Fabulae Antiquae: Intertextuality and Its Directionality

14 Pages·2014·0.04 MB·English

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Amy Squire
Mrs. Campbell
Senior Thesis Honors
October 18, 2013
Fabulae Antiquae: Intertextuality and Its Directionality
Have you ever heard someone reeling over the fact that they never knew their favorite
movie was actually a book first? Today's readers are presented with an almost instant knowledge
of pop culture thanks to the accessibility of TV: one does not have to be able to do anything
besides listen to understand what is being portrayed. Further, this early exposure is affecting the
way recent generations think about the literary classics. Someone who caught a glimpse of The
Hunger Games in a commercial before reading the book, for example, will forever have an
image of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, and while this is not necessarily a bad thing, it
undeniably stunts the viewer’s ability to imagine the book’s characters for himself. While the
phenomenon does not translate as directly, pop culture has certainly influenced the reading of
classic Latin and Greek texts as well. It has been said that there is a very limited number of
plotlines upon which all stories are based, and so similarities between multitudes of works are
inevitable. Today's readers of Latin classics, having already spent at least thirteen years being
exposed to modern culture, will surely bring some of their knowledge of modern stories to their
reading of similar Latin ones, thereby coloring their interpretations of the older pieces in a way
that readers of centuries past simply did not have the resources to formulate. Ovid's and Virgil's
respective versions of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth seem to beg analysis as to how these
ancient texts have been influenced both by each other and by the modernized understandings of
today's pop-culture-cognizant readers. By first examining the intertextuality—the inherent
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similarities and differences between works that are a result of the nature of language rather than
one author consciously trying to nod to another—strictly between the two pieces, it is possible to
establish how a contemporary reader might have interacted with the texts. The next step is to
take a look specifically at modern stories, mostly in the form of movies, which influence the
reading of the texts because of their similarities. For this, as there are no movies that directly
correlate to the myth, a consideration of Shakespearean plays and their big-screen renditions will
be employed to establish how modernizations of these classics influence readers’ interpretations
of the original works. No text exists entirely separate of all other texts, and the idea of
intertextuality working from new to old is one that is both highly relevant to today's culture and
is underrepresented in the existing analyses of ancient works: as the distance between ancient
texts’ creations and modern readers’ exposure to them grows, it becomes more and more
necessary for readers to equate contemporary works with the older ones in order for them to have
meaning in the ever-advancing world. Modern readers of classical texts such as Ovid's and
Virgil's respective versions of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth are influenced most greatly in
their understanding of the works by their knowledge of pop culture, as well as by the differences
and similarities between the two retellings of the same piece.
Before these texts can be analyzed via their intertextuality, it must be determined what,
exactly, intertextuality is. Psychoanalyst and literary critic Julia Kristeva was the first to use the
word in the 1960s, feeling the need to create a new term because nothing preexisting was quite
right. In her original usage of the word, Kristeva meant to evoke an understanding that went
beyond that of "quotation" (Schmitz 77). The concept of just what intertextuality is has been
greatly developed since its inception, and now scholars like Don Fowler assert that it is a natural
"property of language," a declaration that suggests that intertextuality happens both
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subconsciously and inevitably. He continues his definition of the notoriously nebulous term,
adding that instances of intertextuality are not intentional tributes left by authors to previous
works but are simply unavoidable "traces" that worm their way from a writer's mind into his
creations (Fowler 16). Essentially, moments of intertextuality are just an author's knowledge of
previous works predating his own influencing—unbeknownst to him—his current piece. Schmitz
supports Fowler on this fact, saying that every bit of human speech and writing reflects in some
way traces of their origins (77). Further, since intertextuality is built upon the author's knowledge
of previous works, an intertext's meaning is determined by the knowledge of the person reading
it: an intertext does not have inherent meaning like a cut and dry allusion does in that it can hold
a different meaning for every person since no two people have had the exact same life
experiences (Wright 178).
