Text Uality

TEXTUALITY
Mr. Soran A. Abdulrahman

Literature and Ideas
13.11.2023
Textuality
Is Hamlet primarily a ‘text’? Or is it a play? Is War and Peace a ‘text’, or a
novel? Is The Waste Land a ‘text’, or a poem?
The answer depends which side of literary activity you are coming from: or, more
accurately, where you choose to stand. And part of the answer is found in the fact
that we can apply the word ‘text’ to all these, in themselves very different, works
of literature.
Text versus work
• Modern critics tend to address themselves to ‘texts’.
• Writers, ancient and modern, never, or very rarely, employ that term about
what they create.
• The widespread textualization of literature is a relatively recent
phenomenon.
• Authors still see themselves, and wish to be seen, as what they have always
been: the creators of novels, plays, poems, gathered together under the
loose description ‘works of literature’.
(There is nothing outside the text.)
Jacques Derrida, From inside the text Of Grammatology
Why do critics prefer the alternative term, ‘literary text’, in
preference to ‘work of literature’?
◦ One obvious reason is that their work, as critics, is different and requires
some redrawing of the rules. Textualization dissolves everything under
investigation to a single primum materium literarium (primary literary
material).
• In so doing it opens up a whole range of areas for critical analysis: For
example:
1. Intertextuality
No text exists in isolation.
Intertextuality is a concept that refers to the interconnectedness of texts, where one

text is influenced by, references, or incorporates elements from another text. It's the
idea that no text exists in isolation; rather, texts are in constant dialogue with one
another, creating a web of interrelated meanings and references.
Intertextuality can occur between works by the same author, between different
authors, or even between different types of media.
• Intertextuality, invented by the French theorist Julia Kristeva, goes well beyond old-
fashioned ideas of ‘influence’ (e.g. ‘Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities shows the clear
influence of Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution’).
• Intertextuality presupposes not merely that writers draw on other writers, but that we,
as readers, read texts in the light of having read other texts.
• If I have read every scrap of Tolstoy’s published work, War and Peace will be a
different text for me than it is for someone who comes to it as their virgin experience
of the author.
Understanding intertextuality is essential for a deep analysis of a text, as it
acknowledges that the meaning of a work is not solely contained within its
own boundaries. Instead, a text gains significance and richness through its
relationships with other texts, creating layers of meaning that extend beyond the
surface narrative.
Some forms of intertextuality, including:
1.Quotation and Allusion: Directly quoting or referencing another text within a

new work. Allusions are subtler references that may not be direct quotes but
still evoke the original work.
2.Parody and Satire:
3.Adaptation: Transposing a story or characters from one medium to another,
such as from a book to a film, can be a form of intertextuality.
4.Intertextual Themes: Exploring recurring themes or motifs across different
works, contributing to a broader cultural or literary conversation.
2. Paratextuality
• Paratextuality, associated principally with the French theorist Gerard

Genette, introduced the concept of paratext in his book "Seuils" (1987. He
considers items that are in the text but have traditionally been considered
extraneous to it. Such things as the title, the epigraph, the dedication, stage
directions (in plays), even typography are thus put into relationship with the
body of the text.
Paratexts can be divided into two main categories:
1. Peritext:
• Cover Design: This includes the book cover, which often features images, colors, and typography
that provide visual cues about the genre, tone, or theme of the work.
• Title: The title of the book itself is a paratextual element that can influence readers' expectations
and interpretations.
• Subtitle: Additional information below the main title, such as a subtitle or tagline, can provide
context or clarification.
• Author's Name: The reputation and recognition of the author can influence readers' expectations
and attitudes towards the text.
• Preface/Introduction: These introductory sections provide insights into the author's intentions, the
context of the work, or its creation.
2. Epitext
• Reviews and Criticism: External reviews, critiques, and endorsements can

