The Recursive Structure to Which All Text Is Heir

James E. Porter's "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community" follows a tradition of exegesis that places the worth of a work in the tradition in which the text is steeped. He refers to the text as intertext, and takes the notion so far as to assert that all text is necessarily intertextual. All text is made up of the text that precedes it. In a way, the writer is destined to be constrained by its predecessors. In regard to the rhetorical situation, the rhetor is of even less importance than the situation in which the rhetor exists. The rhetor does not create the situation, but is shaped by it.

The extent to which the rhetor is constrained becomes even more severe when considering his placement in a discourse community. The discourse community is a sort of specialized forum of intertext which presupposes rules and constraints characteristic of the particular community in which a rhetor finds himself. The audience and traditions of the community exercise the most force on the rhetor's textual product. He must conform to the expectations of the community or else find himself alienated.

It seems pretty dreary for the rhetor, but Porter argues that it is within the constraints of intertext and discourse community that a rhetor can find freedom. The content that can be employed by the rhetor is unchanging, but the form in which he can represent it is his own. This hints at an analysis that manipulates the established codes of conduct in new and interesting ways.

This entire concept of the discourse community seems to be echoing the philosophy of compatibilsm ,and intertextuality seems to be echoing T.S. Eliot’s take on the role tradition plays in a work or literature in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” This is actually quite appropriate considering the subject matter being discussed presupposes the intertexual nature of all text.

Compatibilism asserts that free will and determinism can exist in harmony with one another. While events unravel following a deterministic cause-and-effect relationship, an agent operating within that system can still exercise free will. Here is a video in whose fabric this concept is deeply embedded:

 

Although compatibilism is difficult to substantiate if we take into consideration the myriad factors—social conditioning, biological make up, brain chemistry—that might be operating unseen and determining an agents decisions, this philosophy is still available for intertextual implantation. In the discourse community, the free agent is the rhetor operating in the deterministic system. He is necessarily subject to constraints, but maintains the freedom to alter or redefine the community through the contribution of his work: “Every new text has the potential to alter the Text in some way; in fact every text admitted into a discourse community changes the constitution of the community” (Porter 41). It is here that the echoes of T.S. Eliot can be heard most clearly.

Eliot’s argument deviates from the romantic belief that the worth of a work is measured by the author in favor of measuring a work by the tradition in which it is immersed. The tradition he refers to can be considered as the broadest receptacle of intertextuality, containing the entire literary canon. This constitutes the discourse community which he refers to as the “existing order.” His assertions regarding this order is where Porter’s text and Eliot’s essentially overlap. Eliot states, “The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new” (http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw4.html). Is this not the very essence of what Porter concludes on page 41?

It is fascinating that even in essays, intertextuality is evident. The very nature of Porter’s essay reinforces his argument.

And now I will digress to some philosophical questions pertaining more intimately to the human condition. The implications here about intertextuality cannot be ignored. If each writer is merely a mosaic made from the fragments of the varying texts to which he has been exposed, then what does this say about our make-up as humans? This might presuppose the idea that we are entirely determined. If our expression is the effect of the absorption of knowledge and observation, then we are determined by our multifarious experiences. We operate within a framework that is constantly being dictated by the past while concurrently redefining the past, creating an illusion of free will in the present. There is an ongoing and elusive interplay that cannot be monitored. I’m going far beyond my scope of understanding, so it is here that I stop.