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Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine

Kyiv National Linguistic University

Professor O. M. Morokhovsky Chair of English Lexicology and Stylistics

COURSE PAPER

“INTERTEXTUAL TRANSFORMATION OF CHIVALRIC IMAGES IN POSTMODERN PROSE: LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL ASPECT”

Kira Zhukova

Kyiv 2013



CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. CHAPTER ONE. THEORETICAL BASIS FOR THE STUDY OF INTERTEXTUALITY IN POSTMODERN ENGLISH PROSE

1.1 Main approaches to the study of intertextuality

1.2 Typology of intertextual relations

1.3 Intertextuality as a key concept of postmodern literature

2. CHAPTER TWO. INTERTEXTUAL RELATIONS IN NEIL GAIMAN'S SHORT STORY `CHIVALRY'

2.1 Postmodern interpretation of chivalry

2.2 Desacralization of chivalric image on the verbal and cognitive-verbal levels

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

РЕЗЮМЕ

BIBLIOGRAPHY



INTRODUCTION

Intertextuality is a relatively new field of study, although its foundations go back to the works of such scholars as Mikhail Bakhtin, Ferdinand de Saussure and other prominent representatives of humanities, who worked at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The theory of intertextuality was, however, for a long time applied only in literary criticism and philosophy, while the integration of the theory into linguistic studies is only a recent phenomenon.

Just for a few decades texts are linguistically investigated from the point of view of intertextuality. With the development of cognitive linguistics and the introducing of the complex approach to the text study, which presupposes the analysis of the whole complexity of implicit and explicit relations in a literary text and a means of their realization, the scholars began to refer to the theory of intertextuality. In modern linguistics intertextuality is mostly understood as the textual category and is usually studied from the point of view of its realization in specific texts.

The study was carried out by many foreign scholars, such as J. Kristeva, R. Barth, G. Genette, J. Lotman [24, 25, 19, 6], who laid the basics of intertextuality, M. Orr, M. Riffaterre, H. F. Plett, Ch. Bazerman, A. Graham [29, 31, 30, 14, 20] and others. In last few decades Ukrainian and Russian scholars, such as O. P. Vorobyova, O. V. Sytenka, I. V. Arnold, N. A. Kuzmina, H. A. Fateeva, I. P. Illjin, I. P. Smirnov, Zima P. V. [1, 5, 9, 4, 34] made a great contribution into the development of intertextual studies. Nowadays, due to the newly-implemented complex approach, the study is especially productive, which determines the work's topicality.

The object of the work is the chivalric intertextuality in the N. Gaiman's postmodern short story Chivalry.

The subject-matter is the linguistic and cultural aspect of intertextual transformation of chivalric images in N. Gaiman's postmodern short story Chivalry.

The aim of the course paper is to analyze the role of intertextuality in transforming chivalric images in the short story “Chivalry”, written by N. Gaiman, in accordance with the actual complex approach towards intertextuality in linguistics.

The aim can be subdivided into several main tasks:

1) To define main approaches to the study of intertextuality;

2) To give brief description of the main typologies and classifications of intertextual relations;

3) To specify the role of intertextuality in postmodern literature;

4) To characterize the postmodern interpretation of the Chivalric romance in the short story Chivalry;

5) To explore the linguistic manifestation of transformed chivalric image in the short story Chivalry.

To achieve the stated aim and tasks, such main research methods are to be used:

· General theoretical research methods (used in the first chapter for theoretical research): analysis, induction and deduction, classification, specification and synthesis;

· Special literary research methods (used in the second chapter for practical analysis): the method of narrative analysis, conceptual analysis, the method of contextual interpretation.



1. CHAPTER ONE. THEORETICAL BASIS FOR THE STUDY OF INTERTEXTUALITY IN POSTMODERN ENGLISH PROSE

Today's world of the open information flaws, Internet, media and Globalization led to an intensive semiotization of life. Our epoch, postmodernity, can be named as the `golden era' of intertextuality, which from a simple textual theory developed into a universal category that underlies practically all relations in society and culture.

The accessible knowledge, long history and sciences assured us, that time is not linear, but everything repeats itself in circles. It awoke a feeling, that everything has been already said and even if we manage to come up with something new, to prove this innovation, the new meaning should be anyway contrasted to all that was previously said. On the other side, when there is no claim of novelty, the use of already existing form very often becomes a prestigious indication of author's familiarity with the cultural and semiotic heritage, the `semiosphere treasure', as Yuri Lotman calls it.

It is impossible to cover all spheres, where intertextuality is applicable, so in this paper we try to concentrate on at least three of them: literature, postmodern English prose in particular, culture and language. But for a comprehensive analysis of intertextuality in these spheres, we cannot do without an insight into the controversial development and discrepant interpretations of the term from the very point of its creation, or even earlier.

