ABSTRACT
Intertextuality, as a term, has not been restricted to discussions of the literary arts. It is found in discussions of cinema, painting, music, architecture, photography and in virtually all cultural and artistic productions. Despite the common-sense association between literature and the word ‘text’, we need only remember the connection between the early articulations of intertextual theory and the development of Saussure’s notions concerning semiology to make intertextuality’s use in studies of non-literary art forms understandable. In the Course on General Linguistics, Saussure looked forward to a new science, semiotics, which would study ‘the life of signs within society’ (Saussure, 1974: 16). It is possible to speak of the ‘languages’ of cinema, painting or architecture: languages which involve productions of complex patterns of encoding, re-encoding, allusion, echo, transposing of previous systems and codes. To interpret a painting or a building we inevitably rely on an ability to interpret that painting’s or building’s relationship to previous ‘languages’ or
‘systems’ of painting or architectural design. Films, symphonies, buildings, paintings, just like literary texts, constantly talk to each other as well as talking to the other arts.
