Early Modern Intertextuality: Post Structuralism, Narrative Systems, and A Midsummer Night's Dream

Abstract

AbstractCentral to both early modern critical study and the theory of intertextuality are concepts such as the plurality of discourse, the mutually informing relationship between cultural ideologies and texts, and the instability of texts. Following revised critical approaches, this essay argues that there is potential in the direct application and exploration of the theory of intertextuality in early modern literature, particularly in the sense of engagement with and the extensive refiguring of elements from available narrative systems including classical mythology, folklore, and contemporary continental writing through allegory, allusion, and translation. Critical consideration of reading, creative imitation, and interpretative variety are central to both fields. This essay argues that these central aspects of early modern creative writing constitute a valid application of intertextual theory, which can be used to generate detailed and multilayered critical readings. It outlines an understanding of intertextuality, demonstrates how the theory is illustrated both in the period and in inherited classical textual theory, and offers a brief applied case study, reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595) as an overtly intertextual text.