On the Nature of Polytextual Complexes in Literature

Abstract

The article examines polytextual complexes integrated by certain geosocial localization. The aim is to establish theoretical grounds for highlighting and studying these complexes from the standpoint of literary studies. The description and systematization of philological studies in the field of such polytextual complexes as topos texts, or supertexts, allows us to trace the tendency towards a structuralist understanding of the phenomenon on the one hand and a mythopoetic interpretation on the other. Topos texts related by their intertextual and semantic connections are considered as palimpsest semiotic formations, in which individual texts are connected by paradigmatic links with a particular complex of archetypal motifs. The essay seeks to propose a more accurate terminology as a result of the mentioned analysis. It proposes distinguishing intertextual complexes from thematic unities, cycles, and cycloid ensembles relying on the mythopoetic nature of these complexes. Finally, the article gives a definition to the term “megatext” that it introduces.

Keywords

• topos text
• petersburg text
• supertext
• megatext
• intertextuality
• palimpsest.