Eksperiment en intertekstualiteit: - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan ...

Dit is in hierdie opsig dat Celliers se dagboek wat ongeveer die hele periode van die oorlog dek, tussen
28 Oktober 1899 en 17 Julie 1902, van belang is. Celliers bied ‘n “romantisering van die lewe in die
veld” (Helize van Vuuren 2002:96) en dié siening van die oorlog verskil drasties van die een wat
Winterbach in Niggie bied.
Laurent Jenny wys op die belangrikheid van intertekstualiteit in die literêre gemeenskap (1982:34):
Without intertextuality, a literary work would simply be unintelligible, like speech in a language one has not yet
learned. We grasp the meaning and structure of a literary work only through its relation to archetypes which are
themselves abstracted from long series of texts of which they are, so to speak, the invariants.
Jenny merk op: “What is characteristic of intertextuality is that it introduces a new way of reading
which destroys the linearity of the text” (1982:44). Dit is van belang omdat elke intertekstuele
verwysing ‘n geleentheid skep vir ‘n alternatief: “either one continues reading, taking it only as a
segment like any other (…) or else turns to the source text, carrying out a sort of intellectual
anamnesis where the intertextual reference appears like a paradigmatic element” (1982:44). Jenny
noem dat die alternatief net beskikbaar is vir die analiseerder, aangesien twee prosesse gelyktydig
plaasvind: “These two processes really operate simultaneously in intertextual reading and in discourse
– studding the text with bifurcations that gradually expand its semantic space” (1982:44-45).
Michael Worton en Judith Still verduidelik die begrip van intertekstualiteit as volg (1990:1): “The
theory of intertextuality insists that a text (for the moment to be understood in the narrower sense)
cannot exist as hermetic or self-sufficient whole, and so does not function as a closed system”. Dit
gebeur om twee redes: “Firstly, the writer is a reader of texts (…) before s/he is a creator of texts, and
therefore the work of art is inevitably shot through with references, quotations and influences of every
kind”. Ten tweede is ‘n teks (1990:1-2):
available only through some process of reading; what is produced at the moment of reading is due to the crossfertilisation
of the packaged textual material (…) by all the texts which the reader brings to it. A delicate allusion
to a work unknown to the reader, which therefore goes unnoticed, will have a dormant existence in that reading.
On the other hand, the reader’s experience of some practice or theory unknown to the author may lead to a fresh
interpretation.
Die rol van intertekstualiteit is slegs een faset van die interpretasie van ‘n teks. Umberto Eco wys
daarop dat die skrywer verantwoordelik is vir die oordra van sy of haar boodskap (1979:7): “To make
his (sic) text communicative, the author has to assume that the ensemble of codes he (sic) relies upon
is the same as that shared by his (sic) possible reader. The author has thus to foresee a model of the
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