Introduction
Intertextuality
would hardly have existed without literary criticism. Intertextuality as a
terminology was evolved by a French feminist, a formalist and psycho-analytic
theorist-Julia Kristeva in 1966 to indicate “the interdependence of literary
works”. Intertextuality is the presence, re-echoing or resonance of a text in
another one that had gone before it.
Cuddon (1977) cited in Ikerionwu and
Atodo (2010) says that intertextuality is “the interdependence of any literary
text with all those that have gone before it… a literary text is not an
isolated phenomenon but is made up of a mosaic of quotations and transpositions
of another text”. From the above, Cuddon agrees with Kristeva that “all texts
are made from multiple transpositions of other texts (literary and
non-literary). The sources of literary works could be from religious,
historical or secular background.
Literary criticism, according to
Roger Webster is concerned with the
Reading, analysis, amplification and interpretation
of/and commentary on a specific text or texts which have been designated as literature/literary….
It is practiced by professional critics and circulated in published form in
books and journals, it is also practiced by all students of literature in essays,
examination answers or dissertations.
Literary
criticism does not only depend on literature for its existence because it
generates works classified as ‘literature’ on its own. It is also criticism
that gives value to literature, and has helped to define it. According to
Webster, (1996:8) there would be no literature as we understand the term
without literary criticism.
Integration, according to Longman
dictionary, is the “process of getting people of different races to live and
work together instead of separately. Nwabueze (2005) sees integration as
involving the
“removal of barriers that cause segregation. It involves
unification and co-operation…method of combining separate parts into one
monolithic entity,… an integrationist is an apostle of unification, amalgamation,
consolidation, homogenization and concatenation. Without integration, there is
bound to be disintegration which causes
cultural confusion”.
National integration therefore
refers to the process of getting the various people (ethnic, religious and
racial) that constitute a nation together, consolidated and united for the
common purpose of development for the citizenry.
Intertextuality: Its Levels and Uses
Intertextuality occurs in diverse
forms and levels. It could be in the form of intertextual resonance, textual
linkage, plagiarism, literary echoes, literary adaptations, literary
transplanting and literary corrections.
Intertextual works are at times used
as rejoinders to correct some impressions created in earlier works. The British
female poet-Wendy Cope in her ‘Sonnet’ used the poet persona, Jason
Strugnel, to attack and disprove William Shakespeare’s views and assertion
about love as ‘constant’ and everlasting, thus, her two poems-“Let
me not in the marriage of true Swine’ and “Not only Gold but packets of Cornflakes”.
These two poems were used as Parody against Shakespeare’s earlier poems ‘Let
me not in the marriage of true minds; and “Nor Gold, Nor guided monuments”,
respectively.
J.P. Clark’s ‘Abiku’ pushed Wole Soyinka to write his own ‘Abiku’ poem to correct impressions created by the former.
Femi Osofisan’s No
More the Waster Breed is an intertextual response to Soyinka’s The Strong Breed. Osofisan seeks to prove
that the ‘carrier’ syndrome that seeks to make the poor a heroic scapegoat or sacrificial
lamb for the gods is neither heroism nor patriotism, but suicide due to
ignorance and stupidity. This is a sharp contrast to Soyinka’s The Strong Breed, that not eulogizes
but mythologizes the “carrier’ as a hero.
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart may never have existed if Joyce Carey’s Mister Johnson had not instigated it;
while Odia Ofemun’s The Poet Lied, a
poetry collection was a reply to the writings of many an artist who sits on the
fence on some burning critical issues concerning humanity.
Intertextuality could also be used
to replicate or adapt similar experiences in another setting. Chinua Achebe This Fall Apart has its title as a literary
echo from W.B. Yeats poem - ‘The second
coming’. Even the plot of the novel (which is in tandem with the tradition of
the Aristotelian tragedy) is a literary transplanting of Thomas Hardy’s plot in
Mayor of Csterbridge. Michael
Henchard, the hero in Mayor of Caster bridge,
starts life with nothing but through hard work, with dints of stoicism, and
fear of being a failure, achieves success in the society, before human faults
of his make him commit some blunders which reverse his fortune and sends him
back to the status quo ante, and eventual death.
