Literary Term

Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can refer to an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralistJulia Kristeva in 1966. As critic William Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence”

Intertextuality occurs frequently in popular media such as television shows, movies, novels and even interactive video games. In these cases, intertextuality is often used to provide depth to the fictional reality portrayed in the medium, such as characters in one television show mentioning characters from another. Fox Television's The O.C. is one example of television using intertextuality, with its frequent references to comic book and movie characters such as Spider-Man and Star Wars protagonist Luke Skywalker.[How to reference and link to summary or text] Drama series Lost has a large number of intertextual tie-ins, including websites, broadcasts, and even a novel written by a character, which purport elements from the series to be real.

Notable examples of intertextuality include animated series like The Simpsons, Futurama, and Family Guy which are very heavily dependent upon intertextual references as a source of humor. Intertextuality should be seen as more than sly references and in-jokes, however. Babylon 5's interplay with The Lord of the Rings or Buffy the Vampire Slayer's frequent riffing on themes from older mythological source material are considered examples of intertextuality.