intertextuality and relevance theoryintertextuality and relevance theory in the approach to...

I n t e r t e x t u a l i t y a n d Relevance Theo ry

in the In te rd i sc ip l ina ry A p p r o a c h

to Sur rea l i s t L i t e r a t u r e a n d Pa in t ing

A Case-Study: Nikos E n g o n o p o u l o s ' "Bo l iva r"

Elena Koutrianou*

F o r some few comparatists (who have been called "traditionalists"),1

intertextuality substitutes for the study of sources and influences,

whereas certain structuralists (Laurent Jenny and Gérard Genette, among

them) complement or replace it with other terms they devise in order to

systematize textual criticism, which normally does not differ essentially

from traditional close reading. Other theories (such as those by Michael

Riffaterre and Harold Bloom) constitute detailed but closed systems,

which usually compete with Julia Kristeva's analyses. It is for this reason

that I do not deal with them here.

Intertextuality "is a difficult concept to use because of the vast and

undefined discursive space it designates", according to Jonathan Culler,

who has expressed his doubts about the applicability of Kristeva's ideas

in literary studies.2 In my view, her definition of intertextuality provides

a most enlightening theoretical account about the intersection of textual

surfaces (in the broader sense) ; however, I am inclined to think, it is a

serious drawback that it does not include any systematic examination of

the relationship that is established between text and writer, and is

* Ph. D. Oxford University, M.A. London University, B.A. Athens University. E-mail:

[email protected]. She is the editor of the recently published volume: Η συγκριτική

γραμματολογία στην Ελλάδα: Σύγχρονες τάσεις [Comparative Literature in Greece:

Contemporary Trends], Ekdoseis Mesogeios & Ellinika Grammata, Athens 2005.

This paper is a short version of a longer essay on Greek Surrealism.

1. See HEINRICH F. PLETT, "Intertextual i t ies" , in Intertextuality, ed. HEINRICH F.

PLETT, WALTER DE GRUYTER, Berlin 1991, p. 4.

2. See JONATHAN CULLER, "Presupposit ion and Intertextuali ty ", in The Pursuit of

Signs, Routledge, London 1992, p. 109.

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mailto:[email protected]

E L E N A K O U T R I A N O U

promoted between text and reader. My aim here is to explore how

intertextuality can be studied in the interdisciplinary approach to

surrealist literature and painting, as a function of the reading process

and a property of the text, which pertains to ostensive communication.

Firstly, I will briefly present Kristeva's ideas and how they relate to and

are distinguished from Mikhail Bakhtins dialogical principle. Then, I will

discuss an example, by drawing on relevance theory, which, I believe, can

contribute considerably to the understanding of the intertextual function,

as it evolves in the intentional connection between the arts fabricated by

the surrealists. The example I have selected from (poet and painter) Nikos

Engonopoulos' surrealist poetry develops intertextual relations with both

surrealist writing and painting. Since it belongs to Greek literature,

"Bolivar" (1944) is indeed a "Greek poem", as suggested (cynically, in my

view) in the (sub-)title.3 But it is also a surrealist poem, in which, apart

from the European and Latin-american historical, cultural and literary pre

texts, pointed out by the poet in the notes accompanying the poem, Louis

Aragon s ideas about the mythifying activity of modern man (as presented

in his book Le Paysan de Paris), the technique of frottage, developed by

Max Ernst, and the paranoïco-critical method, devised by Salvador Dal£,

are also intertextually intertwined. The recovery of logical and pragmatic

presuppositions interweaved exposes the "frenzied expression of the

poem's hellenolatry " (also pointed out in the poet's notes) as a parody of

precisely this misleading acclaim of hellenolatry.

Kristevas ' theory

When Kristeva coined the term intertextuality in her 1966 essay on

Bakhtin ("Le Mot, le dialogue et le roman") for Roland Barthes'

seminar, she neither gave the notion a strictly literary frame nor

explained it with a view to using it in literary studies. In her actual

formulation in this text (which is included in Σημειωτική, Recherches

pour une sémanalyse), she maintains that:

what allows a dynamic dimension to structuralism is [Bakhtins] con-

3. See NIKOS ENGONOPOULOS, «Μπολιβάρ.Ένα ελληνικό ποίημα» [Bolivar. A Greek

poem], in Ποιήματα, vol. 2, Ikaros, Athens 1993, p. 7-33.

