Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History

Download or read book Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History written by Jay Clayton and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection explores and clarifies two of the most contested ideas in literary theory - influence and intertextuality. The study of influence tends to centre on major authors and canonical works, identifying prior documents as sources or contexts for a given author. Intertextuality, on the other hand, is a concept unconcerned with authors as individuals; it treats all texts as part of a network of discourse that includes culture, history and social practices as well as other literary works. In thirteen essays drawing on the entire spectrum of English and American literary history, this volume considers the relationship between these two terms across the whole range of their usage.