Okonkwo, in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart starts life with
nothing, his father beings loafer, but through his personal efforts climbs to
the top of societal ranking. However, the fear of being thought weak and his
quick-tempered nature lead him into hasty actions that finally spell his doom.
Abraham Lincoln’s “Address at the Dedication of the National
cemetery at Gettysburg in 1863” is textually related to Pericles Oration- “On the causes of Athenian Greatness’
delivered by Pericles at the Public funeral of the Athenian solders killed in
the First year of the Peloponnesian War, 431 BC.
Martin Luther King Jnr’s speech-“I have A Dream” in 1963 has an
intertextual linkage with Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation speech. Even
Barack Obama’s inaugural speech on 20th January 2009, has some
literary resonance with John F. Kennedy’s 20th January 1961
inaugural speech.
Christopher Okigbo’s poem ‘Mother Idoto’ in Heavensgate is textually related
to the Biblical story of the prodigal Son.
Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Area Not to Blame is an intertextual adaptation of the
Greek dramalist-Sophodes’ play Oedipus
Rex. Sutherland’s Edufa is
an intertextual resonance Euripedes’ Alcestis;
while Alex Laguma’s novella – A Walk In
The Night has a literary linkage with Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Ngugi’s Weep Not Child echoes Whitman’s poem ‘On the Beach at Night; while Achebe’s No Longer At Ease echoes T.S. Eliots “The Journey of the Magi” which shows the change of the “old
dispensation” Even Bessie Head’s work-Question
of Power has classical linkage as
noticeable in the use of Theseus-the Roman archetypal hero who rescued the
imprisoned maiden -Andromeda.
However, the major concerns of this
paper are as follows – what are the major impacts of intertextuatity as an
aspect of criticism in our society? Are the intertextual criticisms in line
with ethical standards? How successful has intertextuality been in National Integration?
And, what are the ways forward?
As already stated, intertextuality
could be used to correct some impressions or already established opinions of
writers in earlier works; and it could also be used by writers to align
themselves with the views of the previous writers through the re-creating of
similar experiences and styles in their own. (later) generation works. The
writer in intertextual critical work is discharging his obligation as a
watchdog and mirror of the society. Accordingly,
The poet’s
work is to name the un-nameable,
Point at
friends; to take sides;
Start
arguments, shape the world,
And stop it
going to sleep
Those
were the words of Salman Rusdie, the (un)repetentant Indian-born British author
of the controversial text- Satanic
verses, the intertextual critical book that labeled him an anathema in the
views of the conservative dogmatic Islamic world of the Mullahs headed by the
Ayatollahs. His critical comments on the Quoran
earned him the ‘fatwa’ – a death sentence that kept him in hiding for years
till it was reversed. The critic is always awake to the duty of checking the
excesses of people and writers as portrayed in their writings with a view to
stabilizing the polity. The pains of literary criticism are the sacrifice for
the stabilization, thus, ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty’.
Intertextuality gives rise to the
growth of satellite texts or critical commentaries, reviews, and exegeses of
various kinds. These satellite texts are part of the reader-response (as
evident in Reader - Response criticism). The reader as an embodiment of
satellite text is part of the meaning of a text, because a text is meaningful
when it is read, and you form past of the meaning process when you read it. We
read it to encompass in our explanations what others have thought it meant, and
what values other people have said they found in it. Every text, except
formulaic one is a highly complex object. But “literary text is often one that
ha time to grow, with new dimension or complexity added to it, as it has become
a host to further texts that would not have existed without it”. Thus, the
series – African Literature Today,
edited by Durosimi Jones, African and
World Literature (AWL) edited by Okoro Fidelis &……. as well as Okike journal, and a host of others would
not have existed if the literary works treated in them were not written.
Impliedly, intertextuallity gives rise to the growth of literary scholarship in
the society.
However, to what extent have these
criticisms been in line with critical ethical standards? An objective critical
standard guarantees that the criticism should be issue-driven and not
personality-driven. Intertextuality, and indeed criticism should see literary
writing as a ‘text’ and not a ‘work’. ‘Work’ according to Webster,
Has the sense
of an artifact over which the author has total control and which reinforces the
traditional model of intentionality and an author-centred approach to
interpretation.
The
‘author-centred approach’ tallies with T.S.
