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Bewitching Writing Bewitching Writing An Analysis of Intertextual Resonance in the Witch- sequence of Terry Pratchett‘s Discworld Aalborg niversity November 2006 Written by: _____________________________________________ Dorthe Andersen Supervisor: J,rgen Riber Christensen Total amount of .eystro.es: 101122 3 75,6 normal pages 1 2 Contents: Introduction __________________________________________________________ 5 Problem__________________________________________________________________ 8 Terry Pratchett ___________________________________________________________ 8 Choice of texts ___________________________________________________________ 10 Methodological approaches_________________________________________________ 11 Definitions __________________________________________________________ 13 Intertextuality____________________________________________________________ 15 orms of transtextuality ___________________________________________________ 18 Analysis ____________________________________________________________ 23 Off-stage ________________________________________________________________ 25 Titles ________________________________________________________________________26 Equal Rites _________________________________________________________________26 Wyrd Sisters ________________________________________________________________26 Maskerade__________________________________________________________________28 Carpe Jugulum ______________________________________________________________28 Forms ________________________________________________________________________29 Punctuation _________________________________________________________________30 Footnotes___________________________________________________________________32 Comments ____________________________________________________________________36 The Stage and the Lines ___________________________________________________ 37 The Discworld _________________________________________________________________38 The Opera ouse _______________________________________________________________40 Opera______________________________________________________________________41 Masques ___________________________________________________________________42 Word games ___________________________________________________________________43 The Cast ________________________________________________________________ 47 Names _______________________________________________________________________47 (eing a witch __________________________________________________________________50 The power of three ___________________________________________________________51 The feminine ________________________________________________________________53 Language ,se _________________________________________________________________55 Forn languages ______________________________________________________________55 Speech in writing ____________________________________________________________57 The Function and Purpose of Transtextuality ______________________________ 59 Transtextual functions_____________________________________________________ 61 Types of hypotexts ________________________________________________________ 63 Te.ts ________________________________________________________________________64 The formulaic__________________________________________________________________65 uman folly___________________________________________________________________66 0rand narrati1es________________________________________________________________66 The Fantastic Pratchett________________________________________________ 69 antasy _________________________________________________________________ 71 Pratchett and fantasy______________________________________________________ 73 3 onclusion __________________________________________________________ 75 Bibliography_________________________________________________________ 81 Articles and books ________________________________________________________ 83 Internet resources ________________________________________________________ 84 2nter1iews ____________________________________________________________________85 Correspondence ________________________________________________________________86 Appendix ___________________________________________________________ 87 1. Page 25 of Maskerade____________________________________________________ 89 2. .anish Summary _______________________________________________________ 90 4 Introduction 7Now, how did I start out8 It was to have fun with some of the cli- ch9s. It was as simple as that.; (Pratchett in Young 2005) 5 6 3eading has always been my drug of choice, and since 2 happened on the wor6s of Terry Pratchett 2 ha1e not loo6ed bac6. My feelings on said occasion can best be li6ened to Mr 0roatberger8s reaction upon reading Nanny Ogg8s Joye of Snacks9 :A word caught his eye. e read it, and his eye was dragged to the end of the sentence. Then he read to the end of the page, doubling bac6 a few times be- cause he hadn8t quite belie1ed what he8d just read.“ (Maskerade, 15) Terry Pratchett8s writing is both comple. and multi-layered. The storylines in the no1els are themsel1es entertaining, yet beneath the surface 1arious references to numerous other wor6s throng. The boo6s can be read by young and old ali6e, re1ealing different degrees of intricacy along the way. 2t is this jungle of multiple layers and meanings which caught my eye, and which 2 wish to in1estigate here. This web of hints, asides and references is called interte.tuality. 2n fact Pratchett has pro1ided a description of the concept9 :All boo6s are tenuously connected through L-space and, therefore, the content of any boo6 e1er written or yet to be written may, in the right circumstances, be deduced from a sufficiently close study of boo6s already in e.istence.“ (The ast Continent, 23) On the Discworld boo6s, especially magical ones, lead separate, secret li1es, ma6ing the library a place you enter at your own ris6. owe1er, beyond the surface of mere shel1- ing lies the L-space9 :All libraries e1erywhere are connected in L-space. All libraries. A1erywhere.“ (Guards" Guards", 171). This is where all boo6s are connected, and li- braries interact. This study then, is going to be an e.pedition into the perilous realm of L-space, pursuing the lin6s from Pratchett8s wor6 to other te.ts, their functions and pur- poses. Pratchett has stated that his reasons for writing originated in a wish to ha1e fun with clichBs, as the initial quote shows. As will become clear through the analysis, he em- ploys both clichBs, figures of speech and metaphors to good ad1antage in the stories. (y reju1enating the ways in which we regard these sometimes fi.ed images or myths, he manages to ma6e his reader both laugh, cry (well, at least tears are in1ol1ed) and recon- sider pre1ious assumptions about some of the thematic treads of the stories. Terry Pratchett does not ha1e a 1ery high opinion of literary criticism, as e1idenced in the ,nseen ,ni1ersity8s library9 :CThe LibrarianD waited patiently as a herd of Critters crawled past, graEing on the contents of the choicer boo6s and lea1ing behind them small piles of slim 1olumes of literary criticism.“ (Guards" Guards", 191) 7 Perhaps this distaste is a result of e.perience, as his boo6s, while widely popular among readers, ha1e not recei1ed much critical acclaim in re1iews and academia ((utler, Fames and Mendlesohn 200491iii). This is the case for much fantasy writing, which has often been relegated to a secondary position within the world of literature. 3ecent years ha1e seen a number of wor6s on Pratchett, howe1er, and it is to this body 2 dare ma6e a con- tribution. opefully, the end result will pro1ide e1idence to the qualities and nuances of fantasy in general, and Pratchett in particular, so that 2 might be forgi1en dragging the Discworld under the microscope of literary in1estigation. Problem The chief point of interest fuelling the in1estigations in this paper is interte.tuality. owe1er, that alone is an immense field and hence unmanageable. Therefore, the focus has been narrowed down to the point of interaction between the genre of fantasy and interte.tuality. The fantastic, li6e any other genre, has its own characteristics and typical traits. 2 ha1e chosen to loo6 at a specific range of no1els within the Discworld wor6s of Terry Pratchett, a fantasy writer. is boo6s utiliEe a lot of interte.tuality, in different forms. The problem which this thesis see6s to sol1e, then, is this9 What form and function does interte.tuality ha1e in Terry Pratchett8s wor6, and can a set of categories be madeG 2n what ways does his use of interte.tuality conform to the fantastic genreG Terry Pratchett This thesis is dedicated to in1estigating the wor6s of Terry Pratchett. Who is heG (efore di1ing into the wondrous world of his writing, an introduction is in place. The small author-introductions gi1en in the boo6s are both annoyingly uninformati1e, and amus- ingly introducti1e to Pratchett8s uni1erse. The discerning reader may, of course, sie1e some facts from the te.t9 :Terry Pratchett was born in 1948 and is still not dead. e started wor6 as a journalist one day in 1965 and saw his first corpse three hours later, wor6 e.perience meaning something in those days.“ (Maskerade, 1) The information gi1en here is correct, e1en as the tone introduces the playful atmos- phere and attitude found in the Discworld. Terry Pratchett grew up in a small 1illage in (uc6inghamshire. e disco1ered fantasy and became a fan, inhaling magaEines and boo6s, and e1en attending se1eral con1entions. owe1er,
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