INTERTEXTUAL RELATIONS IN ALDOUS HUXLEY'S POINT COUNTER POINT
Abstract
The main concern in this study is both the revelation of the intertextual relations and explanation of their functions in Aldous Huxley’s Point Counter Point.One of the significant assumptions in the intertextual theory is that a text is not a stable field of meaning, but something that the reader work on and interpret. Taking this as a point of departure, Point Counter Point has been attempted to be analyzed from the standpoint of intertextual associations through which it was constructed. Having an abundance of intertextual connections the novel itself offers numberless ways of deciphering it. Therefore this study has become one reliant on our common knowledge and aiming at putting forward both explicit and implicit relations embedded in the novel. This also means that there may be some other studies aiming at finding and analyzing the intertextual relations in the novel and dependent on the knowledge of the reader; therefore, this study is just one of the probable studies on the intertextual relations in Huxley’s novel. Throughout the study it has been observed that Huxley exploited a wide range of cultural phenomena revealing popular, social, literary, artistic and historical culture by means of quotation, citation, allusion and reference either reproducing or transforming the texts or discourses belonging to these fields. Along with the mentioned domains, the novel makes the utilization of scientific references and allusions. A large number of allusions and references to a large number of texts and fields require classification of them in different parts. The first part of the study deals with quotations from and allusions and references to literature, literary texts and figures. The second part puts forward the references and allusions to other cultural fields and phenomena in Point Counter Point. The investigation of scientific allusions and references in the novel will be the subject of the third part. This study also sheds light on the function of the intertextual relations embedded in the novel. At the end of the study, what we have concluded is that Huxley, being a highly-intellectualized author, constructed his novel via both intertextual resonances and implicit intertextual connections and thus contributed to the English novel through his experimental style. Besides, it has been thought that the novel in Huxley’s hands has become developed because he contributed to its modernist qualities through his literary experimentalism resulting in the novel being an intertext.
Keywords
References
- ABRAMS, M. H. (Et al.). (1986). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vols. I and II. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
- ALLEN, Graham. (2000). Intertextuality. London: Routledge.
- ATKINS, John. (1980). “Point Counter Point and the Uncongenital Novelist”. Studies in the Literary Imagination. Vol. 13, Issue 1. (69-80).
- BALD, Robert Cecil. (2010). “Aldous Huxley as a Borrower”. Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: Aldous Huxley. Harold Bloom (Ed. and Intr.). (3-9). USA: In- fobase.
- BARTHES, Roland. (2001). “The Death of the Author”. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. (Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. Et al.). (1466-1470). New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company.
- _______________. (1974). S/Z. New York: Hill and Wang.
- BIRNBAUM, Milton. (2003). “Marking and Remembering Aldous Huxley”. Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: Aldous Huxley. Harold Bloom (Ed. and Intr.). (3-8). New York: Infobase Publishing.
- BRINKLEY, Alan. (2010). The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. New York: The McGraw Hill Inc.
Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
-
Authors
Publication Date
July 14, 2015
Submission Date
September 23, 2014
Acceptance Date
-
Published in Issue
Year 1970 Volume: 39 Number: 1