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INTERTEXTUALITY AND RELEVANCE THEORY IN SURREALIST LITERATURE AND PAINTING

ception of the "literary word" as an intersection of textual surfaces rather

than a point (a fixed meaning), as a dialogue among several writings:

that of the writer, the addressee (or the character) and the contemporary

or earlier cultural context.4

She considers the intersect ion of tex tua l surfaces as an absorpt ion

and t ransformat ion of tex ts :

each word (text) is an intersection of words (texts) where at least one

other word (text) can be read; [...] any text is constructed as a mosaic of

quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another. The

notion of intertextuality replaces that of intersubjectivity, and poetic

language is read as at least double.

Bakhtin's theory lies at the core of Kristeva's conception of inter

textuality. According to the Russian theorist, the literary text is a rep

resentation of discourses. As with everyday communication, every word

"is directly, blatantly, oriented toward a future answer-word: it provokes

an answer, anticipates it and s t ruc tures itself in the answer ' s direction".6

The intersection of discourses is conceived of as a struggle be tween

centr ipetal and centrifugal forces, that is, be tween the norm (the dominant

literary system or the canon), and the parodying and carnivalesque, t rans

formative tendencies of other discourses. This dialogue is conducted on a

synchronic level, in the battlefield where the norm and its t rans-

formation(s) meet and intersect ceaselessly.7 For Bakhtin, this dialogue is

possible in the novel, which can be either a poetic or a prose text. Kristeva,

on her part , claims that inter textual i ty develops in every text.

In The Revolution of Poetic Language (La Revolution du langage

poétique, 1974), she emphasizes on the composite par t s of the word inter

textuality, in order to stress the difference of this notion from the study of

4. See JULIA KRISTEVA, The Kristeva Reader, ed. Toril Moi, Basil Blackwell, Oxford

1990, p. 36 (her emphasis).

5. Ibid., p. 37.

6. See M. M. BAKHTIN, The Dialogic Imagination, ed. MICHAEL HOLQUIST, trans.

CARYL EMERSON and MICHAEL HOLQUIST, University of Texas Press, Austin 1990, p. 280.

7. See MIKHAIL BAKHTIN, Ζητήματα της ποιητικής του Ντοστογιέφσκι [Problems of

Dostoevsky's Poetics] ed. VANGELIS CHANTZIVASILIOU, trans. ALEXANDRA IOANNIDOU,

Polis, Athens 2000, ch. 1-3.

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sources. Inter textual i ty is a transposition, a distinct process which

complements the function of the unconscious processes identified by

Freud with condensation and displacement, and of the binary opposition

be tween the metaphoric and métonymie poles, propounded by Roman

Jakobson (in his essay "Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of

Aphasie Disturbances" , 1956).8 Therefore, inter textual i ty can b e defined

as a passage from one semiotic system to another, a process which

in te rchanges and p e r m u t â t e s these systems.9

Kristeva does not simply formulate a theory of the subject and of

language.1 0 More than that, she "qualifies the status of the subject as a

function of the deconstructive intertextuality of all discourse".11 Inter

textuality is a negation or négativité because it destroys texts and creates

new texts. It is a semiotic practice which proves that meaning (signification)

is not created by the author (a genius or transcendental being). Inter

textuality, i.e., the social, cultural and historical (con)text produces this

meaning. In the 'Bounded Text', which is also included in Σημειωτική, the

text is defined as a productive process, which is subjected to cultural

discourse. Firstly, it develops a destructive-constructive relationship with

language and therefore:

can be better approached through logical categories rather than linguistic

ones; and secondpy], [...] it is a permutation of texts, an intertextuality: in

the space of a given text, several utterances, taken from other texts, intersect

and neutralise one another.12

8. See ROMAN JAKOBSON, "The Metaphoric and Metonymie Poles", in Modern

Criticism and Theory; A Reader, ed. DAVID LODGE, Longman, London and N.Y. 1992,

p. 57-61.

9. See JULIA KRISTEVA, La Revolution du langage poétique; L'avant-garde à la fin

du XIXe siècle: Lautréamont et Mallarmé, Seuil, Paris 1985, p. 59-60.