Building upon this distinction, it is imperative in an attempt to define intertextuality to
explain how it is different from an allusion. As Don Fowler details, an allusion is an intentional
crumb left by an author meant to pay homage to some past work which he expects his readers to
catch and appreciate. It is an element specific to literature which strives to acknowledge a
previously established model but to simultaneously create meaning by stepping away from that
model. Intertextuality, on the other hand, is not something intended by the author but is simply
an inescapable element of human language. Since it cannot possibly be striving to separate itself
from a past model as the author is not even consciously including it, intertextuality creates
significance through the similarities to and differences from the original text (Fowler 15). Given
these inherent differences, then, it is clear that "allusion" and "intertextuality" should not and
cannot be used interchangeably.
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More often than not, the focus of intertextuality as it relates to Classics is its ability to
highlight similarities to and differences from other texts, and this can be applied to Virgil’s and
Ovid’s respective versions of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Virgil’s version is housed within
his masterpiece Georgics, a four-book collection whose writing spanned over seven years and
was most likely finished in 29 B.C. (Thomas 1). This date is important in understanding Ovid’s
timing as he, as Johnson puts it, “donned the toga of manhood [in] 30 B.C.” (xiii), so it is fair to
assume that Ovid would have read Virgil’s retelling of the tale before crafting his own. It is also
essential to recognize that the Orpheus and Eurydice myth in and of itself predated both authors;
Virgil was not creating a new work: he was simply refiguring an older one. This, in turn, created
additional intertextual constructions between Virgil’s Orpheus et Eurydice and earlier
formulations, as well as between his general writing style and that of other poets. Lombardo
notes in his introduction to Georgics that “...though he adopts...many of the stylistic features of
Homeric poetry, Virgil does not merely mimic the old Greek master but transforms
everything...into a distinctly Latin and Roman composition” (xi). It is also known that Virgil
played around with the plot of the story, straying from the original in which Orpheus succeeds in
bringing his beloved back from the underworld (Slavitt 80). This adaptation almost certainly
influenced Ovid in his writing of the tale as he chose to preserve the plot twist from Virgil’s
version, making these two pieces great subjects for an intertextual study as they relay the same
plot through different details.
There are several interesting and significant differences in the descriptions of identical
characters in Ovid’s and Virgil’s respective renditions of the myth. For instance, Ovid’s writing
of “Talia dicentem nervosque ad verba moventem/exsangues flebant animae” (lines 40-1) in
describing the gods of the underworld as compared to Virgil’s description of the same beings as
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“nesciaque humanis precibus mansuescere corda” (line 7) casts a very different light on both
Orpheus’s situation and his power. Ovid’s attestation in these lines that Orpheus managed to
make the guardians of death and suffering cry with his story paints the picture of more
sympathetic gods and a wildly persuasive and influential hero, as convincing a god is no small
feat. Virgil’s testimony, on the other hand, that the gods were unable to be moved by human
prayers regardless of the human is more in keeping with the traditionally oppressive and superior
nature of the deities and also maintains the notion of the inherent difficulty in Orpheus’s journey.
The differences continue as the two poets offer conflicting explanations for Orpheus’s
fatal decision to look back at Eurydice before they had completely cleared the underworld. Virgil
calls him “immemor...victusque animi,” (28) lending to his character a sense of
absentmindedness and carelessness, while Ovid depicts a man so in love with his wife and
worried about her well-being that he cannot help but look back at her, stating, “hic, ne deficeret,
metuens avidusque videndi/flexit amans oculos” (56-7). Paraphrase translation. These
differing descriptions change the reader’s overall understanding of Orpheus’s character, one
making him out to be a forgetful man whose thoughtlessness earns him arguably deserved
consequences, the other a noble but overzealous lover.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, both authors treat Eurydice’s reaction to her
husband dooming her to a premature eternity in the underworld in very different manners. Ovid
writes, “...iamque iterum moriens non est de coniuge quicquam/questa suo,” (60-1) explaining
that the young woman does not blame her husband for his looking at her too early, recognizing it
as an act of his boundless love. Virgil’s Eurydice, however, is angry at her husband, directly
placing the blame on him:
‘quis et me’ inquit ‘miseram et te perdidit, Orpheu,
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quis tantus furor? en iterum crudelia retro
fata vocant, conditque natantia lumina somnus.
iamque vale: feror ingenti circumdata nocte
invalidasque tibi tendens, heu non tua, palmas.’ (31-5)

"She asked, 'What…what so great madness has destroyed
both miserable me and you, Orpheus? See again the cruel Fates
call me back, and sleep closes my swimming eyes.
