Books talk to one another: Colum McCanns intertexts

The intertext is the effective presence of a text in another one. This relation of co-presence between texts is the subject of the present essay. Colum McCann’s work is studied here as a mosaic of references to and quotations from other texts.In its dialogue with other texts, it absorbs and transforms them, and lets itself transformed by them. The multiple and complex relations that exist between them are approached in both synchronic and diachronic terms. Various modes of intertextuality – influence, intentionality, authority – are analyzed here and applied to McCann’s complete work. His novels and short stories denote a transposition of texts taken from the Bible or Irish mythology, but also Anglo-Saxon novels, plays or poems. Through McCann’s work, the present study highlights the articulation and interdependence of literary texts.