Gerard Genette and the Categorization of Textual Transcendence

Abstract

A text relation with other texts has been a significant subject, which attracted the consideration of researchers, such as Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes and etc. within Structuralism and Post-Structuralism. Gerard Genette, a French literary theorist, is one of the researchers who define “transtextuality” as a theory which is used when we are not sure about the interpretation of one text that we are reading. His theory describes the different methods in later text which motivates us to read an earlier one. This is the important reason that I have decided to look at his different methods. Genette broadens the study area of Julia Kristeva about “intertextuality” as a theory pointing to relation between various texts. He defines five categories of transtextuality, including intertextuality, paratextuality, metatextuality, architextuality, and hypertextuality, which this paper will explore them as Genette’s textual transcendence.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5p533