A Dynamic Intertextual Study Of Graham Swift's Novel Waterland

Some critics claim that Graham Swift is a traditional writer in the postmodern age while Swift himself views his own creation as original. He maintains his belief in the defamiliarizaiton of novel writing, but he also confesses that he cannot do without the large literary tradition as well as the social and cultural milieu. This paradox indicates that the intertextual studies may bring us to a new plateau in the interpretation of Swift's novel Waterland (1983) .Some western scholars have attempted to probe into the intertextual relationship between Waterland and other literary works, yet there still exist a few problems in the previous intertextual studies. The survey of these problems reveals that the intertextual relationship in postmodern historical novels such as Waterland is more complicated and contradictory, which cannot be simply narrowed down to the source-and-influence study. Therefore, this thesis attempts to explore a more dynamic intertextual process, which fully displays the contradiction between the idea of progress and regression as well as the tensions between various genres, discourses and voices, which echoes postmodern cultural intertexts-plurality of values and truths, and which also contours the perplexed situation of the modern man.This dynamic intertextual study can seek its theoretical support from Bakhtin's concept of "polyphony", Barthes's idea of "revolutionary activity", Kristeva's idea of "productivity" as well as Hutcheon's studies on "historiographic metafiction". Their research.on intertextuality has extended from the study of influence on the individual work to the study of the interplay between multiple forces on the social and cultural level.Echoing the dynamic intertextual theories, the novel exactly displays a process of both inscribing and subverting the narratives of progress in the history of the Fens as well as its extension in the modern age. Meanwhile multiple digressive mini-narratives, stories, and legends are brought to the fore, which bring us back to the tunnel of time to recover the other once suppressed truths in history. While deconstructing the model of radical progress, Swift produces his humble model for progress, which is metaphorically illustrated in the natural phenomenon of land reclamation and siltation.While persisting with a detailed textual analysis of Waterland, this thesis also incorporates such theoretical values as the new perspective of intertextual study and the enrichment of metafictional theories in postmodernist context. Besides, the thesis reveals the spiritual enlightenment of the dynamic intertextual exploration in the novel, which bring us repeatedly to the retrospection into our own living status quo in which we are always seduced by the accelerated progressive allure of artificial history.In the end the present thesis discusses the novel's problems and paradoxes in a vast background of postmodern perplexed situation, and then points out the potential space for further studies.