And now goodbye: I am carried away, surrounded by huge night
And reaching out with weak hands to you, alas I am not yours.'"
These short but poignant bits of dialogue in each piece are the key components from which the
reader develops his understanding of the heroine and, as such, create vastly opposed
representations of the same character.
The varied descriptions of the central characters of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth create
two entirely different pictures. Ovid tells the story of a persuasive and relatable young man who
wins over the gods of the underworld but, overcome by his love for his deceased wife, looks
back on her too early and sends her into the depths of death once again, though she does not
blame him for his mistake. On the other hand,Virgil tells of a forgetful youth who somehow
manages to get past heartless, cold gods only to disappoint and betray his wife just before he
would have enabled her to come back to life. Neither author had set out to create a piece
different from the other's, so the differences cannot be designated allusions. Instead, they are
examples of intertextuality in its purest form in that they alone create varied meanings for
otherwise identical pieces. No doubt, readers of the period would have noticed the stark
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differences between these two works, and those most familiar with the Virgil version would have
found fault with the optimistic and complacent proceedings of Ovid’s version, while fans of
Ovid’s rendition would argue that Orpheus and the other characters had been represented
unfairly and coldly in Virgil’s retelling.
So far, the comparison between these works has been modeled in the view of readers of
that time period, of people who would have read both works when they were published and
would be greatly affected by the differences as they were fresh and new. But how do differences
such as these affect modern readers, so far removed from the original works? While the ancient
texts in and of themselves might not mean as much to modern readers as they did to those
contemporary with the authors themselves, today’s readers are still influenced by these pieces
not by their similarities to and differences from other pieces but by how they reflect the plotlines
of newer works (Fowler 26). Kristeva summarizes the notion nicely, explaining, “I am the sum
of everything I have heard and read,” (qtd. Schmitz 78) showing how a reader’s understanding of
a text depends totally on what else he or she has been exposed to in terms of stories or—in
modern day—movies. As Wright asserts, “....no person ever has identical associations with any
given language usage…” (180) as every person’s experience and, by extension, knowledge is
different from every other’s, and this variance of understanding based on past knowledge is
associated with reading as well.
So what does any of this have to do with Classics? Consider, for a moment, the modern
reader of Latin texts. She probably started her study of the language no sooner than at thirteen
years old, if not closer to fourteen—plenty of time in which to immerse herself in pop culture.
The students starting their study of Latin this year, for example, will come prepackaged with at
least some knowledge of Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, and so on. These modern
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works still share links with older ones, as Fredrich Jameson suggests: “...we seem condemned to
seek the historical past through our own pop images…” (qtd. Lehmann 191). Fowler also
condones this idea, stating, “...one’s present inevitably affect[s] the reading of past texts…” (28).
New texts are easily able to color one’s interpretation of the old because the same archetypes of
characters have existed since the beginning of literature. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice, for
example, follows a similar pattern to many other stories centered on a hero who is expected to
chase his prize—in this case, Eurydice—and successfully bring it back into his normal sphere of
existence (Campbell 193). Though Orpheus loses the girl in these versions, his quest to bring her
back mirrors this literary tradition and inevitably links it to every similar story a reader has
experienced before. Various other commonalities such as the hero’s “supremely difficult...return
from the mythic realm into the land of common day” (Campbell 216) and the undeniable
significance the desired woman has on his actions and psyche are themes which run through
many pieces, making stories such as Orpheus et Eurydice seem familiar even to modern-day
readers.