1.1 Main approaches to the study of intertextuality

The genealogy of the theory of intertextuality can be traced back to Ferdinand de Saussure's study of semiotics and Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of dialogism. Although in their theories they didn't mention intertextuality directly, their works introduced the ideas, which were further developed into the nowadays widely used theory of intertexuality.

Ferdinand de Saussure, the Father of modern linguistics, introduced a completely new theory of language that treated the language as a structured system of elements, rules, and meanings that were socially conceived. First of all, he distinguishes between langue (language), which is `the product, passively registered by the individual [33; 14], `a system of signs expressing ideas' [33; 15], and parole (speech), `an individual act of the will and the intelligence <…> through which the speaker uses the code provided by the language to express his own thought' [33; 14]. Saussure then designates langue, but not parole, as the object of the linguistic study, he calles semiology, which investigates `the nature of signs and the laws governing them' and `the role of signs as the part of social life' [33; 15]. Saussure points out, that both langue and parole are social in their nature, with the only difference, that langue is a product of collectivity, while parole - of individuality. These ideas allowed his followers to look at the text not as at the original solid product of one author, but as at the space in which potentially vast numbers of relations co-exist, both written and spoken, as every new signifying system is a product of previous signifying systems.

Mikhail Bakhtin works on the relations of utterances, `specifically social, historical, concrete and dialogized' [11; 433] concepts of Saussure's parole in literary text, which are the generators of meaning.

He insists that all linguistic communication occurs in specific social situations and between specific classes and groups of language-users: “The life of the word is contained in its transfer from one mouth to another, from one context to another context, from one social collective to another, from one generation to another generation. In this process the word does not forget its own path and cannot completely free itself from the power of those concrete contexts into which it has entered” [11; 201].

He eulogizes such form of novel which incorporates the variety of utterances, thus creating multivocality, heteroglossia (the presence of two or more expressed viewpoints in a text or other artistic work), dialogism, or polyphony rather than authoritative univocality, monologism, or monophony. His key notion, that of dialogism, as a mode in which `everything means, is understood, as a part of a greater whole - there is a constant interaction between meanings, all of which have the potential of conditioning others' [11; 426] underlies the idea of intertextuality.

These theories, provided by Bakhtin and Saussure were reassessed and combined by a French literary theorist Julia Kristeva, who actually was first to use the term intertextuality in the late 1960s. She claimed that `any text is constructed as mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another' [25; 37].

In her work Desire in language: A semiotic approach to literature and art she states that `meaning is not transferred directly from writer to reader but instead, it is mediated through or filtered by codes imparted to the writer and reader by other texts' [24; 69]. Her concept of intertextuality shows a method of evaluating the function of literary and extra-literary materials without relating to the traditional concept of authorship. She considers this concept as a three dimensional textual space with three coordinates of dialogue referring to the author, the reader, and the pre-texts. This textual space has horizontal and vertical dimensions. In the horizontal dimension `the word in the text belongs to both the writing subject and the addressee' [25; 36], in the vertical dimension, `the word in the text is oriented towards an anterior or synchronic literary corpus' [25; 36-37]

Kristeva's concept focuses on the role of the text which needs to be understood in a broader sense. Text no longer presents a unified meaning, instead it `determines the very procedure of a semiotics that, by studying the text as intertextuality, considers it as such within (the text of) society and history' [24; 37]. In other words, intertextuality creates a relationship between one text and another on which it is based. Hence, `intertextuality is not a feature of the text alone but of the contract which reading it forges between its authors and readers' [15]. Textual allusion relies on a `collective' approach to knowledge. It requires that we collect and recognize discrete units of information.

The introduced by Julia Kristeva concept of intertextuality attracted the attention of many scholars and soon the researches spread out into different directions to such an extent, that nowadays it is possible to distinguish between three main approaches to the understanding of the nature of intertexuality.

1) Structural approach, which is based on the opposition “text - the fragment of the text” (G. Genett, D. Chandler, M. Riffaterre)

2) Interpretational approach, which is based on the opposition “text - context” (T. C. Foster, T. S. Eliott)

3) Linguistic and cultural approach, which is bases on the opposition “text - culture” (R. Barth, J. Derrida, J. Lotman)

Structural approach presupposes the ability to locate and describe a text's significance, even if that significance concerns an intertextual relation between a text and other texts. The representatives of this approach, such as Gerard Ganette and Daniel Chandler, re-focus their attention away from the details of individual works to the systems, out of which they have been constructed. They are not concerned with individual symbols or individual works, but with the way in which signs and texts function within the system and how they are generated by describable systems, codes, cultural practices, and rituals.

The vivid example of structural approach can be the Ganette's coherent theory and map of what he terms transtextuality, which might be styled as `intertextuality from the viewpoint of structural poetics' [20; 94].

