THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.2 Double Whammy: Mixed Doubles The Avatar in Panamaepigraphs. The fourth has one dedication on the title page, and theepigraph by Pascal opens the division entitled “Acechos”. There are thesame five epigraphs but no dedications at all.Textual RelationsJulia Kristeva’s term “intertextuality” 88 refers to texts in terms oftwo axes: one connecting the author and reader of a text; the otherwhich connects the text to other texts. Uniting these two axes areshared conventions, rules or contexts: every text and reading dependson prior contexts. Kristeva declared that “every text is from the outsetunder the jurisdiction of other discourses which impose a universe onit”. 89 She argued that rather than confining our attention to the structureof a text we should study how the structure came into being. Thisinvolved siting it “within the totality of previous or synchronic texts” ofwhich it was a transformation. The notion of influence is just one modeof intertextuality. There are variations on this theme and like the term“metafiction”, the definitions may be new but these postmodern termsare not. In the case of Platonic imitation, “the poet always copies anearlier act of creation, which is itself already a copy”. 90 Mikhail Bakhtinsuccinctly posits “any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; anytext is the absorption and transformation of another”. 91 One of JohnFrow’s theses proposes; “texts are not structures of presence but tracesand tracings of otherness. They are shaped by the repetition and thetransformation of other textual structures”. 92 Michael Riffaterre definesan intertext as “one or more texts which the reader must know in orderto understand a work of literature in terms of its overall significance (asopposed to the discrete meanings of its successive words, phrases, andsentences”. 93Judith Still and Michael Worton state that intertextuality insiststhat a text “cannot exist as a hermetic or self sufficient whole, and sodoes not function as a closed system”. They offer two reasons for this:firstly, writers are readers of texts before they are creators of them andtherefore their work or text is infused with multiple references, citations88 See 89 Julia Kristeva, “Word, Dialogue, Novel”, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approachto Literature and Art Translated by Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon S. Roudiez.ed. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia UP, 1980) 64-91. 69.90 Judith Still and Michael Worton, introduction, Intertextuality: Theories and practiceeds., Michael Worton, Judith Still (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1990) 3. See alsoPlato’s The Republic X pp 317-21.91 Kristeva, “Word, Dialogue, Novel” 66.92 John Frow, “Intertextuality and ontology”, in Still and Worton, 45.93 Michael Riffaterre, “Compulsory reader response: the intertextual drive” in Still andWorton, 56.210