Intertextuality - by Mary Orr (Paperback)

About the Book

This is a comprehensive introduction to 'intertextuality', a term which describes the idea that meaning only exists between a text and all the other texts to which it refers and relates.

Book Synopsis

This book is a comprehensive introduction to the idea of intertextuality and the debates surrounding it, focusing on the four key thinkers whose work has been central to these debates - Kristeva, Barthes, Bloom and Genette.

• A comprehensive introduction to 'intertextuality', a term which describes the idea that meaning only exists between a text and all the other texts to which it refers and relates.
  
• Focuses on the four key thinkers whose work has been central to these debates - Kristeva, Barthes, Bloom and Genette, guiding the reader through the original texts of each of these.
  
• Of special importance is the author's reading (and translation) of other parts of Kristeva's Semeiotiké.
  
• Takes a fresh approach to the rival French critics - Angenot, Derrida, Girard and Ricoeur - who also worked on intertexuality and tackles the 'language' of intertextuality, shining new light on some of the terminology most commonly associated with this concept.

From the Back Cover

This book is a comprehensive introduction to the idea of intertextuality and the debates surrounding it. Mary Orr focuses on the four key thinkers whose work has been central to these debates - Kristeva, Barthes, Bloom and Genette - and, with an innovative perspective, guides the reader through the original texts of each of them. Of special importance is the author's reading of Kristeva's Semeiotikè. Orr's investigation takes a fresh approach to the rival French critics who also worked on intertexuality (Angenot, Derrida, Girard and Ricoeur) and tackles the 'language' of intertextuality, shining new light on some of the terminology most commonly associated with this concept.

In this innovative and rigorous analysis of intertextuality, Mary Orr presents the reader with her own subtle and nuanced view. She has created an engaging book which will become the standard work on this subject.

Review Quotes

"Mary Orr's Intertextuality is a major achievement. A provocative analysis of the "canonization" of intertextuality and its main theorists, it is also a probing anatomization of intertextuality's "others", such as influence, imitation and quotation. Theoretically acute, and sensitive to metaphor as much as to meaning, this book illuminates papyri, Renaissance commonplace books and the internet as much as it reorientates our understanding of intertextuality. A "must read" for everyone interested in critical theory." Michael Worton, Vice-Provost and Fielden Professor of French Language and Literature, University College London

"While advancing a spirited defence of Kristeva, Mary Orr offers a knowledgeable theoretical discussion of intertextuality that throws light on interdiscursivity, interdisciplinarity and intercultural discourse. Intertextuality argues vigorously that hypertexts serve as a generational marker for younger critics and encourage not just a modish but a new way of viewing the translingual and transcultural imagination. In so doing, Professor Orr recuperates a revitalized metacritical consideration of influence, imitation, allusion and quotation in a fascinating book that should open criticism to an exciting future." Allan H. Pasco, Hall Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature, University of Kansas

About the Author

Mary Orr is Professor of Modern French Studies at the University of Exeter.