intertextual, a. Lit. Theory.
(ɪntəˈtɛkstjuːəl)
[Back-formation f. *intertextuality n., after Fr. intertextuelle (coined in J. Kristeva Semeiotike (1969) 115).]
Denoting literary criticism which considers a text in the light of its relation to other texts; also used of texts so considered.
| 1973 Lang. & Lang. Behavior Abstr. VII. 856 Because certain texts make use of other texts, the problem of inter-textual and intra-textual relations is considered. 1974 Romanic Rev. Nov. LXV. 280 The poem negativizes this intertextual definition of a poem in yet another way: even a prose poem is supposed..to be polished and complete..whereas this poem is made to look like a preparatory sketch. 1982 J. Culler On Deconstruction (ed. 2) i. 32 A structuralist pursuit of codes leads critics to treat the work as an intertextual construct—a product of various cultural discourses on which it relies for its intelligibility—and thus consolidates the central role of the reader as a centering role. 1985 Times Lit. Suppl. 15 Nov. 1279/4 Such a method gives the author abundant opportunity for intertextual slides...He illuminates Webster by Oscar Wilde. 1991 Greece & Rome 82 A reviewer familiar with the methods of Hellenistic poets will be more sympathetic than most to the idea of inter-textual allusion; but all too often G. appears to be striving too hard to create order out of verbal echoes from distant parts of the Homeric poems. |
Hence interˈtextually adv.
| 1985 N.Y. Times 17 Mar. vii. 19/1 They proclaim the existence of a black literature connected not so strongly by a common black culture or struggle as by images and techniques found from book to book (‘intertextually’). 1987 Nation 15 Aug. 136/3 These later images—vertical, even square—have become more intertextually implicated in webworks of art-historical allusion. 1991 Oxf. Art Jrnl. xiv. 106/2 The issue here isn't whether..statements which emerge in one discourse function intertextually across a range of other enunciations and knowledges. |