At SwimTwo-Birds & If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler: a study of metafiction theory, intertextuality and authorship

Abstract

This M.A. thesis problematizes extant approaches in contemporary theories of metafiction to recent ‘metafictional’ works, Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler and Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-two-birds, by studying them in their intertextual relation to their literary antecedents. Central to this study is the reevaluation of the various definitions of the concept of intertextuality in the metafiction theories, which are overly formalistic. By exploring intertextuality in literary history, this study argues that its contemporary use does not constitute a radical break with former literary practices, as put forth by the theories. The aim of this thesis is to show that the common treatment of metafiction as a manifestation of postmodernism in literature stems from the imposition on the term metafiction of a single, coherent meaning which overlooks its historical complexity. Study of Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler and Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-two-birds problematizes such indispensible notions of metafiction as self-reflexivity and selfcriticism through rethinking the relationship between metafiction, intertextuality and parody.