Note on this edition: this is an electronic version of the 1999 book ...

Unravelling the Demonic Text 97would nevertheless locate the daimonic as an important aspect of the “dynamicidentity” that we can give both to this text, and the self it attempts toconstruct.(INTER)TEXTUAL SELF AND THE DEMONIC TEXTIntertextuality is that concept which has gathered under its heading many ofthose aspects of textuality that have been thematised above as “demonic.”There could hardly be any notion of “textuality” in the sense it is appliedhere, were there not a wide interest in different forms of intertextuality.There is always danger in the actual analysis of reducing intertextuality intoa contemporary version of “source-influence studies,” even if theoreticalformulations profess more radical intentions. It is my aim in the rest of thischapter to focus on the role of otherness in intertextuality, and on how thisrelates to my interest in the demonic. Specifically, my reading will find theformulations by Roland Barthes on textuality useful: they illustrate well severalaspects of the preceding discussions on the self, the demonic and thetext.The concept of ‘intertextuality’ was coined by Julia Kristeva in 1967,even if the ideas included in it are derived from many earlier theories. Thesingle most important source for the development of intertextuality as acritical concept was Mikhail Bakhtin, and his thoughts concerning the manyaspects of “dialogue” in literature. Soon after her arrival in Paris from Bulgaria,Julia Kristeva began her role as an important intermediary figure byintroducing the Russian Formalists and especially Mikhail Bakhtin to Westernintellectuals. 75 As the case of ‘intertextuality’ points out, she was neverjust a passive conduit of ideas: she actively recontextualised and reinterpretedthe elements she introduced.As Michael Holquist has emphasised, Bakhtin’s philosophy is a pragmaticallyoriented theory of knowledge. It is “one of several modern epistemologiesthat seek to grasp human behavior through the use humans makeof language.” Holquist maintains that Bakhtin has a distinctive place amongthese systems of thought owing to the “dialogic concept of language” Bakhtinproposed as fundamental. 76 According to this view, language is not aphenomenon separate from existence: there are units of existence we call“selves” and units of language (“words”), and both of them share commonlogic – “nothing is in itself.” 77 Consciousness is always a relation between acentre (I-for-itself) and everything that is not centre (the-not-I-in-me); selflut, Du démon de Socrate: spécimen d’une application de la science psychologique a celle del’histoire [Paris, 1836].)75 Kristeva’s association with Tel Quel magazine brought her ideas to the attention ofRoland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and others early on. (See, e.g. TorilMoi’s introduction to The Kristeva Reader; Kristeva 1986.)76 Holquist 1990/1994, 15.77Ibid., 31, 41.