10. See JUDITH STILL and MICHAEL WORTON, 'Introduction', in Intertextuality;

Theories and Practices, ed. MICHAEL WORTON and JUDITH STILL, Manchester

University Press: Manchester and N.Y. 1993, p. 17.

11. See THAÏS MORGAN, "IS there an Intertext in this Text?: Literary and

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Intertextuality ", in American journal to Semiotics

3.4 (1985), p. 22.

12. See JULIA KRISTEVA, Σημειωτική, Recherches pour une sémanalyse. Seuil, Paris

148

INTERTEXTUALITY AND RELEVANCE THEORY IN THE APPROACH TO SURREALIST LITERATURE AND PAINTING

A s H a n s P e t e r M a i p o i n t s o u t t h e t e x t is u n d e r s t o o d a s :

a basic ideological weapon which can cont r ibute direct ly to a revolutionary

change in society. This " t ex t " is no longer the object wi th which tex tua l

crit icism used to deal . Actually, it is no object at all; it is, as a way of

wr i t ing (écr i ture) , a productive (and subversive) process . 1 3

I n h i s e s s a y " F r o m W o r k t o T e x t " (1971), B a r t h e s r e j e c t s t h e w o r k , a

f r a g m e n t of s u b s t a n c e , w h i c h i s c a u g h t u p i n a p r o c e s s of f i l i a t ion , u n l i k e

t h e p l u r a l T e x t , w h i c h i s :

woven en t i re ly wi th ci tat ions, references , echoes , cu l tu ra l l a n g u a g e s , [...]

an t eceden t or contemporary, which cu t across it a n d th rough a n d th rough

in a vas t s tereophony. 1 4

A c c o r d i n g t o B a r t h e s , it is n e c e s s a r y t o m a k e a d i s t i n c t i o n b e t w e e n

t h e i n t e r t e x t u a l e l e m e n t or q u a l i t y a n d t h e o r i g i n s b e h i n d a t e x t :

The intertextual in which every text is held, it itself being the text-between

of another text, is not to b e confused wi th some origin of the text: to t ry to

find the 'sources' , the ' influences ' of a work, is to fall in wi th the myth of filia

tion; the citations which go to make u p a text a re anonymous, untraceable,

and yet already read: they are quotations without inverted commas.1 5

T h u s , p a r a p h r a s i n g J a c q u e s D e r r i d a ("Il n ' y a r i e n h o r s d u t e x t e " ) ,

C h a r l e s G r i v e l c l a i m s t h a t " i l n ' e s t d e t e x t e q u e d ' i n t e r t e x t e " , 1 6 s i n c e

e v e r y t e x t i s c o n n e c t e d t o a u n i v e r s e of t e x t s , b e i n g a t t h e s a m e t i m e a n

a n t e c e d e n t a n d a p r e d e c e s s o r of o t h e r t e x t s .

1978, p. 52. Also in JULIA KRISTEVA, Desire in Language; A semiotic Approach to

Literature and Art, ed. LEON S. ROUDIEZ, t rans. THOMAS GORA, ALICE JARDINE and

LEON S. ROUDIEZ, Blackwell, London 1992, p. 36.

13. See HANS PETER M A I , "Bypassing Intertextuali ty: Hermeneutics , Textual

Practice, Hypertext" , in Intertextuality, ed. HEINRICH F. PLETT, WALTER DE GRUYTER,

Berlin 1991, p. 37.

14. See ROLAND BARTHES, Image Music Text, t rans . STEPHEN HEATH, Fontana

Press, London 1977, p. 160.

15. Ibid.

16. See CHARLES GRIVEL, "Thèses préparatoi res sur les in ter textes" , in

Dialogizität, ed. RENATE LACHMANN, Fink, Munich 1982, p. 237-248.

149


Relevance Theory and Intertextuality ; The case of 'Bolivar '

Yet, how are we supposed to study the (inter)text as a factor and at the

same time the field of a function that exceeds it? Kristeva did not take

into consideration the communicative dimension of intertextuality.

However, in literary movements such as Surrealism, in which the

alternation and permutation of literary and extraliterary surfaces is

noticed, it is necessary to study with equal emphasis all of the com

municative channels used. Given that intertextuality is a property of

both literature and communication, then its study could be based on the

intertextual disposition of the text and, at the same time, on the

interaction between text and reader.