Eliot’s views that the author is “an individual genius, a fountain of
imagination and creativity producing original writing”. This, according to
Rowland Barthes is ‘a very romanticized view of literary production.
‘Textuality’ in Rowland Barthes’
view implies that the author is not seen as the main producer of the text, nor
is he/she…identified with it. Thus,
He becomes,
as it were, a paper author:
His life is
no longer the origin of his fictions,
but a fiction
contributing to his work…the
‘I’, which
writes the text, it too, is never more than a paper ‘I’
According
to him (i.e. Barthes), it is the ‘language’ (text) which speaks and not the
author. Webster says that “the text became reified, an object and end in itself
rather than merely a transparent window on to the author”.
Buttressing his views on relevance
of the ‘text’ over the ‘author’ Barthes says,
Once a text
is in circulation, the umbilical cord…between the author and text is cut, and
the text lives an independent existence… The multiplicity of meanings which
make up a text is focused not on the author, but on the reader: a text’s unity
lies not in its origin but its destination-‘the reader’… The birth of the
reader must be at the cost of the death of the author.
Literary
criticism, therefore should be focused on the text, as this addresses the
issues raised; and should not be directed on the author, who is already
absolved by the deconstructionist Reader-Response theory and criticism, as any
such diatribe downgrades the weight of criticism to personality bickering and
not issue-driven, a negation of the ethics of objective criticism.
The critics in Nigerian and African
situation in their intertextual responses had always been concerned with issues
in the ‘text’ and not persons behind the ‘text’. To this end, they have adopted
the hermeneutics approach to criticism, via intertextyality. Hermeneutics
according to Nwabueze (2005).
Involves the
classification and distortions and obscurities that arise as a result of past
conclusions that may have become obsolete, and ensures the preservation of the
text despite changes in language and attitude to scholarship. The aim is not to
determine the literary meaning of a text but to reintegrate a canonical or
significant text into the present time by reformulating it…to make it relevant
and valid to a new generation.
It is in recognition of the above that modern writers
and critics have chosen to reconstruct some classical works and place them in
contemporary or modern historical setting. They do this through translations
and adaptations as they re-create the old works to suit the contemporary age.
Professor Emeka Nwabueze adapted Achebe’s Arrow
of God in his in an inter-genre dramatic work- when the Arrow Rebounds. Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is also reconstructed in the African serial movie-Okonkwo.
Ola
Rotimi not only recreates but helps to universalize the Greek belief in the
supremacy of fate through The Gods Are
Not to Blame, an African adaptation of Sophocles” Oedipus Rex.
Wole
Soyinka’s The strong Breed which idolizes heroism anchored in an ageing
and antiquated historical past that mythologizes the ‘carrier hero’ for
yielding himself as a food for the gods (an indirect glorification of suicide)
is intertextually responded to by Fermi Osofisan in No More the Wasted Bread. Here, there is a reversal of the
‘carrier’ syndrome through Marist revolutionary aesthetics that liberates the
poor from the strangulating grip of religion or the gods. Soyinka’s historical
and religious idealism has been reconstructed and reformulated with subversions
to make it ‘relevant and valid to the ‘new and contemporary generation.
The
critics approach of viewing the text objectively without recourse to the author
which is typical of the Reader - Response ethical standards in criticism, serve
for national integration. Intertextuality as literary art in parade addresses
the problems of society and wishes for the establishment of society with
“mammalian brain, characterized by insights, intuitions, and self-sacrifice,
with consciously sustained thought and ability to abstract and synthesize”.
Indifference
to criticism is indicative of backwardness. A progressive society must appreciate
the role of the literary text and criticism in its development strides, as
artistic crafting is aimed at informing and changing the society. The writer’s
work is aimed at the reader, and at a wider level-the nation. The
intertextualist as a critic “is philosopher, a historical witness, psychologist
… a teacher and, a custodian of the moral conscience of the society”.
Accordingly intertextuality as literary criticism should, reconstruct ethnic character
heroes as national heroes in their contemporary literary works. In drama as in
other genres, the adapted or re-echoed works like Nwabueze’s When The Arrow Rebounds, Rotimi’s the Gods Are Not to blame and Osofisans’
No more the Wasted Breed have ethnic
heroes, namely, Ezeulu, Odewale and Biokun respectively. Even Achebe’s post
independence novels- A Man Of The People and Anthills Of The Savannah which have Chris
Oriko and Chief Nanga respectively as their heroes, according to Nwabueze.