significantly shape readers' perceptions of a text.
• Interviews and Author's Notes: Statements made by the author in interviews
or notes can offer additional insights or context.
• Adaptations: If a text is adapted into other forms (film, TV, stage), these
adaptations become part of the paratext.
3. Subtextuality
Texts may have submerged countercurrents or repressed elements within them. The category of
‘subtextuality’ means these can be clinically worked on, without having to delve into the
psychopathology of the author.
Subtextuality refers to the underlying or implied meanings that exist beneath the surface of a
text, often conveyed indirectly through hints, implications, or unspoken elements. While the
text's main narrative might be explicit, subtext operates on a more subtle level, allowing for
nuanced interpretations and adding depth to the overall meaning of the work.
4. Contextuality
Contextuality enables works of literature to be set in environments – not

necessarily literary. New historicists often suggest that context has precedence
over text.
Consideration of the historical, social, and cultural context is crucial for a

comprehensive understanding a literary text.
5. Pantextuality
• Pantextuality is one of the more daring leaps made by the textualizers. It
presumes not just that literature is all text, but that the whole perceived world
is text. We ‘read’ reality.
• Pantextuality is assumed as a given by the father of deconstruction, Paul de
Man, in Blindness and Insight, declares ‘the bases for historical knowledge
are not empirical facts but written texts, even if these texts masquerade in
the guise of wars or revolutions’.
• World War II, in other words, is not a historical fact, but a text.
• Authors tend to dislike critics who, by approaching works of literature as
‘texts’ to analyse rather than finished objects to appreciate, presume to
discover more about their (the writers’) creation than they (the writers) ever
know themselves.
◦ Some authors positively detest these lice on the locks of (their) literature.
Nabokov, a prime detester, decreed that the textualists should be not merely
resisted, but sabotaged: ‘An artist should ruthlessly destroy his manuscripts
after publication lest they lead academic mediocrities into thinking that it is
possible to unravel the mysteries of genius.’
Textuality and the work of criticism
• There is another, subtler issue involved in the textualization of literature. To

classify The Waste Land as a ‘work of literature’, as critics used to do, assumes,
implicitly, that Eliot’s poem is an objet d’art, something achieved, inviolable,
complete in itself, to be reverenced.
• ‘Text’, on the other hand, suggests a field of activity, where the reader/critic is
free to unmake, or remake, what is on the page. Put another way; one
appreciates a work of literature. One is free to analyse a text.
Appreciation leads to critical belletrism
• ‘critical belletrism’: often accompanied by an attempt to match the fine

writing of literature in one’s own commentary. It used to be a term of praise.
Nowadays it is more often a term of contempt. Belletrism sees literature as
installed, honorifically, in a kind of museum of the mind. One can admire
what is on display but you may not touch.
No one, for example, would get a
ladder into the Sistine Chapel and start
picking off Michelangelo’s paint to see
what previous efforts might lie beneath
the surface.
◦ Textualism, by contrast, aims at something equivalent to the scientist’s
laboratory, where literature can be legitimately taken apart. And once it is
taken apart, anatomized, and put back together again to whom does the
object under examination belong? The author may own the work, the critic
may well lay claim to the text.
◦ “We murder to dissect” Wordsworth.
◦ Roland Barthes, decreed that the author must be killed in order that his/her
literature can be better read.
◦ Michel Foucault went one stage further. The author was, he decreed, merely
an ‘effect’ in the text.
References
Bressler Charles, E. (2007). Literary criticism: An introduction to theory and practice.
Habib, M. R. (2011). Literary criticism from Plato to the present: An introduction. John Wiley & Sons.
Sutherland, J. (2013). 50 literature ideas you really need to know. Quercus Editions Ltd.

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TEXTUALITY

Mr. Soran A. Abdulrahman

No text exists in isolation.

Intertextuality is a concept that refers to the interconnectedness of texts, where one

1.Quotation and Allusion: Directly quoting or referencing another text within a

• Paratextuality, associated principally with the French theorist Gerard

• Reviews and Criticism: External reviews, critiques, and endorsements can

Contextuality enables works of literature to be set in environments – not

Consideration of the historical, social, and cultural context is crucial for a

• There is another, subtler issue involved in the textualization of literature. To

• ‘critical belletrism’: often accompanied by an attempt to match the fine

Bressler Charles, E. (2007). Literary criticism: An introduction to theory and practice.

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