Intertextual analysis as a tool for examining processes of memory transformation in literature: Types, figures, and functions

This article connects the theory of intertextuality and the concept of memory transformation. The transformations of mnemonic contents and the various forms of presentation that they have gone through before they crystallized in the texts are mostly invisible. In order to uncover these processes, Astrid Erll calls attention to the “travel” of memories. Based on intertextual theory, my analysis aims to distill categories for examining the transformative character of literary memory. For this purpose, I analyze the following three types of transformative memories— transgenerational postmemory , affiliative postmemory , and co-memoration —based on appropriate case studies. The categories of intertextual analysis that will be worked out in the article are as follows: The elements of intertextuality, the communicative acts between the previous and the manifest text that can be described as figures of intertextuality shaped by the specificity of each type of transformative memory; and the meta-content of intertextual transformation, that is, the characteristic purpose or quaestio that each memory transformation involves and that can be seen the function-aspect of intertextual communication.