"Let's Run It through Again, but in Another Key": Intertextuality in John Barth's LETTERS

Abstract

The article gives a poststructuralist reading of the different forms of intertextuality in John Barth's LETTERS (1979); it also focuses on his destructive and/or creative recontextualization of his earlier works in LETTERS.
The novel structures itself around the theme of doubles and echoes, of repetition and reorchestration, establishing a bottomless mise-en-abyme of the already read and the already said. Defying notions of origin and originality, the novel is constructed in a movement of auto-intertextuality, or to use Lucien Dallenbach's phrase, autotextuality.
LETTERS establishes itself as an imitation, not of reality, but as an intertextual product of the mimetic act, imitating, that is, reading and writing other works. With the publication of his seventh novel, John Barth has definitely arrived at a form of poststructuralist mimesis, one of the ultimate forms of intertextuality.

Opsomming
Hierdie artikel gee 'n postrukturalistiese lesing van die verskillende vorme van interteks­tualiteit in John Barth se LETTERS (1979). Daar word ook gefokus op die destruktiewe en/of kreatiewe herkontekstualisasie van sy vroeëre werk in LETTERS.
Die roman struktureer homself rond die tema van dubbels en eggo's, van herhalings en reorkestrasie waarby 'n bodemlose mise-en-abyme gevestig word van alles wat gelees en wat reeds gesê is. Begrippe soos oorsprong en oorspronklikheid word gekonstrueer in hierdie roman, wat 'n beweging word van outo-intertekstualiteit, of soos Lucien Dallenbach sê, outotekstualiteit.
LETTERS vestig homself as 'n imitasie, nie van die werklikheid nie, maar as een intertekstuele produk van die mimetiese handeling waarby andere werke nageboots, dit wil se, geskryf en gelees word. Met die publikasie van sy sewende roman het John Barth definitief uitgekom by 'n vorm van poststrukturalistiese mimesis, een van die hoogtepunte van intertekstualiteit.