According to Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, in every act of human

communication, the sender and the receiver share a certain degree of

mutuality. This means that they have to select a mutual cognitive

environment, which they must share in order for any assumption to

become mutually manifest. The principle of relevance foresees that

"Every act of ostensive communication communicates the presumption

of its own relevance".17 The sender is implicit about what he assumes the

receiver can easily understand and makes explicitly manifest what he

believes he cannot understand otherwise.

In the example I have chosen to present here, Engonopoulos is not

explicit about what he has to say; he provides only implicit manifestations

of his intention. As Sperber and Wilson explain, in this way:

one can convey a much wider range of information [including information about his attitude, his intentions, etc.] than can be conveyed by producing direct evidence for the basic information itself.18

Engonopoulos employs weak implicatures, that is assumptions which

are implicitly communicated; weak implicatures demand the greater

participation of the reader in the construction of the text-world and, thus,

they lead to contextual effects which the two theorists call poetic effects.19

17. See DAN SPERBER and DEIRDRE WILSON, Relevance; Communication and

Cognition, Blackwell, Oxford 1993, p. 158.

18. Ibid., p. 64.

19. Ibid., p. 182, 217-24.

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Contextual effects are changes in the context, which contextualisation

brings about, when it adds new information to the context, by cancelling

certain assumptions, changing their validity, and so on. 2 0

The poem builds on irony and a variety of relevant tropes, such as

hyperbole and adynaton. The most challenging implication is the inherent

juxtaposition between the strange foreign name in the title (Bolivar) and

the indication in the subtitle that this is " a Greek poem". The semantic clash

is repeated by the comment about the enumeration of the countries of Latin

and Central America, which "is used here as a covering for the frenzied

expression of the poem's hellenolatry ". The word "frenzied" ("έξαλλη")

implies a state which is incompatible with the possibility or the ability to use

a covering; moreover, the poet's complaint in the poem itself that no-one can

understand what he says further confirms his ironic attitude.

The mottoes also provide weak implicatures. The vision of Theseus,

described in the first motto, runs through the poem, since Bolivar is

revealed after the poet has called and, subsequently, written his name on

the rocks of the mountains of the areas and countries that he invokes —just

like Cimon discovered the bones of Theseus on island Skyros, by watching

an eagle that was scratching the rocky earth with his claws. The act of

poetic writing is connected to the light of the sun and, metonymically, to

the life given to Bolivar. From the second motto one may infer that the

representative characteristics of Bolivar are kindness and bravery.

However, Bolivar's action in the poem is not what could be characterized

national or even heroic. For instance, at the time of the battle, General

Bolivar is taken over by his own narcissistic ideas, while holding in his

arm "Μια φοβερή ξυλάρα", a creature of a stick (to paraphrase the

utterance, which is difficult to translate), that is, a weapon that is rather

inappropriate for the seriousness of the situation.

Bolivar's name is stressed on the last syllable; this French pronuncia

tion foregrounds the phonological similarities between the name and the

French word for boulevard, as well as the popular comic theatre which

was created in Parisian streets,21 and also for battlements. This last one is

20. Ibid., p. 117.

21. In her reading of 'Bolivar', in which she draws on Engonopoulos ' essay on

151


an implicit reference to the Albanian War, which gave occasion to the

writing of the poem. Therefore, Bolivar's name brings together the epic or

dramatic and the comic elements. It is also reminiscent of Bolivar St.,

mentioned several times by Aragon, in Le Paysan de Paris. Especially his

reference to the corner of Bolivar and Botsaris Streets, a name which is

reminiscent of the hero of the Greek Independence Revolution Markos

Botsaris, intersects intertextually with Engonopoulos' reference to

Bolivar and Odysseus Androutsos (another hero of the Greek Revolution).

The relevant passage appears in the third chapter of Aragon s book,

entitled "Le Sentiment de la nature aux Buttes-Chaumont". Here, the

French poet claims that modern man is endowed with an immense ability

to produce myths, he needs to do is associate the images he perceives in

the natural and urban environment with the mythifying activity of his

mind. The connection of consciousness (the faculty of perception) with the

unconscious (represented by nature) constitutes a mechanism that

resembles the function of mythical imagination and is based on the

condensation of impressions and their reconstitution:

Therefore, I was walking intoxicated amidst a thousand divine concretions. I set myself the task to conceive of a mythology in progress.