Though embedded
with national setting but grounded in ethnic bases… can be made to transcend
ethnic bases to assume the role of national heroes.
From most available literary works, our literature
could best be described as ethnic or regional literature. It should therefore
move towards the centre- (national level). Just as the American writer, Herman
Melville in Moby Dick depicted
the American spirit, the Nigerian literary artist in intertextual
reconstruction should portray the Nigerian national (not ethnic) spirit.
Modern
literary writing evolved from oral tradition that universalizes characters and
ideas. The use of animal characters remove works form ethnic characterization,
while the location of actions across seven rivers, and in the moon and sky
removes the text from a given ethnic locale and rather gives it universal
setting. This ensures that setting does not encumber interpretation. Our modern
literature should be reconstructed to use the oral literary form which
‘stresses unity and integration (negated by the modern literary tradition).
In
order to conquer the problem of parochialism and achieve ‘university in
writing’, the intertextual critic has to make use of archetypes of universal
heroes, otherwise known as monomyth. Here, the world hero.
‘Appears to
represent humanity in idealized form: special, nearly god like, destined for
better things, but beset by incredible obstacles. Though, he may not be morally
perfect and does not always triumph, his characteristics are universal rather
than peculiar’.
On language, the use of English as a medium of
literary expression should not be a disadvantage to the reader because the
language as a tool for national integration should be used in such as way that
it conveys meaning without distorting the uniqueness of the situation, or the
intelligibility of the language. The English language as a world language has
been subjected to different forms of use. Since we have American English, Standard
British English, the Nigerian English should not be totally unrealistic. The English
language, now domesticated, should be used to convey national ideals.
However,
the theory of reconstruction is best applicable for national integration. As a
critical theory that stresses that the text be perceived on its own without
recourse to the author, asserting the individuality of the text, disregarding
that of the author, is best for national integration. This is because, due to;
The
multiplicity of ethnic groups in the country, concentration on the text and not
the author or his environment will make for national integration because the
critic will be forced in the process to project national issues. Concentration
on the text yield meaning to the consumer of the creative work without putting
him into the contradiction, which the prejudiced attitude to the author imposes
on him (Nwabueze: 2005)
The
leading way forward is for the cessation of hostilities amongst the literary
icons and intellectuals. The (intellectual) hostilities may have been based on
the polarity among scholars anchored on their individual intertextual and intellectual
egoistic display of knowledge in their attempts to offer practical explanations
to some theoretical principles. These differences have led to the formation of
intellectual blocs, with each claiming superiority over the other, This has
created cold war among themselves. The Ashiwaju’ and the Ogbuefi’ of African
literature (as authors cum/critics) should get their divisive differences and
tendencies interred, and come up with unifying ideals that promote national
integration. However, “unity does not mean that differences cease to exist… but
they are accommodated for the interest of all concerned” (Ojukwu, 1986).
The
critics of African literature, on the other land, should address the African
felt realistic problem of unity or national integration, and avoid
muscle-flexing. The ‘Bolekaja’ of
Africa literature should now face the issue of national interaction within African
states (their opponents having failed to accept the intellectual challenge and
come up with a rejoinder several decades after). It is expected that the trio,
led by Chinweizu, as unquestionable intellectual power-house, should come put
with African literary aesthetics that address national cohesion within African
States. They, together with others should sheathe their dissecting intellectual
swords, and do away with issues that are centrifugally oriented at the expense
of the much needed centripetal pull towards national integration.
CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, intertextuality has been proved to be an aspect of
literary criticism, as it has led to the growth of literary works, much of
which would never have being without the previous ones. However for
intertextuality to be useful in national integration, it must be ‘text’ or
issue-driven, not author or personality centered. The literary icons and
critics of African literature must be truly reconciled among themselves’, as
they jettison their divisive differences into the garbage sea in quest of true
nationhood, as they formulate a positive African literary aesthetics that would
foster literary creativity which promotes national integration among members of
African states.