Twenty Centuries of Literature, or Intertextuality as Writing Strategy : Correspondence of Fradique Mendes by Eça de Queirós
Abstract
Using the genesis of A Correspondência de Fradique Mendes (1900), a novel by the Portuguese writer Eça de Queirós, this comparative study deals with the invented author phenomenon along the tie-line joining Romanticist mystification (Prosper Mérimée, Manuscript of Zelená Hora) and modernistic "heteronymy" (Fernando Pessoa). Based on the concepts of "invisible work", "between-place" (Silviano Santiago) and "semi-periphery culture", it attempts to use the history of the creation of Fradique Mendes'"proto-heteronym" set in the West European literary history context in order to prove that Queirós' ostensible imitativeness of period French paragons is in fact a well-designed and thought-out writer's strategy.
The deliberate radical use of intertextuality and cultural "translation" as matrix for heteronymy is an ironic reaction by a representative of "marginal" culture against accusation of plagiarism permanently imminent from period "centre" even though the latter itself draws on earlier literary intertexts including those of Portuguese provenance (Fernão Mendes Pinto).