Side 3 , Side 2 : The Beatles in Jhumpa Lahiri ’ s The Namesake
DIACHRONIC ALLUSION AND SYNCHRONIC INTERTEXTUALITY
Is the phrase “ side 3 of the White Album ” a reference or an allusion ? The answer matters , for there is little point to rhetorical analysis if we fudge distinctions between and among terms . It also matters because on the heels of allusion is a third term : intertextuality .
In his well-known handbook of literary terms , M . H . Abrams defines allusion as “ a passing reference , without explicit identification , to a literary or historical person , place , or event , or to another literary work or passage ” ( 9 ). Though different from reference , an allusion depends on , or proceeds from , it : allusive inexplicitness ( absence ) is the “ other ” in a rhetorical binary that seems to privilege referential explicitness ( presence ).
In practice , allusion is even more complex than this binary model suggests , largely because allusion connotes a third term , intertextuality , which is often taken as synonymous with allusion . In her 1984 study Revolution in Poetic Language , Julia Kristeva introduced yet another term , “ transposition ,” which is
the redistribution of several different sign systems .... The term inter-textuality denotes this transposition of one ( or several ) sign system ( s ) into another ; but since this term has often been understood in the banal sense of ‘ study of sources ,’ we prefer the term transposition because it specifies that the passage from one signifying system to another demands a new ... enunciative and denotative positionality . ( 59 – 60 )
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