Section – Literature
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RECYCLING THE WOOLFIAN TEXT – VERSATILE GRAPHIC
REPRESENTATIONS FOR VARIOUS TYPES OF RELATIONS BETWEEN TEXTS
Mihaela-Alina Ifrim, PhD Candidate, ”Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi
Abstract: Literature, as well as other fields, is characterized by an ‘evolution of mentalities’
(Foucault) manifested as a constant re-animation of previous texts. Thus, one becomes aware of the
matrix of texts around us, ‘a world of others’ words’ (Bakhtin), which leaves a strong feeling of déjàvu. In this context, hyperreality is no longer a concept, but a reality, a result of the continuous process
of globalization triggered by the technological present society. The Woolfian text has its well-deserved
place in this complex web, being able to provide the necessary samples for an analysis intended to
‘technicalize’ the various relations established between texts (under focus here being Sally Potter’s
Orlando and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours). The present paper represents in fact an attempt to
apply Paul Baran’s graphic representation of types of internet networks in order to emphasize the
interwoven texts which emerge as a result of a process of intertextuality/transtextuality. As the latter
are already seen as a method of composition which pre-determines its reading by appealing to
external sources belonging to a multi-dimensional cultural space, this analogy might prove useful in
organizing the relations between texts, providing a clear classification into three groups: centralised,
decentralised and distributed networks.
Keywords: intertextuality, transtextuality, hyperreality, Virginia Woolf, networks
1. Intertextuality/Transtextuality
Literary theorists have always been interested in identifying the multitude of relations
established between texts, aware of the fact that the birth of ‘utterances’ is a result of
humanity being connected to a ‘network’ of conjoint knowledge. In the well-known
modernist visionary fashion, Virginia Woolf states that ‘masterpieces are not single and
solitary births, they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the
body of people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice’. (1977: 72) Her
words can be read as an anticipation of the postmodern debates on
intertextuality/transtextuality which are focused on understanding how ‘utterances’ are
outlined through acts of culture reanimation.
In mediating problems of inter/trans-textuality, the structuralist and poststructuralist
theories regarding the literary text, as complex as they might be, in the end, have one common
denominator as they see the literary work(s) as not being original, unique and able to form
unitary wholes but as an enclosed system consisting of certain selections and combinations.
The debates on text/textuality are created around a trinity: author/text – reader –
intertextuality. The argument that the text is formally and semantically coded in a systemic
way places the reader in the centre of this equation as his main task is to decode; nevertheless,
in his quest, the reader deals with the text which is always partly written by another partly
visible text, or in other words the process of decoding also implies accessing relations of
intertextuality.
Early studies on intertextuality were focused around semiology. The distinction
between denotation – the uncoded meaning of a sign – and connotation – the social and
cultural meaning of the sign – made possible the assumption that there is a social and
ideological determination of language as utterance. Thus, dealing with the concept of
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intertextuality inevitably leads to posing questions which, to some extent, still remain
unanswered: ‘Does intertextuality open the text to history, or to yet more textuality? Is
intertextuality a manageable term, or is it essentially unmanageable, concerned with finite or
infinite and overwhelming dimensions of meaning? Does intertextuality provide us with a
form of knowledge, or does it destroy what was previously considered to be knowledge? Is
the centre of intertextuality in the author, the reader or the text itself? Does intertextuality aid
the practice of interpretation, or resist notions of interpretation?’ (Allen, 2000: 59) Although
the questions formulated deepen and complicate the study of intertextuality, efforts are still
made to organize the variety of articulated theories in a clear and applicable manner.
From the plethora of definitions and redefinitions regarding intertextuality, extremely
useful for the attempt to graphically represent various types of relations between texts are the
ground-breaking theories conveyed by Gerard Genette. Usually referred to as a fearless and
tireless explorer of the relations between criticism and literature, Genette reformulates and
incorporates the concept of intertextuality within transtextuality, grasped by Graham Allen as
being ‘intertextuality from the viewpoint of structural poetics’. (2000: 98) Textual
transcendence or transtextuality, in Genette’s vision, represents all that places the text in an
either overt or concealed relation with other texts, being actually his version of what is
already understood as intertextuality. In his endeavour to include all transformational
processes a text may suffer, he subdivides transtextuality into five categories as follows: 1.
