Intertextuality

Intertextuality refers to a literary and

psychological commonplace tradition of the old
oral world, it deliberately created texts out of other
texts,borrowing,adapting,sharing the
common,originally oral, formulas and
themes,Ong.p.131
 Intertextuality
 Print culture gave birth to the romantic notions
of ´originality´ and ´creativity´,
 Doctrines of intertextuality arose in past
decades
 Writers concerned, aware of literary
history,and of the de facto intertextuality of
their own works. Aware that they may be
producing nothing really new or fresh, under
the ´influence´ of other texts
 Example of intertextuality

 Clear, and present X

 I love to have obvious (when you see it)
examples to explain those little words, that you
know what mean, but can´t always find the
right word in your first language to explain it.
 Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643)
 Born Anne Marbury in Alford,Lincolnshire,
England
 Moved to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634
 1635 Begins holding assemblies for women in
her home
 1637 brought to trial for inciting religious
disharmony and stirring up political dissent;
the General Court sentences her to banishment
 She came first!!!

 Anne Hutchinson 1591-1643, 52 years old

 Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-1864
 Their birth over 200 years apart
 Nathaniel Hawthorne
 Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
 The Scarlett Letter published 1850, Hester
Prynne-Anne Hutchinson = intertextuality
 Anne Hutchinson the model/precursor to
Hester Prynne with minor adapting, both are
shunned by society, and still show grace, in the
trivial, brutal and exhausting life of puritans in
the seventeenth century
 Intertextuality
 The Scarlett Letter A = Adulteress
 The story is about puritanism as well as about
the human frailty!!!
 Puritans condemned both women, and both
Anne and Hester are admirable and attractive,
neither one believes they have done anything
wrong. Both true to themselves and what they
believe in.
 Intertextuality
 From Anne Hutchinson´s life experience to the
character Hester Prynne in Scarlett Letter ?
 Did it go from orally told life-story to writing?
 Or did Hawthorne read about the history of his
hometown ? Did he read the transcript of Anne
Hutchinson´s trial?

 You choose !!!