An Intertextual Reading Of The Hours

"Works of literature, after all, are built from systems, codes and traditions established by previous works of literature. The systems, codes and traditions of other art forms and of culture in general are also crucial to the meaning of a work of literature. Texts, whether they are literary or non-literary, are viewed by modern theorists as lacking in any kind of independent meaning". In this way, texts become intertexts. Intertextuality is the intertextual relations of texts. "Any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another". This is generally acknowledged understanding of intertextuality.Of the present thesis, the first part is devoted to a summary about the orientation of and the category in intertextual research during resent years. Why The Hours is chosen to be explored as a typical case of intertextuality and to be read with its conscious intertext Mrs. Dalloway is explained in this part, too. The second part is devoted to the description of the academic genealogy of intertextuality so as to draw an outline of the emergence, development and evolvement of intertextuality. In the third part, The Hours is compared with its intertext Mrs. Dalloway by way of such concrete forms of intertextuality as quotation, allusion, motif, pastiche, parallelism to illustrates how the two masterpieces are inter-referential to each other. In the fourth part, illustrations are made to show the developments made by The Hours in some aspects on the basis of Mrs. Dalloway. The meaning of The Hours is interpreted with Mrs. Dalloway as its intertext in the intertextual context of readers.