According to Thomas C. Foster, there was, is, and ever will be only one story. This one story has been told an infinite amount of times, and still continues to be told. To further explain this, Foster states, “I suppose what the one story, the ur-story, is about is ourselves, about what it means to be human. I mean what else is there?” By making this statement Foster is saying that we can only rewrite about human experiences, or what has already been written of. I like this idea because it means that when a new work of literature is created, it is connected to a work of the past, or that it somehow can connect to some people on a personal level since feelings are universal, and many people go through the same or similar experiences.
After much thought, I agree with him wholeheartedly. Intertextuality is everywhere you look. It's not strictly limited to literature; it's media, art, television, billboards, and anything else we come into contact with that influences what we create. Intertextuality is unavoidable because we become who we are by what we surround ourselves with, and when writing we show who we are. Therefore, in our writing, we show what we expose ourselves to. As Foster states, the campground is crowded, and it's difficult to not to overlap with our peers creations.
Because nothing is new or completely original, there are many different things we can use to try to bring new meaning or deeper thinking into a text. Each person may think of a different source to refer to because we are each exposed to many different things. This is what makes the reading experience unique and personal to each reader.
You seem to have hit the nail right on the head in your second paragraph. Literature is not the only area where the single story comes out. We see thousands of universal ideas on a regular basis because people typically are after the same things in life which helps writers create new episodes of our favorite shows, advertising agencies capitalize on our desires in commercials and on billboards, and artists create a work that can speak to thousands of people on the same level. This main story exists in literature and has transcended into a plethora of other areas in our lives.
ReplyDelete