Text/Texts: Interrogating Julia Kristeva's Concept of Intertextuality ?

Julia Kristeva's contribution to the notion of intertextuality is immense. She not only coined the word intertextuality but substantially stressed the importance of the potential dynamics that lay within the text. Text is not a unilinear entity but a heterogeneous combination of texts. Any text is at once literary and social, creative and cultural. They are culturally and institutionally fashioned. Most of the ideas that Kristeva puts forward is a rework or revision of Bakhtinian notion of intertextualiy. Bakhtin also held the view point that the text cannot be detached from socio-cultural textuality which is the backdrop in which a text is created. This paper is an attempt to trace and interrogate the various notionsand ideas relating to intertextuality in Kristeva's thought.