a
wide language as a second language in a particular time. Lingua franca for literature can have
connotations as ideology, theme, style etc., namely accepted norms of that literary period.
Another influence of bilingualism is the problem of translation. In today’s rapid world every
literary work including poetry is translated into other languages. This translation causes
“accuracy” problem in a literary work. To Schopenhauer, “poems cannot be translated; they
can only be transposed, and that is always awkward” (cited in Iqbal, 2015)

As to prose, the texts can be translated into another language but the soul of a text cannot be
translated. “Some languages have concepts that are unknown to the people of another
language… it is spoken but cannot be translated but paraphrased…” (Finlay, 1974, p. 114).

The next problem with bilingualism is related with writer or poet’s bilingualism. Now that
author mirrors the society in which s/he lived, up, his/her language will influence the work
linguistically or culturally.

4.3 Multilingualism

This is an umbrella term for this scope of literature. This includes all kind of languages starting
from native language with dialects and accents, second language and other languages including
jargons, and idiolects (Multilingual, 2017). This term is mostly related with nation’s being
rooted or /and multinational and/or colonizer/colonized. To illustrate, let’s consider English
literature; it goes back to paganism. Step by step, it is possible to see the “effects of dialects
(Celtic, Anglo, Saxon etc.), accents such as London accent; borrowings from other nations such
as names for places from Scandinavian; Latin borrowings into English particularly towards the
end of the Middle English period; effects of Christianity for instance the genres “miracle” and
“mystery plays” come together with result of the religious interaction; also many mythologies
especially belonging to Greek mythology etc… Colonization problem can be sub-exampled
under English because (when considering the colonizer/colonized languages,) a part of
(literary) history of England is composed of colonization and its effects on their lives and
cultures, e.g., even George Bernard Shaw’s absence in English literature is an example of this
because he is an Irish who wrote in English and for the English” (Davies et al., n.d.). In a
multilingual country, “code selection” and “identity problem” occurs in a literature just as in
the society.