Question

The term “Intertextuality” was coined by:

• A. Julia Kristeva
• B. Mikhail Bakhtin
• C. T.S. Eliot
• D. Emily Apter

Hint:

Intertextuality means the relationship of one text with other texts. The term is associated with Julia Kristeva.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is A

Step 1 : Understanding the Question:
This question asks us to identify the literary theorist who coined the term "Intertextuality" to describe how texts reference and shape one another.

Step 2 : Key Formulas and Approach:
The approach involves reviewing the historical development of poststructuralist theory and semiotics in France during the late 1960s. We trace the origins of the concept back to its first appearance in academic discourse.

Step 3 : Detailed Explanation:

• The term "Intertextuality" was introduced to literary criticism and semiotics by the Bulgarian-French philosopher and critic Julia Kristeva in 1966.

• Kristeva formulated the concept in her essays, such as "Word, Dialogue and Novel", by synthesizing Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of dialogism and carnivalesque with structuralist linguistics.

• Intertextuality posits that no text is an autonomous island; instead, every text is a mosaic of quotations, absorption, and transformation of other texts.

• While Bakhtin provided the conceptual groundwork with his ideas on dialogic discourse, and T.S. Eliot wrote about the relationship of poets to the historical tradition, it was Kristeva who formally coined and conceptualized the specific term "intertextuality".

Step 4 : Final Answer:
The term "Intertextuality" was coined by Julia Kristeva, making option (A) the correct choice.
The correct option is (A) Julia Kristeva.