In accordance with the interpretational approach, text is the ongoing interaction between poems or stories, which deepens and enriches the reading experience, and bringing multiple layers of meaning to the text [17; 23]. From this point of view, the intertextual relations can be used for a practical purpose of interpreting the text. The whole analysis then can be defined as a connecting the dots: if one begins to pick up on some of the intertextual elements, parallels and analogies, the understanding of the novel deepens and becomes more meaningful, more complex [17; 23].

Linguistic and cultural approach stands in the main concern of this paper. The idea of this approach is stated precisely in the famous words of one of its representatives, Roland Barthes, who mentioned in his essay The Death of the Author that `The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture' [13; 151].

This approach was formed under the influence of the pan-lingual way of thinking which was typical of the structuralists and poststructuralists, such as R. Barth, J. Lacan, M. Foucault, J, Derrida, A. J. Greimas and others. The consciousness was identified with the written text, as if it was the only possible means of its fixation in a more or less authentic and reliable way. Finally this idea developed into the view, that everything is the text: literature, culture, society, history and the man itself [4].

Another consequence of such identification was the intertextual dissimilation of the personal subjectivity in texts, which composed `the grand intertextuality' of cultural tradition. Hence, every author is of no significance anymore and turns into the empty projection of the intertextual game [30; 208].

Juri Lotman interprets it in the notion of the semiosphere, which is a `synchronous semiotic space filling boundaries of culture, being both the condition of individual semiotic structures and their outcome' [6; 252]. In the semiosphere text seizes to be a passive carrier of meaning, but becomes a dynamic, self-contradictory phenomenon which instantly grows and develops.

Besides, the concept of intertextuality, is closely related to the theoretical `death of subject' mentioned by Foucault and then interpreted by Bart as the `death of the author', and the `death' of the individual text, dissolved in an implicit or explicit quotations. The text comes not from the author, but language, he only translates linguistic structures or codes into particular narratives or messages brought into a dialogue, with each code it refers to being extracted from a previous culture. Roland Barthes writes: “Linguistically, the author is never more than the instance writing, just as language knows a 'subject', not a 'person', and this subject, empty outside of the very enunciation which defines it, suffices to make language 'hold together' [13; 145].

Considering linguistic and cultural approach, intertextuality is viewed as an integral part of the culture in general, and as an inherent feature of literary activity: citation is always inevitable; it always introduces the author into the sphere of the cultural context that entangles him into the `network culture', regardless of his will.

The world passed through the prism of intertextuality appears as a huge text where everything has already been said, and something new can be created only by using kaleidoscopic techniques: the mixing of certain elements gives new combinations. [4]

All in all, the first ideas on the understanding text, culture and the whole world as the living complexity of relations, which co-exist and interweave with each other, appeared already at the 19th century. In more than a century these ideas were greatly developed and expended into the variety of theories and approaches. Most of them are still in the developmental stage and are actively amplified and expanded.

1.2 Typology of intertextual relations

Text can be regarded as a main `carrier' of intertextuality. It can be identified relying on the certain linguistic markers (a variety of linguistic (verbal) (and / or non-linguistic (non-verbal) means), which are present in every text containing intertextual elements, i.e. in every text. These markers can be classified in different interpretations.

Jerard Genette adheres to a narrow interpretation of the term. Instead of insisting on the text itself, its closure, the relations within it that make it what it is, Ganette focuses on relations between texts, the way they re-read and re-write one another. He uses structural criteria to characterize different kinds of transtextuality, as he calls it, considering it both synchronically and diachronically. In several publications he has mapped out orderly sets of possible relations among texts [12; 57].

He examines intertextuality as one of the varieties of the wider concept of "transtextuality", which means `everything that includes [the text] in the implicit and explicit relationships with other texts' [7; 54].

In his work Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree he finally sets up the classification of relations. Although he hesitates how to name the subject of his study and what term to choose for a general scope of the relationships, after all he opts for transtextuality and divides it into 5 subclasses:

1) Intertextuality (inter- `between') - `a relationship of copresence between two texts or among several texts' [19; 1-2]. The study of intertextuality can identify submerged patterns, which may reinforce, subvert, or otherwise affect more obvious patterns. Gannette mentions such forms of intertextuality as allusion, quotation and plagiarism.

2) Paratextuality (para- `beside') is a `relationship that binds text properly speaking, taken within the totality of the literary work' [19; 3]. It is becoming increasingly important, as contemporary writers blur the lines between text and extra-text and sometimes the artifice that surrounds the text can be as important as the text itself. Examples of paratextuality can be proems, typefaces, colophons, dedications and even the type of paper on which the text is printed.

3) Metatextuality (meta- `after') - a `relationship labeled `commentary' [19; 4] It is a commenting reference of the text to one another, in other words, when earlier text cannot be explicitly mentioned.