One of the most readily available means for seeing the influence of the new on the old is
all of the modern film adaptations and modifications of Shakespearean classics. As Gavin
claims, “[f]ilms are our culture’s version of storytelling,” (55) implying that the effect of modern
film on older texts is inevitable since both strive toward the same goal of telling stories. Gavin
looks specifically at the almost identical plotlines of Disney’s The Lion King and Shakespeare’s
Hamlet. She asserts that “...both Hamlet and Simba represent the mythical archetype of the
exiled child whose role is to restore order and who has an heroic task,” (Gavin 55) making the
leap to the conclusion that a child who grew up on the Disney classic would see a lot of the
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movie’s various characters reflected in those of Hamlet the first time he read the piece little more
than a step.
Another more obvious adaptation of a Shakespearean classic, Romeo and Juliet, has been
made in Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, wherein the two star-crossed
lovers meet at a raging, drug-filled party. Luhrmann carries his trademark flashy style into the
film as well, causing some lovers of Shakespeare to “...label[] Luhrmann’s Shakespearean
aspirations audacious” (Lehmann 189). Thinking of this distinction alone, consider how
differently a person whose first exposure to the story of Romeo and Juliet was Luhrmann’s
cinematic rendition would understand the piece as compared to someone who had come initially
into contact with the storyline through Shakespeare’s work. The moviegoer, upon reading the
play, would surely find it wholly dull and uninteresting and would prefer instead to superimpose
the images of the various actors over the contrastingly amorphous written characters. Slight
changes in the plot of the movie would mutate the moviegoer’s understanding as well: for
example, Luhrmann adds in a sense of foreshadowing that is absent from the play, having
Romeo before meeting Juliet for the first time remark that “the drugs are quick,” referring not to
the poison to which he will succumb at the end of the story, but to the ecstasy he has just taken
(Lehmann 208). Further, the fact that Romeo partakes in this drug experimentation early in the
film brings to his character a recklessly young sense that is substantially downplayed in
Shakespeare’s version. Luhrmann’s mark on the story as a whole is undeniable but not so great
as to make the general plot unrecognizable, and his movie would therefore influence a person’s
understanding of the Shakespearean classic if she had seen William Shakespeare’s Romeo +
Juliet first.
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The last and perhaps most distinct comparison between a Shakespearean play and its
modern movie rendition is Twelfth Night and She’s The Man. Unlike the play, wherein Viola is
masquerading as a boy to work for the Duke Orsino in the hopes of building some sort of life for
herself after being shipwrecked and separated from her twin brother, the movie casts Viola as a
star soccer-player’s sister who takes his place on a college (Illyria) team while he is away in
London (Pittman 125). Disguising herself as her brother, Sebastian, Viola has to live with his
roommate, Duke Orsino, for whom she develops feelings. Plots between the two regarding
Olivia and Sebastian and Viola and Orsino are consistent, though big changes to smaller
characters greatly affect the way anyone who has seen the movie would interpret the play. For
example, in the movie version, instead of simply being Sebastian’s friend, Antonio is portrayed
as Viola’s gay hairstylist who is her “guide to gender who provides the needed expertise to
transform her from girl to boy” (Pittman 125). This, clearly, could have major consequences for
anyone who saw the film adaptation before reading the story, as the reader would likely carry the
idea of Antonio as the gay friend of Viola to her reading of his sexually ambiguous character in
the play, molding the voice and mental image she has for Antonio to fit that suggested by the
movie.
From these three examples in Shakespeare, then, it is easy to see how the new can
influence the old. If any of the film adaptations described above are seen before their earlier play
counterparts are read, they become the basis upon which people develop their understandings of
any other stories with similar plots and characters. Though there is no movie so bluntly related to
Orpheus and Eurydice as the movies aforementioned are to their respective Shakespeare plays,
there are certainly entries in pop culture similar enough that they would doubtless influence
people reading the myth for the first time. For all Latin teachers know, in reading about Orpheus