From Intersemiotic to Intertextual – a Historical Serendipity

Abstract

The term intersemiotic lies at the core of contemporary approaches to semantics, literature, translation and anthropology. At first glance, its connection with text is only intermittent. There is however a blurred area of overlapping in which texts, histories, media and works of art come together to form a dynamic palimpsest of meanings. This paper aims to examine several cases in which momentous works of the past have managed to cross the boundaries of history, nations, languages and media. Their perception and influence have not always been the same, but their common denominator is the power and faculty to exert influence beyond their time and outside their domain. From Shakespeare to Kurosawa and from Cicero to Jerome, forms of art have metamorphosed to accommodate the prevailing beliefs of different eras, condemned in some and glorified in others. Centuries have gone by, but some bygones refuse to be bygones, making one wonder what their secret ingredient is, and to what they owe their everlasting perseverance. The elaboration of this paper shows that in order for a text to be able to endure centuries and to be as topical today as it used to be it the days of yore, it has to be both emphatic with general humanity, and malleable to other media and historical contexts. Just as Galileo gave in to the court of majority and still managed to rewrite the planetary history, so the works of art yield a bit of their own ingenuity every time they undergo an intersemiotic transformation, while at the same time being reborn, revitalized and fit for a new era and a new belief.