A Study On Intertextuality In A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book

A.S.Byatt is one of the most well-known contemporary British writers and critics.The Children's book was published in 2009 and was one of the shortlisted novels for Man Booker Prize.The Children's Book depicts a complicated life story of several families from the late Victorian Age to the end of WWI.The novel is filled with abundant historical,cultural and social details.Byatt combines rich European cultural heritage with social and historical background from the late 19 th century to the early 20 th century in her novel,which makes the novel full of deep cultural connotations.The Children's Book has been studied widely both at home and abroad by readers and critics.However,the study of intertextuality on this novel is still rare.Therefore,this thesis aims to study The Children's Book from the perspective of intertextuality.The theory of intertextuality plays an important role in literary criticism.According to the theory of intertextuality,any text is not isolated.Any text is related to other texts.A text should be analyzed by combining with other texts and materials.This thesis gives an introduction of researchers who have contributed a lot to the formation of the theory of intertextuality such as Kristeva,Barthes,Bakhtin and Genette.Their influences on this theory are also discussed.This thesis applies Genette's narrow-sensed intertextuality and Kristeva's broad-sensed intertextuality as theoretical foundations in order to analyze the intertextual characteristics in Byatt's novel The Children's Book.Based on Genette's narrow-sensed intertextuality,intertextual devices like allusion,archetype and parody are used to analyze intertextuality in The Children's Book.Through the employment of elements and images from fairy tales,children's literature,classic literary works and the Bible,Byatt reflects her inheritance of European literary traditions as well as her interest in storytelling.From the perspective of narrow-sensed intertextuality,this thesis argues the intertextual relationship between The Children's Book and Grimm's fairy tales,J.M.Barrie's Peter Pan,European literary classics as well as the Bible.By using the three intertextual techniques allusion,archetype and parody,Byatt not only breaks the traditional happy ending of the fairy tales and gives us a hint of the characters' fate and future,but also provides a new perspective for the interpretation of the novel.Based on Kristeva's broad-sensed intertextuality,cultural and historical background in The Children's Book is studied in this thesis.According to Kristeva,a text cannot be separated from its cultural and historical context.Any context can be seen as an intertext.By using plenty of historical and social details,Byatt not only gives us a vivid description of a time full of huge,rapid social changes from the late 19 th century to the early 20 th century,but also expresses the confusion and anxiety of people who live in a fast-developing age.Byatt revealsthe disorder of the fast-developing industrial society and the cruelty of the war.What's more,she also shows her reflection on history and society.In The Children's Book,Byatt combines the tradition of storytelling in European literature with cultural and historical context.Her unique writing style provides a new method for the literary creations of other writers.Through intertextual reading,readers are also provided with a new perspective to interpret The Children's Book.Therefore,studying The Children's Book from the perspective of intertextuality is of theoretic and practical significance.