This is the only chapter in which we focus our attention on one work alone, but one which looms large as regards the problem of fictionality. It illustrates how the author developed his fiction not by inventing it from scratch, but by taking over narrative details from earlier works, seeking out gaps and filling them with new material. It also provides telling examples of the fictional contract between author and audience, central to our definition of fictionality around 1200. Finally, it highlights in acute form the relationship between fiction and history, best treated here rather than in the wider ranging Chapter 6.

INTERTEXTUALITY

In his treatment of intertextual references to the classical Arthurian romances found in the post-classical works of Der Pleier Kern talks of the construction of a ‘werkübergreifende Erzählwelt’, whilst in his more philosophical work Currie uses terms such as ‘interfictional carryover’ and the ‘interfictive use’ of fictional names. What I prefer to call the ‘interfictive world’ of the Arthurian romances (certain names, of people and of places, and certain events are common to, or presupposed in, a number of works) is certainly not confined to this medieval genre. Currie quotes as a modern example the many stories about Sherlock Holmes, some by Doyle and some by others, producing consistent extensions of the original character across a number of different fictions.