4) Architextuality (arch- `original') `the entire set of general transcendent categories - types of discourse, modes of enunciation, literary genres - from which emerges each singular text' [19; 1]. Instances of architextuality are important because they connect the primary texts with other texts through genre. In the primary text, conventions and codes that satisfy the reader's expectations are regarded as architextuality. Architextuality greatly influences the perception of the text on the whole as it puts the text in the frame of a certain genre, which has its own form and content.

5) Hypertextuality (hyper- `above') is `any relationship uniting a text B (hypertext) to en earlier text A (hypotext)' [19; 5]. Genette understands it as the way in which authors use, re-work, translate or expand the source text.

From this classification it becomes obvious, why Genette's approach towards intertextuality is described as `narrow': to him intertextuality is only limited relation between text and the fragments of other texts, which can be either explicit or implicit.

Following the `wide' understanding of intertextuality, it is understood as the intertextual connections that are not only expressed in the verbal text inclusions, but also reflect the dialogic culture. Russian scholar Irina Vladimirovna Arnold in this course of understanding distinguishes between:

a) Code intertextuality, which incorporates various kinds of inclusions from different spheres of communication (scientific, official, religious etc.), including foreign-language;

b) Syncretic intertextuality, which is understood as the correlation with non-verbal text sources, primarily from the works of art [1; 437].

The same wide interpretation was supported by an American scholar Charles Bazerman, who in his book What Writing Does and How It Does It: an Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices provides another classification the techniques of intertextual representation on a gradual basis, from the most explicit to the most implicit ones:

1) Direct quotation. It is usually easily identified due to the quotation marks, block indentation, italics, or other typographic setting apart from the other words of the text. But it is important to remember, that while the words may be entirely those of the original author, however, the second author, in quoting, has control over exactly which words will be quoted, the points at which the quote will be snipped, and the context it will be used in.

2) Indirect quotation. This is usually an attempt to reproduce the meaning of the original, but in words that reflect the author's understanding, interpretation, or spin on the original. Indirect quotation filters the meaning through the second author's words and attitude, which allows the meanings to be more thoroughly infused with the second writer's purpose.

3) Mentioning of a person, document or statements. By mentioning author relies on the reader's familiarity with the original source and what it says. That is why no details of meaning are specified, so the second writer has even greater opportunity to imply anything without substantiation, thus leaving the space for further conjectures.

4) Comment or evaluation on a statement, text, or otherwise invoked voice. In this case the attention is attracted to the second author and his attitude towards the original source. But it is nevertheless important to be familiar with the original source to state the contrast or uniformity of two ideas.

5) Using recognizable phrasing, terminology associated with specific people or groups of people or particular documents. Recognition of this type of technique demands a deep and diverse knowledge in many spheres of life. At the same time it is the key to the full understanding of the text and its relations to the epoch, culture, society and other texts.

6) Using language and forms that seem to echo certain ways of communicating, discussions among other people, types of documents. Here we can include genre, kinds of vocabulary (or register), stock phrases, some patterns of expression etc, recognition of which forms a comprehensive understanding of the given text [14; 86 -89].

Although Ch. Bazerman created his classification with a practical purpose of the text analysis, the importance of his work is that he treats intertextuality as a linguistic and cultural phenomenon and states that text is related not only to other texts and cultures, but also society (groups of people in particular), language, style etc. This recognition plays a crucial role in defining the linguistic and cultural aspect of intertextuality.

Owing to the huge variety of different and often polar interpretations of intertextuality, it may seem that the term is permanently suspended between opposed meaning and uses. For many it has come to serve as a generalizing term for any critical procedure or creative practice involving a relation between two texts. Others try to limit its application to the radical theory of textuality. In fact, intertextuality is an extremely versatile concept, which allows vast numbers of approaches, theories and, as a consequence, typologies.

1.3 Intertextuality as a key concept of postmodern literature

Hermann Hesse in his book The Glass Bead Game (1943) describs this game in such words: “The Glass Bead Game is thus a mode of playing with the total contents and values of our culture; it plays with them as, say, in the great age of the arts a painter might have played with the colors on his palette. All the insights, noble thoughts, and works of art that the human race has produced in its creative eras, all that subsequent periods of scholarly study have reduced to concepts and converted into intellectual property -- on all this immense body of intellectual values the Glass Bead Game player plays like the organist on an organ.” [23; 24] With or without realizing it, in his book Hesse described the forthcoming epoch, which later will be called Postmodernism.

Postmodernism is a common social and cultural denominator of the second half of the XX century, a unique period, which incorporates the peculiar philosophical position, art and mass culture. The Longman dictionary identifies Postmodenism as `a style of building, painting, writing etc, developed in the late 20th century, that uses a mixture of old and new styles as a reaction against modernism'. [26; 1352]

At this point the difference between the terms `postmodernism' and `postmodernity' should be clarified. While `postmodernism' is used for describing literary and philosophical trends, `postmodernity' is used to refer to the state of society in modern times, which begins, according to various sources - from the 60s, 80s or 90s of the XX century.