Intertextuality is, here, reduced to the form of quotation, allusion or plagiarism, all implying
a direct relation between two or more texts in the sense that one text contains the other; 2.
Paratextuality represents the relation shared between a text and its paratext. Being divided
into peritext (titles, chapter titles, prefaces and notes) and epitext (interviews, reviews, private
letters and other authorial and editorial discussions which do not belong to the actual text) the
paratext helps to direct and control the reading and more importantly, the reception of a text;
3. Metatextuality links a commentary to the text it comments upon or in other words it refers
to both the explicit and implicit critical commentary of one text on another; 4.
Hypotextuality or hypertextuality embodies the actual palimpsest in the sense of ‘literature in
the second degree’ that is, the relation of superimposition of a text (new writing) onto another
(preceding writing) via all forms of imitation such as pastiche and parody. 5. Architextuality
represents the categorisation of a text as part of a genre, therefore linking the text to types of
discourses of which it is a representative.
In order to highlight phenomena of intertextuality/transtextuality in the actual analysis
of rewritten/recycled texts, Paul Baran’s graphic representation of types of internet networks 1
might prove useful. He distinguishes three types of networks: the centralized or star network,
the decentralized network and the distributed or grid or mesh network (Fig. 1) (1964: 1).
1
Paul Baran was a famous Polish-American engineer with major contributions in the development of computer
networks. As my knowledge is limited in this field I must note that I came across this system of networking by
chance while surfing the internet. Having found the image of the three networks following a brief description of
Genette’s subdivisions of transtextuality on a blog post (http://seansturm.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/genette-ontranstextuality/) stirred my interest as the analogy has great potential in mapping the relations established
between texts.
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Fig. 1. Paul Baran’s Types of Networks
Following the technical language, the three types of networks are constructed around a
central node (in this case the author/text) which is connected to a station via an established
link. As the mere description of the networks might prove a little confusing and hard to
follow, they will be reflected with examples extracted from the analysis of some samples
provided by the Woolfian text and its rewritings.
2. The centralized network
When applied to represent relations between texts, the centralized network can be read
as an illustration of the connection established between a text and the literary criticism
emerging around it. In other words, it can reflect what Genette terms metatextuality. (Fig. 2)
The central node, that is, the text, transmits information under the form of carefully
constructed and encoded messages to the station, i.e., the reader, whose role is to decode.
However, it cannot be omitted that at the same time the reader enables the construction of
metatext, a perspective which allows the reasoning that the metatext can also function as
station. Thus, the link between the central node and the station is generated by the reader. In a
simplistic manner, the same network can represent the relation between the text and its epitext
as, in order to decode the meaning, the reader is bound to move outside the unitary system.
Fig. 2. Centralized network
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Let us consider for example, Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando: A Biography. Whilst the
two novels are written by a highly appraised writer, it is common knowledge that they are
surrounded by metatextuality, that is, critical texts which, in this particular context, discuss
issues of androgyny, psychology of trauma, aftermath of war, lesbianism, autobiography, and
so on. Yet, in order for these theories to be formulated, the reader must apply a method of
reading that requires accessing external, authorial complementary sources, i.e., - epitexts.
Such sources are abundant in the case of the Woolfian text, being materialized under the form
of diaries, letters and essays. Therefore, complying with the framework thus formulated, the
reading of Orlando follows a paratextual, pre-established path, the novel being considered to
be a roman à clef, as the entries in Woolf’s diary suggest that the main character is a disguise
of Vita Sackville-West – ‘Vita should be Orlando, a young nobleman’ (1954: 112), a
standpoint which is moreover strengthen by pictures of Vita as Orlando inserted in the
American edition of the book.
