Introduction

The aim of this paper is to discuss poetry-music intertextual devices mainly in relation to three music genres: blues, jazz, and pop. I focus here on some instances of form-based intertextuality in poetry, suggest several ways of tracing such intertexts, and discuss their significance as an object of analysis for literary criticism, translation studies as well as linguistics.

Form-based intertextuality

As Sumera (2002: 465) puts it, “the term ‘intertextuality,’ introduced by Julia Kristeva, is now generally used to express the view that practically all new texts refer to texts that have already been written.” This very general definition will suit the purpose of this paper, but there is one important caveat. Namely, Sumera makes a direct link between texts and the written mode, suggesting that his work will revolve (only) around literary texts. Nevertheless, despite the common-sense association of texts with writing, since de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics the term ‘text’ has been applied to any entity produced by the languages of the cinema, painting, music, architecture, fashion, etc. According to Allen (2000: 174), these languages “involve production of complex patterns of encoding, re-encoding, allusion, echo, transposing of previous systems and codes.” As this paper analyses some instances of musical intertexts which appear in poetry, I will assume here a broad interpretation of ‘text’, which extends in its application outside written literary texts. My aim is to trace intertexts which are connected with rhythm and the philosophy and conventions of a particular music genre, i.e., intertexts which are form-based.