One of the main theoretician of Postmodernism, Ihab Habib Hassan, in his book defines it as `an artistic, philosophical, and social phenomenon that veers to-ward open, playful, optative, provisional (open in time as well as in structure or space), disjunctive, or indeterminate forms, a discourse of ironies and fragments, a “white ideology” of absences and fractures, a desire of diffractions, an invocation of complex, articulate silences. Postmodernism veers towards all these yet implies a different, if not antithetical, movement toward pervasive procedures, ubiquitous interactions, immanent codes, media, languages.' [22; 91-92]

Therefore, it is possible to say, that the basic principle underlying postmodernism can be put in the slogan `Everything is acceptable!' But as the Chaos Theory states: `chaos itself is the order', so the postmodernism, which is eclectic and permissive, still possesses some specific features and set tendencies. They can be roughly divided and described as following:

· In the totality of cultures simultaneously co-exist semantically unconnected and mutually exclusive cultural traditions.

· The world exists in multiplicity - class, racial, ethnic, cultural etc - which leads to the principle of `multiculturalism'. This eclecticism and combining of different national traditions in specific cultural contexts leads to a situation, which was excellently described by Jean-Franзois Lyotard: “one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald's food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and `retro' clothes in Hong Kong” [27; 76]. That also triggers an interest to a marginal objects and phenomena, such as ethnic minorities (which developed in so-called `minority discourse'), different subcultures, various types of sexual behavior and identity, pop music and television news.

· Deliberate degradation of culture, where the domination is given to trash and kitsch. It is a culture of TV series and digests, advertising, shows and Hollywood movies, paraliterature with its disposable chivalry and love stories, popular biographies, bloody stories and sci-fi.

· Art becomes life, and vice versa - the line separating fiction from reality disappears. The text does not display a reality, but creates a new one. To the fore comes not reality itself, and but the language that mediates the relationship of the author with reality. At the same time postmodern consciousness abolishes the chronological sequence: multidimensional dynamic layers of events are reflected in each other, the past is realized in the present, and the present gives a key to the past. Every event, being at the crossroads of many different systems, each of which provides a new interpretation of it, becomes relevant not at the moment of its origination, but when it repeats itself. Due to this concept, the category of time of the original and copies lose its meaning. As a result, we are dealing with a huge `library' of texts that can be interpreted, combined and edited.

· Debunking of the metanaratives (grand narratives), `big stories', which shortly represents an explanation for everything that happens in a society. In postmodern tradition metanarratives have lost their power to convince, became stories that are told in order to legitimize various versions of `the truth' and are substituted by `petit rйcits', `localized' narratives. J.-F. Lyotard even identifies postmodernism by saying, that `postmodern is incredulity toward metanarratives. The narrative function is losing its functors, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements - narrative, but also denotative, prescriptive, descriptive and so on.' [27; xxiv]

· Everything is a game, including the manner in which communication unfolds. The patterns that define our social interactions are identified as language games, and put us in constantly changing positions and roles based on the type of discourse. J.-F. Lyotard in his book The postmodern condition:A Report on Knowledge develops the introduced by Wittgenstein study of language `on the effects of different modes of discourse; the various types of utterances he identifies along the way language games. <…> each of the various categories of utterance can be defined in terms of rules specifying their properties and the uses to which they can be put - in exactly the same way as the game of chess is identified by a set of rules determining the properties of each of the pieces' [27;10].

Lyotard himself makes several observations about the language games:

1) The rules do not carry within themselves their own legitimation, but are the object of a contract, explicit or not, between players.

2) If there are no rules, there is no game, that even a slightest modification of one rule alters the nature of the game.

3) Every utterance is a `move' in the game. [27; 10]

So postmodernism derives endless joy from the language games, which take place on the level of speech, which means that these games do not belong to the evolution of language, but to the momentous invention of words and meanings in order to `make a move' and to defeat the opponent, that is the accepted language, connotation.

Most of these notions refer us to the notion of intertextuality, which is a key to understanding the epoch of Postmodernism. With its help it becomes possible to create a new reality and fundamentally new and different language culture. The important thing is that postmodern culture is not intended to create something completely new, but it appeals to the past, to the completely different epochs: historical and artistic, so it is characterized by stylistic pluralism.