Also by means of epitext, the reader is convinced that in Mrs Dalloway, Septimus
Smith functions as Clarissa’s double finally dying by committing suicide in her place, as
Woolf acknowledged in the introduction written for the Modern Library edition of the same
novel:
‘Of Mrs Dalloway then one can only bring to light at the moment a few scraps, of little
importance or none perhaps; as that in the first version Septimus, who later is intended
to be her double, has no existence; and that Mrs Dalloway was originally to kill herself,
or perhaps merely to die at the end of the party. Such scraps are offered humbly to the
reader in the hope that like other odds and ends they may come in useful’
(1928: vi, qtd. in Pawlowsky, 2003: xi)
Although both Orlando and Mrs Dalloway are novels constructed around the theme of
androgyny, the difference resides in that Orlando is a character outlined in such a manner as
to overtly declare it, whereas, in what regards Mrs Dalloway, the male and the female nature
of a unitary whole implied by the myth is sustained by the declared intention that Septimus is
to function as Clarissa’s double. Furthermore, the reader is encouraged to decode these texts
in this direction yet by means of another epitext ‘… in each of us two powers preside, one
male, one female; and in the man’s brain the man predominates over the woman, and in the
woman’s brain the woman predominates over the man. The normal and comfortable state of
being is that when the two live in harmony together, spiritually co-operating.’ (Woolf, 1977:
106). Along these lines, metatexts such as Androgyny in Mrs Dalloway (Nancy Taylor, 1991)
or Virginia Woolf and the Flight into Androgyny (Elaine Showalter, 2003) are likely to have
been formulated via, among others, authorial paratexts provided perhaps with the intention to
manipulate towards pre-established patterns of reading.
Therefore, one may assert that the centralized network reflects basic types of reading thus
being representative for the first level of text analysis, in which both the paratexts and the
metatexts direct the reading towards absolute meanings.
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3. The decentralized network
The second network consists in a multitude of interconnected centralized networks
where each central node of each star in the network represents a text. The connection is
established via links settled only between central nodes. Here, too, must be identified a central
text which finds itself in relation with other secondary texts. This particular graphic is
representative both for what Genette distinguishes as being processes of intertextuality and
hypertextuality, the secondary texts either making reference to the central text by means of
plagiarism, quotation or allusion or transforming it. An aspect which cannot be neglected is
that every secondary text produces its own metatext. (Fig. 3)
Therefore, the two Woolfian texts, Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando: A Biography, are here
in direct relation with other texts, namely Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours and Sally
Potter’s filmic text Orlando, which contain and furthermore transform the initial text.
Following Genette’s terminology, both secondary texts can be considered intertexts, in the
sense that they both make allusion and quote the initial text, as well as hypertexts designed to
alter the meaning of the hypotext. In this network, the hypertexts absorb the original text
together with its metatext in order to alter the meaning completely.
Fig. 3. Decentralized network
The Woolfian text at the core of this network led to metatexts revolving around
aspects such as Virginia Woolf and the Fictions of Psychoanalysis, Unmasking Lesbian
Passion, Virginia Woolf and Fascism, The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English
Culture, Reinventing Grief Work: Virginia Woolf’s Feminist Representations of Mourning in
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Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, Androgyny in Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf and the
Flight into Androgyny, etc. In the process of transformation, the key words bolded become
themes and motifs incorporated in the hypertext. In this context, Cunningham imagined a
transition from the mentally ill author writing with the idea of suicide in mind to the reader
tempted by the same thought and, finally, to the AIDS stricken celebrated author committing
suicide, and in formulating it, as a tribute to Virginia Woolf, he constantly joggled with the
idea of death and with emotional disturbed characters, blurring the certainty of sexual
orientation as characters constantly oscillate between heterosexuality and homosexuality. A
significant leitmotif, the theme of the scarring war in Mrs Dalloway is replaced in The Hours
with the epidemic AIDS with the same intention, that of emphasizing that they are deeply
damaging events ‘In The Hours, AIDS is a factor in one of the three stories, rather in the way
the First World War is a factor in Mrs Dalloway. It’s the event after which nothing’s ever the
same again’. (Canning, 2003: 104)
Potter’s Orlando, in its quality of hypertext, transforms the original text primarily to
make it suitable for the screen by means of a simplified narrative which in order to be
psychologically convincing has to provide motivations for the fantastic events Orlando must
undergo, whilst the novel leaves them unexplained. As a result, the immortality of the main
character is explained as an act of compliance to the request of Queen Elizabeth I, ‘[00:11:20]
Do not fade, do not wither, do not grow old…’ (Orlando, 1992) and although Orlando is
Woolf’s single novel in which death represents a remote possibility and the problem of war, is
not treated as an utterly transforming and affecting event, Potter chooses to motivate the shift
of gender as being a reaction of rejection towards the violence and the cold blood a man
should display in time of war placing the event in the fourth section of the movie called 1700
Politics. It has been asserted that Woolf constructed Orlando as a metaphor for English
literature and Potter remains faithful to it by constantly gathering an entire history of famous
art paintings. On screen, the shift of gender Orlando undergoes and the contemplation of his
image as a she form an image which is overwhelming in how similar it is with Gustav Klimt’s
1899 Art Nouveau canvas, Nuda Veritas2. Sally Potter outlines Orlando as a nonconformist
character breaking norms by refusing to get married, for example, and by giving birth to a
female child, thus disregarding Queen Victoria’s decision that, unless she has a son, she will
lose her inheritance. But this rebellion against authority represents a form of homage to
Virginia Woolf and a manner of remaining true to her beliefs and actions.
