INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE COMICS "BATMAN AND SON"

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the category of intertextuality in English-language comics. The relevance of the study is determined by the originality of the research object, since comics are a relatively new phenomenon in literary discourse. Therefore, the purpose of the research is to determine the intertextual connections between the comics as a genre of the graphic novel and other literary, artistic or cinematic works. Intertextuality is defined by researchers as a text category that aims to compare texts of various genres, works of different periods and writers to establish common features using such forms as allusions, reminiscences, quotations, idioms, etc. This concept underlies the actualization of one text through the prism of another, implementing a semantic function. The main methods of researching this phenomenon in the context of comics, namely the comparative method, the method of contextual analysis, are applied. The results of the research display that mythological (literary) allusions, which are motivated by the story line of the comics «Batman and Son», cover a significant index among all forms of intertextuality. In turn, citation had not only an implicit, but also an explicit meaning, which was used in work limited due to its complexity and uniformity. Using the method of contextual analysis of allusions, quotations and reminiscences, the author's intention of using mythological hints was defined, which was based on drawing a parallel between Judas and David, the antichrist and the messiah, Batman and Dr. Hurt, good and evil, and at the syntactic level the authors intention is realized by means of the stylistic device of antithesis. The lexical-semantic analysis showed that the writer used borrowings from Latin (magnum opus; et' tu morte') and French (en garde), which testified to the intercultural connection in the comics, as one of the means of intertextuality . Thus, intertextuality in the context of comics plays an important role, enriches the knowledge of comic readers with other cultures, traditions, events and has a symbolic meaning.