Le Paysan de Paris was written in 1926. Two years later, in his essay

"Le Surréalisme et la peinture", André Breton defined the basic principle

of Surrealist painting, that is the idea of the interior model (modèle

intérieur).23 Around the same time, Ernst was working on frottage and

Dali (who was immersed in the study of freudian psychoanalysis) was

developing his parano'ico-critical method. Both of these techniques are

based on the idea of the condensation and assimilation of the impressions

that result from the crossing of perception (the object of consciousness)

and the unconscious.

the Karangiozis shadow theatre, ANDIA FRANTZI does not refer to the French comédie

de boulevard (see "Μπολιβάρ: ένα ελληνικό θέατρο σκιών. Δύο προτάσεις για μία ανά

γνωση" (Bolivar: a Greek shadow-puppet theatre. Two propositions for a reading], Ο

Πολίτης 72 [May-July 1986]: p. 44-47).

22. See Louis ARAGON, Le Paysan de Paris, Gallimard, Paris 1990, p. 143.

23. See ANDRÉ BRETON, Le Surréalisme et la peinture. Gallimard, Paris 1979, p. 4.

15^


As far as I know, the elaboration of the above techniques is not

explicitly marked in Engonopoulos' painting. However, they are employed

in his poetry. In "Bolivar", in particular, characteristic is the intersection

of persons and places. To achieve the desired result, the poet exploits

associations by similarity (through the employment of metaphor) or

substitution (building on contiguity in space and time, through metonymy

and synecdoche). The notes at the end of the poem provide information

about the intertextual transposition, whose field the poem is. But why

does Engonopoulos offer this information, since, for instance, it does not

help to identify the surrealist pretexts? I believe that the way intertextual

relations interweave in the poem and the notes is an example par

excellence of the dynamic juxtaposition between the norm and the

carnivalesque element, the transformational tendencies of discourse.

Moreover, it confirms Kristeva's conception of the text as a negativity and,

simultaneously, a productive process. In "Bolivar", intertextuality fore

grounds the surrealist ideology and aesthetic, which is governed by

precisely this attitude toward the creative process.

The notes do not offer a detailed account of the contextual environ

ment the poet wishes to share with his reader; they only point to it. It is

then left to the latter to (re)construct the universe of the poem and to

(re)trace its intention, that is, the projection of a cynical view of the

world. I believe that the critics' reluctance to acknowledge this intention

is related, on the one hand, to the fact that they have paid little attention

to the interaction between text and reader and, on the other, to the

failure of the classical account of irony (or of its modern equivalent, that

is, Grice's account) to distinguish authentic irony from mere irrationality,

as pointed out by Sperber and Wilson.24 As they claim, authentic irony

is echoic and its aim is to ridicule the opinion that is echoed. In literary

texts the echo is often left implicit; in this way, the writer manages to

suggest that he shares with his readers a whole cynical vision of the

world.25

24. See DAN SPERBER and DEIRDRE WILSON, Relevance, op. cit., p. 240-41.

25. Ibid., p. 242.

1 5 3


Which is the view that is echoed or its echo is left implicit in

"Bolivar"? I think, it is the opinion that "For Great, free, brave, strong

men, / Deserve words that are great, free, brave, strong". This view is

only misleadingly foregrounded, whereas in reality, it is ridiculed as a

patently ludicrous opinion. The poet's cynical vision is built on the

opposition between the classical conception of heroism and its annihila

tion in modernist literature: instead of the hero who fights for his

country, Bolivar emerges as a personality that possesses all of the

characteristics that project an individualistic attitude. A series of

subordinate oppositions develop in the poem: idealism / romanticism vs.

the realism of surreality; bourgeois morality and order vs. individual

freedom; and the narrow conception of Greekness vs. the broader notion

of internationalism (or, to put it in present-day terms, multi-culturalism).

"Bolivar" expresses an ideological position and casts a subversive and

parodying view over social institutions and conceptions. In a genuine

specimen of dialogism, the poem reconstitutes τον καινό δαίμονα, the

modern anti-hero, who in this sense is "handsome like a Greek" (as

Bolivar is hailed in the poem).

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