Title: Reading intertextually : art, fiction, and material culture in Patrick White and Sidney Nolan
Abstract:The aim of this thesis is to explore how it is that texts intertext; and how that
intertextuality is affected by various aspects of textual production: both that which
relates to the material and cu...The aim of this thesis is to explore how it is that texts intertext; and how that
intertextuality is affected by various aspects of textual production: both that which
relates to the material and cultural productions of texts, and that which relates to
readerly constructions of textuality and intertextuality. It also explores the implications
of reading intertextually: the sorts of readings that can be made, as well as how reading
intertextually can inform the ways in which we then create new texts of material
production. The various processes by which we create intertextual texts means that
boundaries of textual medium and genre are being continually dissolved and reestablished.
I examine the implications of the erosions of barriers that have been used
traditionally to separate various aspects of textuality, and I investigate the sorts of
boundaries that are enabled by intertextuality.
As well as exploring the broad meaning of the words reading, text, and
intertext, I also read specific ways in which the works of Patrick White and Sidney
Nolan intertext, exploring the slippages of meaning and perception that are caused by
the intertextuality of a variety of their texts. I investigate the ways in which their works
intertext with other art, with other writings, and with the wider contexts of Australian
and global culture. Some broader questions relating to textuality and intertextuality are
given close attention in the introduction, as are the terms and reading strategies used in
the thesis. The four main sections of the thesis are i) translation rights, ii) disrupting
texts, iii) flux, and iv) deterritorialisation.
Translation rights begins with an analysis of the positions of White and Nolan
within Australian culture, after which I read intertextually White's novels Riders in the
Chariot and Voss, and Nolan's art, also observing ways in which those texts intertext
with various notions of national identity and historico-mythography. Each of the other
three sections begins with a different meditation on the nature of textuality and
intertextuality, in which I propose a variety of ways in which the activity of reading
intertextually might be mapped. These sections also include specific intertextual
readings of the works of White and Nolan. I do not attempt to retrieve objective
meanings from the texts of White and Nolan, rather I acknowledge my readings as subjective and transient, arguing that texts exist in a state of flux during acts of
reading, as they intertext with various other entities involved in signic play, including:
myself as reader, other readers, (inter)texts, and the complex cultural codings in which
textual play takes place.
Disrupting texts includes a discussion of written epigraphs and the ways in
which cover-illustrations (and other visual texts) can be read as visual epigraphs. This
section also studies how theories of livres d'artistes intertext with literary theory. In
flux, I adapt the graphics of semiotics in order to more adequately map the activity of
reading intertextually; and then explore the intertextuality at work between Nolan's
Eliza Fraser series and White's A Fringe of Leaves. Deterritorialisation investigates the
ways in which intertextuality causes the deterritorialisation of all texts; before
presenting a series of intertextual readings of the works of both White and Nolan with
the poetry of Rimbaud. I conclude by exploring the implications of the (inter)textual
play enabled as art, fiction, and material culture (and the discursive practices with
which they are surrounded) are read intertextually.Read More
Publication Year: 1996
Publication Date: 1996-01-01
Language: en
Type: dissertation
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