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Abstract

This paper intends to explain the postmodern literary trope of intertextuality in the light of its theorization by Julia Kristeva. The paper also seeks to highlight its uses for the depiction of the postmodern realities in the plays “The Hamlet machine” and “The Skinhead Hamlet” by Heiner Mueller and Richard Curtis, respectively. It starts with its etymological and semantic derivatives, and then defines it in the light of theoretical perspectives of Bakhtin, Morson, Emerson, Kristeva, and reviews its evolution from the Aristotelian period to the present age. It also highlights its types such as quotations, revisions, translations, mosaics, calque, and baroques explained by Michele Marrapodi and Shaw and has been analyzed concerning the context of these plays to understand their semantic implications. The paper also shows that the titles, structures, and word plays, too, the manifest interplay of various tropes of intertextuality.