Rewriting/Reprising in Literature: The Paradoxes of Intertextuality (2009)

This volumes includes a series of 17 selected essays, preceded by a methodological introduction, whose purpose is to offer a fresh outlook on the question of rewriting-reprising. The argument, taking for granted the phenomenon of intertextuality, develops along three main axes: the first one reconsiders the already debated issue of authority on post-structuralist premises, arguing that the origin of a text is untraceable. The second looks at a phenomenon often associated with reprising, especially in a post-colonial context: trauma, whether individual or historical, in relation to creative repetition. The third axis offers a re-reading of the question of voice, introducing the notion of the textual voice, understood as that part of the enunciative act over which the author has no control. When writers make of reprising a deliberate practise, we are tempted to believe that their position, between homage and pillage, presupposes the existence of a traceable source of the literary Word. We must however face the problematic nature of enunciation, the void on which is founded. Which leads us to the proposition that the act of reprising is a creation exnihilo: a certain mode of organisation around that void. Besides, in a century of major man-made traumas, whose effect was the tearing up of social fabrics, reprising will assume a more complex significance: the symptomatic, repetitive stitching of what is being constantly ripped up. This volumes includes a series of 17 selected essays, preceded by a methodological introduction, whose purpose is to offer a fresh outlook on the question of rewriting-reprising. The argument, taking for granted the phenomenon of intertextuality, develops along three main axes: the first one reconsiders the already debated issue of authority on post-structuralist premises, arguing that the origin of a text is untraceable. The second looks at a phenomenon often associated with reprising, especially in a post-colonial context: trauma, whether individual or historical, in relation to creative repetition. The third axis offers a re-reading of the question of voice, introducing the notion of the textual voice, understood as that part of the enunciative act over which the author has no control.When writers make of reprising a deliberate practise, we are tempted to believe that their position, between homage and pillage, presupposes the existence of a traceable source of the literary Word. We must however face the problematic nature of enunciation, the void on which is is founded. Which leads us to the proposition that the act of reprising is a creation ex nihilo: a certain mode of organisation around that void. Besides, in a century of major man-made traumas, whose effect was the tearing up of social fabrics, reprising will assume a more complex significance: the symptomatic, repetitive stitching of what is being constantly ripped up. Table of Contents 6 Introduction 8 Part I: Authority as a Semblance 28 Dorian’s ‘New Clothes’ 29 Texture and Ur-text 42 Aesthetic Encounter, Literary Point-scoring, or Theft? 53 Angela Carter’s Adventures in the Wonderland of Nonsense 62 Re-writing the Fetish in Angela Carter’s Tales 70 Harrison, Fanatic Pillager 85 Part II: Trauma and the Act of Creative Repetition 92 ‘As ye shall sew, ye shall rip’ 93 Reprising, or the Subject in the Making 104 “Accept the Illusion” 118 Jeannette Winterson’s Lighthousekeeping or How to Invent a Story Already Written 129 From The Picture of Dorian Gray to Dorian 139 Writing Through 154 Part III: Voices and Nothing More 170 Playing with Literary Influences 171 Metafictional Reprising in Dark as the Grave Wherein my Friend is Laid 185 The Two Judes 201 Rewriting Squared 212 Seamy Rents and Tell-Tale Stitches in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe or the Function of the Object Voice 222