Postmodernism as an artistic discourse is distinguished by the fact that each utterance is understood as a reference to another previously spoken utterance. In other words, the postmodern statement is usually quoted. Postmodernism deliberately exposes quote, thus depriving it of meaning. But, in spite of the fact that the characteristic of postmodernism is quotation, it is based on the presumption of the abandonment of clearly fixed boundaries between immanent (internal) and borrowed (external). A text is a creation of anonymous, elusive and yet already known quotes - quotes without quotation marks. Postmodern literature in this context is understood as an intertext, within which the material is no longer cited, but entered into the very substance of the text. The text is a game of meanings that is embodied by the game quotes. Postmodern reading of the text is made out of quotes, references, echoes etc. Within postmodern idea textuality is understood as an integral part of intertextuality and is actually based on it.

Intertextuality is not only present in any text, but is reflected in the very process of writing, because the material recalls the culture that spawned it. In other words, the writer quotes or refers to the already known stories, images, techniques, but with an aim of parody, pastiche, revaluation or interpretation, but most works are the synthesis of different aims. V. P. Rudnev pays heed to the fact, that there is no parody in postmodernism, substantiating it by the idea, that `now there is nothing to parody, there is no great object, which could be subjected to ridicule. Only sacred and elevated things can be parodied, but in the postmodern era, there is nothing sacred and elevated' [8], but this idea is not widely supported by other scholars.

Postmodernism rejects the understanding of intertextuality only in terms of genetic reference of a text to its so-called sources. The phenomenon of intertextuality also includes texts that appear in later works: sources of text exist not only before a text, but also after it. No semantic flow can be considered as a source (determinant) of another, because none of them exist in and out of intertextual play: intertextuality has no time relations and all texts exist simultaneously and determine each other.

Besides, intertextuality is important for Postmodernism not only of genetic reasons, but also because of its functional aspect. It is not confined only to the notion of origin. It deals with the `borrowing' of not only the direct text or idea, but mainly of the functional and stylistic code that represents the pattern of thought and tradition. Actually, the intertextual process of collision gives contemporary culture an opportunity to re-actualize in the cultural perceptions meanings, whose value was diminished and initial connotations were lost, in other words, to re-discover the lost meanings.

To summarize, it can be said, that in Postmodernism intertextuality can be explained from the two sides - that of the readers and the author. From the perspective of the reader intertextuality is a setting on more in-depth understanding of the text or a permission to misunderstand the text by establishing multidimensional relations with other texts. Author's intertextuality is a way of generating his own text and expressing his artistic personality through a complex system of relationships of oppositions, identification and labeling with other texts. Thus, the possibility of establishing an intertextual relationship of the author and the reader depends on a common cultural memory and the general background knowledge.

Described above approaches and typologies of intertextuality, as well as stated characteristics of postmodernism and the defined role of intertextuality in postmodern text are determinants, which make it possible to proceed from generalizing to concretizing and to analyze intertextuality `in-use' in the second chapter of this paper.



2. CHAPTER TWO. INTERTEXTUAL RELATIONS IN NEIL GAIMAN'S SHORT STORY `CHIVALRY'

Neil Gaiman is an extremely popular British fantasy writer with an extensive oeuvre, which ranges from comic books (Sandman (1989-96), The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch (1994)) through quasi-mythical fantasy novels (American Gods (2001)), fairy tale rewritings (Snow, Glass, Apples (1994)), audio plays (Two Phys for Voices (2002)), film scripts (Mirrormask ((2006), Stardust (2007), Beowulf (2007)) to children's or young adult literature (Coraline (2002)).

His short fiction is a perfect illustration of the overarching influence of postmodernism. Several main postmodern tendencies in his works can be deferentiated:

· His stories frequently multiply the narrative perspectives and lay bare the process of storytelling,

· Gaiman interweaves different language registers and violates the narrative levels, thus supporting the general tendency to define reality as constructed in and through the language, discourses, and semiotic systems;

· His texts, analogously to the writings of mainstream postmodern authors demonstrate the contemporary urge to pluralize critical perspectives, questioning the possibilities of an objective vision and a universal language, which is correlated with the destruction of grand narratives and switching to `petit rйcits' (little narratives).

Neil Gaiman's short story Chivalry, written in 1993, is first published in his collection of short stories `Angels & Visitations'. It is said that the story was specially written for Marty H. Greenberg anthology Grails: Quests of the Dawn. In this short story another postmodern tendency, along with the already mentioned, comes to the fore: the medieval phenomenon of chivalry is reinterpreted within the framework of postmodernity. This very intertextual transformation and its unfolding on the different story levels are in the focus of the second chapter of the work.

2.1 Postmodern interpretation of chivalry

Texts do not appear in isolation, but in relation to other texts. Writing is a response to prior writing, and writers use the resources provided by prior writers. While reading we use knowledge and experience from texts we have read before to make sense of the new text and to notice the texts the writer invokes, either explicitly or not. intertextuality postmodern literature chivalry

In Neil Gaiman's short story Chivalry the first and very explicit intertextual reference appears already in the title.