4. The distributed network
Finally, the third type of network in question, the distributed one, represents a
multitude of texts directly connected. This mesh of interwoven texts supports the theory that
the text is not and cannot be considered a monad, a unitary and self-sustainable system and
must not be interpreted as a one time, unrepeatable utterance. (Fig. 4)
2
A photograph of the canvas is available at http://www.klimt.com/en/gallery/early-works/klimt-nuda-veritas1899.ihtml
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Fig. 4. Distributed network
As it can be observed in Fig. 4, the Woolfian text placed at the core of the network has
a double function, being both hypertext, as – it accesses and transforms previous texts, and
hypotext, as – it is accessed and transformed in its turn. Shakespeare is a recurrent theme in
the works of Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography being no exception. The novel can be
read as an act of homage to Shakespeare, whose frothy comedies are a celebration of gender
change and mistaken identity. The very name of the character is borrowed from the main
character in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, in its turn a choice inspired from Ariosto’s Orlando
Furioso, which is considered to be a continuation of Boiardo’s unfinished poem Orlando
Innamorato; key characters in the novel, such as Sasha, Archduke Harry, and last but not
least, Orlando, disguise their gender. Woolf connects her text both with Shakespeare and with
Ariosto’s maddened character, in a sequence where Orlando witnesses a performance of
Othello on the ice as an anticipation of the frenzy of grief he is to suffer by losing Sasha: ‘A
black man was waving his arms and vociferating. There was a woman in white laid upon a
bed. […] The frenzy of the Moor seemed to him his own frenzy, and when the Moor
suffocated the woman in her bed it was Sasha he killed with his own hands’ (Woolf, 2002:
33). On screen, Potter links her filmic text to Shakespeare by replicating the scene. The filmic
text transforms through Orlando’s direct address to the camera as he concludes [00:25:57]
‘Terrific play.’ (Orlando, 1992), almost as if Woolf’s homage to Shakespeare is now
incorporated in the two spoken words. It can be noticed that the texts of the grid network
mirror each other in a seemingly bottomless series of reflections and repetitions, fact which
allows reasoning that this type of network can be continually built by adding texts, regardless
of the genre they pertain to, incessantly questioning how far back history is to be accessed in
mapping the relations between texts.
5. Final remarks
One must realize that literature, seen as the postmodern condition, manifested by
reiterations of previous texts or, in other words, by a continuous process of simulacra
production, represents the source of the constant struggle to chart the numerous relations
between texts, in an attempt to grasp to what extent and, more importantly, to what cost the
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meaning is altered. The examples used to reflect the three types of networks are selected in
such a manner as to revolve around the Woolfian text however, at the core of the networks
can be positioned any text, the networks proving to be versatile from this point of view.
Although the networks displayed in the present paper do not provide answers for questions
raised by intertextuality, they might prove useful in selecting and organizing analyses of texts
in relation.
Acknowledgement: The author
PERFORM/159/1.5/S/138963.
acknowledges
the
support
provided
by
Project
SOP
HRD
–
References
Allen, Graham, (2000) Intertextuality, London: Routledge
Baran, Paul, (1964) On Distributed Communications Networks, Communications Systems,
Volume CS-12, Number 1, Printed in the USA
Canning, Richard, (2003) Hear Us Out [conversations with gay novelists], New York:
Columbia University Press
Potter, Sally, (director/writer) (1992) Orlando (film), released by Sony Pictures Classics
Woolf, Leonard, (1954) A Writer’s Diary, New York: Harcourt Inc.
Woolf, Virginia, (1977) A Room of One’s Own, London: Grafton, An Imprint of
HarperCollins Publishers
Woolf, Virginia, (2003) Mrs Dalloway, Introduction by Merry M. Pawlowski, London:
Wordsworth Classics
Woolf, Virginia, (2002) Orlando: A Biography, New York: RosettaBooks LLC
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