Intertextuality in J. M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer

This book focuses on illustrating the reciprocal relationship between the historicity of texts and the textuality of history through the notion of intertextuality and its relation to the new historicist approach in Coetzee's and Gordimer's novels. Originally, both novelists use classical writings as inspirational sources when weaving their narratives; that is why their works are distinguished by ambiguity. Certain forms of intertextuality such as quotations, epigraphs, allusions, adaptations, and repetitions define themselves through the novels under study in varying proportions. The book will also discuss which axis of intertextuality Coetzee and Gordimer employ in their novels and scrutinize the forms of intertextuality to demonstrate the points of similarities and differences between them. In addition, it will show how they reshape old stories and reconsider the question of power and resistance by employing intertextual references in their narratives, which are the core of New Historicism. These points will be examined in detail with reference to Coetzee's and Gordimer's selected novels.