Literature as Dialogue

Each century has its own dream – text: The Tempest for the seventeenth century; Robinson Cruse for the eighteenth century; Jane Eyre for the nineteenth century; Heart of Darkness for the turn of the twentieth century. Such texts serve as pre-texts to other texts. So there will be a relation between hypertext and hypotext called by the contemporary literary theorists as ‘Intertextuality’. “Intertextuality” has different meanings. To a person uninitiated to literature the word intertextuality could very well mean ‘a copy’ or ‘an imitation’ of a text or even a relational resemblance between two texts. To a beginner in the field of literary theory intertextuality may mean recognizable signs from one text that are reproduced by another in the process undergoing a transformation. To someone advanced in the study of literary theory intertextuality begins to assume a deeper thrust and a dawning realization where no text is original.