Birth of Intertextuality

Scarlett Baron is Associate Professor of Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Literature at University College London.

• Introduction1. Darwin’s ‘universal acid’2. Nietzsche: murdering authority, liberating interpretation3. Freud and the riddle of creativity4. Literary criticism and the dream of a ‘science of culture’: Saussurean linguistics, Russian Formalism, structuralism5. Bakhtin: ‘the word in language is half someone else’s’6. Kristeva and the birth of intertextualityConclusion

"The Birth of Intertextuality is such a welcome intervention in this unhappy context because it considers not only the genealogy of intertextuality, but how the wooliness of its deployment in literary studies and related disciplines can in part be attributed to the overdetermination attendant on the invention of the term. […] Baron’s patient demonstration of the validity of this valuable insight represents crucial intellectual historical work, illuminating this tricky enclave of twentieth-century theory." Niall Gildea, The Review of English Studies"Scarlett Baron’s second book is characteristically fluent and adept in its handling of a wide range of material and subjects. […] It is indeed a welcome addition to the library of theory-enthusiasts for its lucid and incisive unpacking of what is dense and far-reaching material. […] It is such dexterity in the synthesis of myriad materials and ideas that makes this book so successful." Emily Bell, James Joyce Broadsheet "The scope and ambition […] is impressive. There is a great deal here to admire. […] In dense, closely argued chapters, Baron shows the way that these ideas came together in the revolutionary politics of late 1960s Paris, where Kristeva arrived as a graduate student to work with Roland Barthes. […] Baron writes with great clarity on the long intellectual history that leads up to 1967. […] The relentless exposure of the contradictions in Kristeva’s prose that Baron offers is impressive." Bart Van Es, The Times Literary Supplement"Scarlett Baron’s long history of the ubiquitous, yet hardly univocally defined, idea of intertextuality wades deep into the genealogy of this foundational concept. Baron’s history of intertextuality is useful to all those in the humanities who grapple with specific disciplinary tropes such as the function of the author. This history spotlights the most precious contributions to the theory of intertextuality and revitalizes the problem of the ‘voice’ of the text without imposing the didactic layout of an anthology as in the almost twenty-year-old The Portable Kristeva […] the strength of Baron’s book resides exactly in the detailed historicization of jargony or aÌ- la-mode vulgarizations.” Mariaenrica Giannuzzi, Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature"The book’s achievement lies in demonstrating the affinity between a radical flowering in 1960s and 1970s France and key developments in nineteenth- and twentieth-century thought (Darwin; Nietzsche; Freud). Whether that means the concepts are defused or domesticated is less clear; perhaps we get the best outcome, a deeper grounding of ideas which remain challenging. […] in its main task, which is to demonstrate that we will understand intertextuality better if we take a longer view, this book is very successful. […] it has every chance of enriching the discussion a great deal, and giving further nuances to the fact of indebtedness which is so often a feature of great literature." Raphael Lyne, Cambridge Quarterly"Baron offers pertinent critiques of Kristeva’s transformation of Bakhtin’s conceptions […] The Birth of Intertextuality offers a trenchant analysis of the problems inherent in Kristeva’s original definition." Jonathan Culler, Journal of Modern Literature