DIALOGUES ACROSS TEXTS: INTERTEXTUALITY AND ITS APPLICATION TO AGARD’S POETRY

Authors : İsmail Karatekin

Pages : 1441-1472

Doi:10.33171/dtcfjournal.2025.65.2.26

View : 70 | Download : 90

Publication Date : 2025-12-21

Article Type : Review Paper

Abstract :Intertextuality, a term Julia Kristeva coined, underscores the interconnectedness of texts and their meanings through references and dialogues with other works. As a multidisciplinary concept, intertextuality provides limitless opportunities for interpreting not only literary texts but all forms of texts. John Agard, the Guyanese poet, uses intertextuality to interrogate colonial histories, celebrate cultural hybridity, and resist institutional hierarchies. From this point of view, this study explores the intertextual dimensions of Agard’s poetry, focusing on his engagement with canonical texts, historical narratives, and cultural discourses. In his poem “Checking Out Me History” (2007) from his poetry collection Half-Caste and Other Poems (2007), Agard juxtaposes Eurocentric figures, like ‘Lord Nelson’, with marginalised ones, such as “Toussaint de beacon”, exposing the disregards in traditional historiographies. Similarly, in his “Half-Caste” poem, present in his poetry collection Half-Caste and Other Poems (2004), he reclaims pejorative terms with metaphors like ‘half-caste canvas’ and ‘Picasso mix a red an green’ (p. 11), signifying modernist art as a celebration of synthesis and hybridity. Agard handles the themes of colonialism, race, and identity through the intertextual connections among his poems “Memo to Professor Enoch Powell,” found in his poetry anthology We Brits (2006), “Prospero Caliban Cricket” from his poetry collection Travel Light Travel Dark (2013) and concerning discourses Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” (1968) speech, and Shakespeare’s The Tempest (2008). Agard critiques Powell’s separatist rhetoric and reinterprets Shakespeare’s conceivably colonial allegory to highlight multicultural resilience and postcolonial resistance. In conclusion, this study highlights John Agard’s accomplished use of intertextuality to critique colonial histories, reclaim marginalised voices, and celebrate cultural hybridity. Through intertextual dimensions, Agard redefines identity as a dynamic and hybrid construct, resisting institutional hierarchies and standing up for multicultural resilience.
Keywords : John Agard, Metinlerarasılık, Sömürge Sonrası Şiir, Kültürel Melezlik, Kurumsal Hiyerarşi, Kimlik

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