History/ fiction: an intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime

The structural poetics which Gerard Genette bases his theory of intertextuality on focuses its attention on the study of the system, rather than individual works, providing a mapping of the closed system of literature and thus a firm basis for any meaningful analysis of individual works. The major f...

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Main Authors:	Zohreh Ramin, Seyyed Mohammad Marandi
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM 2014
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7073/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7073/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7073/1/3489-14267-1-PB.pdf

id	ukm-7073
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-70732016-12-14T06:43:02Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7073/ History/ fiction: an intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime Zohreh Ramin, Seyyed Mohammad Marandi, The structural poetics which Gerard Genette bases his theory of intertextuality on focuses its attention on the study of the system, rather than individual works, providing a mapping of the closed system of literature and thus a firm basis for any meaningful analysis of individual works. The major focus of this study is to reveal how Doctorow takes history as the hypo text, combines it with the story of his novel, the hypertext, and employs parody at the same time. To elaborate on how the work is a parody, we can benefit from a new historicist reading of the work. Since we intend to observe the text under the light of Genette’s intertextuality, questions to ask are; how can we observe Ragtime as a parole, and attempt to place it back into a system? To what kind of system does Ragtime belong to? Doctorow challenges the reader to question the nature of historical truth. This is observed once we realise the intertextual relationship between the fictive world of his novel and the history of America as it is recorded and documented by historians. At first sight, it appears that he is mainly depicting the spirit of the ‘Progressive Era’ in the lives of the three representative families. Yet further reading attests to his criticism of any notion of change and progress, especially in the lives of the marginalised and suppressed members of the American society. Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM 2014 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7073/1/3489-14267-1-PB.pdf Zohreh Ramin, and Seyyed Mohammad Marandi, (2014) History/ fiction: an intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime. 3L; Language,Linguistics and Literature,The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies., 20 (1). pp. 157-166. ISSN 0128-5157 http://ejournals.ukm.my/3l/index
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	The structural poetics which Gerard Genette bases his theory of intertextuality on focuses its attention on the study of the system, rather than individual works, providing a mapping of the closed system of literature and thus a firm basis for any meaningful analysis of individual works. The major focus of this study is to reveal how Doctorow takes history as the hypo text, combines it with the story of his novel, the hypertext, and employs parody at the same time. To elaborate on how the work is a parody, we can benefit from a new historicist reading of the work. Since we intend to observe the text under the light of Genette’s intertextuality, questions to ask are; how can we observe Ragtime as a parole, and attempt to place it back into a system? To what kind of system does Ragtime belong to? Doctorow challenges the reader to question the nature of historical truth. This is observed once we realise the intertextual relationship between the fictive world of his novel and the history of America as it is recorded and documented by historians. At first sight, it appears that he is mainly depicting the spirit of the ‘Progressive Era’ in the lives of the three representative families. Yet further reading attests to his criticism of any notion of change and progress, especially in the lives of the marginalised and suppressed members of the American society.
format	Article
author	Zohreh Ramin, Seyyed Mohammad Marandi,
spellingShingle	Zohreh Ramin, Seyyed Mohammad Marandi, History/ fiction: an intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime
author_facet	Zohreh Ramin, Seyyed Mohammad Marandi,
author_sort	Zohreh Ramin,
title	History/ fiction: an intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime
title_short	History/ fiction: an intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime
title_full	History/ fiction: an intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime
title_fullStr	History/ fiction: an intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime
title_full_unstemmed	History/ fiction: an intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime
title_sort	history/ fiction: an intertextual reading of e. l. doctorow’s ragtime
publisher	Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM
publishDate	2014
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7073/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7073/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7073/1/3489-14267-1-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T19:48:40Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T19:48:40Z
_version_	1777406072161566720

History/ fiction: an intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime

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