Latent Structures of Intertextuality in French Fiction

Abstract

Intertextuality is a key concept in literary theory that challenges traditional notions of text, signification or authorship. It views texts as part of a vast intertextual network that is constantly evolving and being reconfigured. This paper argues that the field of computational literary studies is the ideal place to conduct a study of intertextuality since we have now the ability to systematically compare texts with each others. Specifically, we present a work on a corpus of more than 12.000 French fictions from the 18th, 19th and early 20th century. We focus on evaluating the underlying roles of two literary notions, sub-genres and the literary canon in the framing of textuality. The article attempts to operationalize intertextuality using state-of-the-art contextual language models to encode novels and capture features that go beyond simple lexical or thematic approaches. Previous research (Hughes, 2012) supports the existence of a literary "style of a time", and our findings further reinforce this concept. Our findings also suggest that both subgenres and canonicity play a significant role in shaping textual similarities within French fiction. These discoveries point to the importance of considering genre and canon as dynamic forces that influence the evolution and intertextual connections of literary works within specific historical contexts.