Philologisches Seminar

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is an ubiquitious feature of literature. Therefore, it plays a role in all projects of the working group.

Ancient Greek and Roman literature from Homer to Boethius is characterized to a high degree by intertextuality phenomena. Catullus' poetry gains its full appeal only through synopsis with central Greek reference texts such as Callimachus and Sappho. The first words of Virgil's Aeneid (arma virumque cano, 1.1) quote the two Homeric epics Iliad (arma) and Odyssey (virum) in the very first line and thus situate themselves in an overarching tradition of epic poetry. Even within the same work, passages can refer to each other, e.g. Catullus' two basia-poems (carm. 5 and 7).

Where a text refers to itself, we speak of autotextuality; of intratextuality, when a text refers to another text by the same author; of intertextuality, when a text refers to aa 'external' pre-text by another author. There are gradually different forms of intertextuality (single text reference, text chains and system reference). The group of system references also includes the reference to myths and archetypes (e.g. the processing of central myths such as the Medea or the Oedipus myth, even if clear intertextual references to a specific pretext such as the Euripidean or Sophoclean dramas are not given).

Bibliography (selected)

On Intertextuality:

  • Berndt, Frauke/Tonger-Erk, Lily (eds.) (2013), Intertextualität. Eine Einführung (= Grundlagen der Germanistik 53), Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 151–155.

  • Broich, Ulrich/Pfister, Manfred (1985), Intertextualität. Formen, Funktionen, anglistische Fallstudien, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1–77.

Intertextuality and Ancient Texts:
  • Barchiesi, Allessandro (2015), Homeric Effects in Virgil's Narrative, Priceton: Princeton University Press, 1–34.

  • Casali, Sergio (2009), Ovidian Intertextuality, in: Peter E. Knox (ed.), A Companion to Ovid, Chichester u.a.: Wiley-Blackwell, 341–354.

  • Clauss, James J. (2014), From the Head of Zeus: The Beginnings of Roman Literature, in: Clauss, James J./Cuypers, Martine (eds.), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature, Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 463-478.

  • Conte, Gian Biagio (1986), The Rhetoric of Imitation. Genre and Poetic Memory in Virgil and Other Latin Poets., Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press.

  • Harrison, Stephen/Frangoulidis, Stavros/Papanghelis, Theodore D. (Hrsg.) (2018), Intratextuality and Latin Literature (= Trends in Classics 69), Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.

  • Hinds, Stephen (1998), Allusion and Intertext. Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Holzberg, Niklas (42016), Ovid. Dichter und Werk, München: C. H. Beck, 13–20.

  • Kirstein, Robert (2019), New Borders of Fiction? Callimachean Aitiology as Narrative Device in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in: J.J. Klooster/R.F. Harder/R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Callimachus Revisited. New Perspectives in Callimachean Scholarship, Leuven: Peeters, 193–220.

  • Kirstein, Robert (2016), Klassik versus Klassik. Iphigenie bei Goethe und Euripides, in: A. Harder/K. Stöppelkamp (eds.), Emotions in Antiquity. Blessing or Curse?, Leuven: Peeters, 51–75.

  • Syndikus, Hans-Peter (22001), Catull. Eine Interpretation. Erster Teil: Die kleinen Gedichte (1-60), Darmstadt: WBG, 33–52.

  • Thomas, Richard F. (1999), Reading Virgil and His Texts. Studies in Intertextuality, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

  • Thomson, D.F.S. (22003), Catullus. Edited with a Textual and Interpretative Commentary by D.F.S. Thomson, Toronto u.a.: University of Toronto Press, 11–22.

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