Chivalry in the primary sense of the term in the European Middle Ages is `knights', or `fully armed and mounted fighting men'. Thence the term came to mean the gallantry and honor expected of knights, and, lastly, the word came to be used in its general sense of `courtesy'. The concept of chivalry in the sense of `honorable and courteous conduct expected of a knight' was perhaps at its height in the 12th and 13th centuries and was strengthened by the Crusades, which led to the founding of the earliest orders of chivalry, the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (Hospitalers) and the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Templars), both originally devoted to the service of pilgrims to the Holy Land. In the 14th and 15th centuries the ideals of chivalry came to be associated increasingly with aristocratic display and public ceremony rather than service in the field [16].

So, from the title we expect a story about chivalry. This idea is supported also by the paratextual (according to G. Genette) relation that exists between the short story and anthology it was written for, Grails: Quests of the Dawn. It narrows the expectations concerning the short story: it should be about the chivalry, about the Quest of Holy Grail. At this point the intertextual relations with the cultural phenomenon of chivalry and the whole scope of the medieval literature, dedicated to it can be set.

The legend of the Holy Grail is one of the most enduring in Western European literature and art. The Grail was said to be the cup of the Last Supper and at the Crucifixion to have received blood flowing from Christ's side. It was brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, where it lay hidden for centuries. The search for the vessel became the principal quest of the knights of King Arthur.

It was believed to be kept in a mysterious castle surrounded by a wasteland and guarded by a custodian called the Fisher King, who suffered from a wound that would not heal. His recovery and the renewal of the blighted lands depended upon the successful completion of the quest. Equally, the self-realization of the questing knight was assured by finding the Grail. The magical properties attributed to the Holy Grail have been plausibly traced to the magic vessels of Celtic myth that satisfied the tastes and needs of all who ate and drank from them.

Chrйtien was perhaps the ablest and most significant of the French romance writers of the Middle Ages. And his Le Conte du Graal (Story of the Grail) attempted the first serious exploration of the Grail legend [32; 44]. During the next 50 years several works, both in verse and prose, were written although the story and the principal character varied from one work to another. In France this process culminated in a cycle of five prose romances telling the history of the Grail from the Crucifixion to the death of Arthur. Among these other versions two stand out: Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzifal (early 13th century) and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur (late 15th century).

In his short story Neil Gaiman takes the essence of the Quest of Holy Great and put it into the postmodern realities. The structure of the quest remains the same: there is a knight - Galaad, an object - the Holy Grail, the high purpose - he is on Quest of Holy Grail and even the Lady - Mrs. Whitaker.

But every component of this structure undergoes the transformation. This intertextual transformation, according to Natalie Piegay-Gros, is of the derivative nature and in the short story is represented by burlesque on the one hand, when `the plot of the original work remains the same, but its literal text is undergoing significant changes' and pastiche on the other, when `the source code is not subjected to distortion, but only the imitation of its style' [7; 98].

The name of Galaad is an allusion to the knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail, Galahad, who was the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic. In Le Morte D'Arthur, in the chapter The Noble Tale Of The Sangreal Galahad from the very beginning gained the reputation of the chosen knight, as he `durst sit there in that Siege Perilous' [28; 381], where nobody but Arthur could sit and `laid his hand on the sword and lightly drew it out of the stone and put it in the sheath and said unto the king' [28; 382]. After these deeds nobody ever questioned his right to be a knight.

But in Chivalry Mrs. Whitaker doesn't even allow him to come in and asks him to show his identification: “The knight fumbled in the saddlebag and returned with a scroll. It was signed by Arthur, King of All Britons, and charged all persons of whatever rank or station to know that here was Galaad, Knight of the Table Round, and that he was on a Right High and Noble Quest. There was a drawing of the young man below that. It wasn't a bad likeness.” [18; 78] Only then she reluctantly lets him in and listens to his story.

References to already known art images are almost traditional in postmodernist prose. Citations and allusions in American fiction create a certain symbolic image, which simplifies the description of the characters as they already carry some sense load, the character does not need, because early created images create strong connotations.

That is why in Chivalry there is no extended description of Galaad. It is enough to say `the knight' for a reader to imagine him and to attribute the corresponding traits of characters and virtues, such as honor, valor, courage, grandeur and generosity. But the trick is, that postmodern knight does not corresponds to these virtues, neither is he devoid of them. He is an average person, whose merits do not strike the eye, as it would be in the Middle Ages.

Moreover, near Mrs. Whitaker he loses his superiority, moving cases for her, picking a sprig of mint, so acting just as a normal man, not as an exalted aristocrat.

Galaad is on the Quest, he has to fulfill his mission, to find the Holy Grail. In Le Morte D'Arthur Galahad found the Holy Grail in the castle of Carbonek: `there came a man and four angels from heaven, clothed in likeness of a bishop, and had a cross in his hand, and these four angels bare him up in a chair and set him down before the table of silver whereupon the Sangreal was' [28; 443].

