The Use of Intertextuality and Allusion: A Transgeneric Study of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and Chawqi’s Masraaou Cleopatra

Abstract

A literary work embodies the traces of other works. It may preserve the characteristics of precedent works or bring forth new images. Many works may converge into the same subject but speak about it differently, each from its ideological, historical and cultural point of view. T.S. Eliot in Tradition and the Individual Talent affirms writers need not write in their ancestor’s skin and be only influenced but also create and add. Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra and Chawqi’s Masraaou Cleopatra display a lot of convergences but also diverge mainly in the representation of Antony and the description of the Actium Battle. Shakespeare’s depiction of Antony is more detailed while Chawqi’s concern is directed toward Cleopatra. Also, Shakespeare describes the Actium Battle not as a political struggle but as a conflict between two cultures. Jacques Derrida in The Law of Genre defines genre as “a principle of contamination, a law of impurity, a parasitical economy” (3). Derrida celebrates ‘dissemination’ which conveys the multiplicity of genre. The notion of ‘impurity’ reveals an intertextual play of texts, a ‘permutation’ of texts. In “The Bounded Text” Julia Kristeva views text “a permutation of texts, an intertextuality in the space of a given text” in which “several utterances taken from other texts, intersect and neutralize one another” (56). Gerard Genette beholds literary works as ‘articulations.’ “In Structuralism and Literary Criticism” he states that literary critic “creates a structure out of a previous structure by rearranging elements which are already arranged within the objects of his or her study”(83). Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra is definitely a tragedy from a generic point of view, but strokes of epic are embedded within tragedy. This is an evidence of Derrida’s ‘anomaly’ or ‘contamination’ and a justification of genre instability and multiplicity. Intertextuality is not only depicted through Shakespeare’s influence by Plutarch but also through Chawqi’s attempt to fill the gaps of Shakespeare’s representation. Chawqi rewrites the story of Antony and Cleopatra emphasizing the epic aspect more than the tragic. There is a crossing of boundaries in both plays. Through this presentation, I intend to show that the two plays combine multiple genres such as the tragic and the epic, and highlight the use of intertextuality and allusion