Dialogism And Intertextual Codes In H. Melville And J.F. Cooper

P. 592–601.

Zhuravleva A., Mashoshina V. S.

This article reveals the intertextual relationships between the literary works of Herman Melville and James Fenimore Cooper. The legacy of William Shakespeare and John Milton can be defined as dominating among the other sources of intertext in the novels of the two writers. Certain attention is given to the approaches the authors apply to address the classics. Impacted by the British Bards and developing American culture, Cooper succeeded by Melville, contributed to the evolution of the genre of the sea-novel which serves as the “bridge” between the British and American belles-lettres. Both writers perceived British literature as a basis for American, and fruitfully used the masterpieces of the classics to add special stature to the portraits of their characters and appeal to the tastes of the reading audience. By analyzing a motley assortment of allusions and quotations functioning as markers of intertextuality in the texts under study, the authors of the present paper tend to believe that while in the novels by Cooper the intertext is mainly manifested through the epigraphs and certain narrative patterns, in Melville’s writings the results of the author’s contact with different epochs is primarily recognized through the employment of actualized subplots and transformed character types.

Keywords: intertextuality, dialogism, knowledge transmission, literary codes

In book

European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Vol. 95: Dialogue of Cultures - Culture of Dialogue: from Conflicting to Understanding, 23-25 April, 2020. , European Publisher, 2020.