Postmodernist Literature and Theatre From the Perspective of Intermedial (Meta)reference

Abstract

The article explores the phenomenon of theatricality as a form of intermediality in postmodernist literature, with metareference viewed as an essential verbal means of its manifestation. Linguistic poetics and intermediality theory serve as the theoretical and methodo-logical basis of elucidating verbal and textual manifestations of theatricality in postmodernist literary texts. From this perspective, the use of theatre-related metareferences in postmodernist fiction is explicated as a form of intermediality, which accentuates textual presence and imitation of theatre as a distinct medium in literary text. In this paper, the focus on intermedial metareferences is twofold — 1) analysis of metareferences that specifically mention or discuss media-specific qualities of theatre as a media-form; 2) discussion of metareferences to specific theatrical works (both real and fictitious). Special focus is given to eliciting manifestations of theatrical metareferences in such post-modernist novels as The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch and The Magus by John Fowles. The phenomenon of theatricality is discussed with regard to its stylistic potential to demonstrate an intermedial convergence between literary text and theatre as media forms. It is revealed that the manifestations of metareferences to theatrical art juxtapose the boundaries of reality and artifice, bring to the foreground the effect of theatricality.