Intertextuality: Meaning of Life and Silk Cut Essay Example
What is intertextuality? How does intertextuality challenge E.D. Hirsch's idea that a text has a single meaning created by its author? Explain with reference to examples drawn from any media format.
According to American literary critic, E.D. Hirsch, in order to interpret a body of text, one must ask one's self the only question that can be answered objectively "what, in all probability, did the author mean to convey?" He believed that the author's intended meaning equates the meaning of a text and it is in fact, the reader's duty to uncover the the author's intentions.
"The meaning of a text and its author's intentions are one and the same."
Hirsch's concept revolves around the assumption that a body of text is original, and is purely a body of the author's sole "intentions". The production of text, if one were to adhere to Hirsch's theory, is therefore exclusive to the author's own ideas and concepts and free of external influence. However, the notions of langue and parole disputes this idea. According to Barthes in 1984, "It [la langue] is the social part of language, the individual cannot himself either create or modify it".
Furthermore, Ferdinand de Saussure's work on structuralism and semiotics demonstrates the subjectivity of language and can be said to have sewn the seeds for modern concepts of intertextuality (such as those developed by Roland Barthes and Julia Kristeva). Intertextuality challenges the idea of a text's ability to be truly original and therefore disagrees with Hirsch's theory. In this essay, I will focus on how conscious intertextuality as well as the semiotics involved in unconscious intertextuality both dispute the idea that the meaning of a text belongs exclusively to its author's intentions.
Julia Kristeva, who was the first to use the term "intertextuality", proposed the idea that a text should not be interpreted merely by its words at face value, but also studied based on other works it has adapted and was
According to American literary critic, E.D. Hirsch, in order to interpret a body of text, one must ask one's self the only question that can be answered objectively "what, in all probability, did the author mean to convey?" He believed that the author's intended meaning equates the meaning of a text and it is in fact, the reader's duty to uncover the the author's intentions.
"The meaning of a text and its author's intentions are one and the same."
Hirsch's concept revolves around the assumption that a body of text is original, and is purely a body of the author's sole "intentions". The production of text, if one were to adhere to Hirsch's theory, is therefore exclusive to the author's own ideas and concepts and free of external influence. However, the notions of langue and parole disputes this idea. According to Barthes in 1984, "It [la langue] is the social part of language, the individual cannot himself either create or modify it".
Furthermore, Ferdinand de Saussure's work on structuralism and semiotics demonstrates the subjectivity of language and can be said to have sewn the seeds for modern concepts of intertextuality (such as those developed by Roland Barthes and Julia Kristeva). Intertextuality challenges the idea of a text's ability to be truly original and therefore disagrees with Hirsch's theory. In this essay, I will focus on how conscious intertextuality as well as the semiotics involved in unconscious intertextuality both dispute the idea that the meaning of a text belongs exclusively to its author's intentions.
Julia Kristeva, who was the first to use the term "intertextuality", proposed the idea that a text should not be interpreted merely by its words at face value, but also studied based on other works it has adapted and was