Here the Holy Grail was revealed after the sacred ritual, where only the chosen knights could be present.

Whereas Chivalry begins with phrase: Mrs. Whitaker found the Holy Grail; it was under a fur coat [18; 74]. It happens in the Oxfam Shop that sold different kinds of knickknacks from `secondhand flotsam, often the house clearances of the dead.' [18; 75] She buys it for 30 pence, because it will look nice on the mantelpiece in her parlor. Later she learns about what the Grail is, but she doesn't pay much attention to it. What is more, she remarks that her friend Myron `got one just like that when he won the swimming tournament, only it's got his name on the side.' [18; 76] And finally, when Galaad convinces her to give him the Grail, she wraps it in the old Christmas wrapping paper [18; 76]. Such postmodern interpretation of the Sangreal not only desacralizes it, but in some way destroys the grand narrative of Christian religion, whose most precious relic it is considered to be.

The Quest of the Holy Grail itself undergoes a postmodern interpretation. In chivalric literature it was typical of the knight to overcome the obstacles, defeat the enemies and to pass tests, which reveal the knight's valor and virile character. In Le Morte D'Arthur Galahad survives different adventures before he finds the Grail: he gets a magic shield, defeats the devil, destroys the wicked custom in the Castle of Maidens and so on.

In Chivalry Galaad briefly retells Mrs. Whitaker his adventures on one of his visits. But they have not been completed yet, he still hasn't reached the Grail, although he has found it. To fulfill the mission he needs to convince Mrs. Whitaker to give it to him. To do this, he, like in a traditional chivalry romance, offers her different precious gifts, to get which he has to survive a lot of adventures. These adventures are not described in the story, but the reference to them is given, when Mrs. Whitaker notices on his last visit, that `he had a cut on his cheek, and he held one arm a little stiffly.' [18; 86] Nevertheless, he offers her different valuable things such as gold, `the sword Balmung, forged by Wayland Smith in the dawn times' [18; 82]., the Philosopher's Stone, the Egg of the Phoenix and one of the apples of the Hesperides.

The gifts in their turn are also the intertextual images: the sword Balmung belongs to Siegfried, a hero of Norse mythology, of Nibelungenlied in particular; the Philosopher's stone is a Magnum Opus of medieval alchemists, which, according to the legends, `can transform base metals into gold; and it has certain other properties' [18; 88]; the Egg of the Phoenix comes from Greek mythology, where Phoenix is long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn. Phoenix has been adopted by Christianity as a symbol of its apotheosis. And, finally, the immortality-giving apple from Hesperides' garden also comes from Greek mythology and it was the one that caused of Trojan Wars. These relicts from different mythologies contribute to the creating and filling of Galaads world, as opposed to the reality, where Mrs. Whitaker lives.

In Gaiman's short story these sacred things penetrate from the world of myths and magic into the real world, where postmodern values dominate. And as usually postmodernity gives no hope for their existing: Mrs. Whitaker either refuses to accept the gifts, or, as with the Philosopher's Stone and the Egg of the Phoenix, accepts them only because they look nice, without taking care of their sacral meaning.

The Lady in Medieval times turned into a vague ideal image: she became perfection, both spiritually and corporally. It was a beautiful woman off age, who lived in a castle and was of a high blood. Often she was associated with the Blessed Virgin. To admire her and to dedicate all his achievements to her, a knight had even no need to see her. There was no intimate connection between them: they were neither husband and wife, nor lovers.

The role of the Lady in Chivalry is given to Mrs. Whitaker, a widowed matron, who leads her uneventful life in English province. But when she comes by the Sangreal and meets Galaad, who is a mediator between two worlds, she becomes a part of his mythological world, where she takes a role of the Lady, to whom Galaad devotes his adventures. This contrast creates an ironic effect, when elderly kind-hearted and very friendly old woman plays a role of a majestic and distant medieval Lady.

To summarize the postmodern vision of chivalry, and the images it incorporates, it is worth saying that in the short story Chivalry with the help of intertextuality Neil Gaiman manages to confront two realities: postmodernity and medieval mythology. It can be argued that it is done only with a typical postmodern purpose to mock the past with its high believes, sacrality and virtues. Rethinking the literary heritage, sometimes with irony and pathos, postmodern writers, refer to past works of art as a permanent measure to human values. In case of Neil Gaiman, this rethinking has a tinge of regret and melancholy, as the example of Mrs. Whitaker proofs, that contemporary people are too obsessed with the daily routine to pay attention to something sublime and non-mundane. When Mrs. Whitaker encounters the Grail and Galaad, she, though understands their essence, continues to treat them as if they were just trivial parts of her daily life: she drinks tea with Galaad, cares about him by giving him food for a long journey and offers him to use the facilities and go to the toilet before he sets off.

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