O romance Sede e a biblioteca de Amélie Nothomb: estudos de intertextualidade e produção de sentidos

Abstract

In literature, intertextuality functions as a space of convergence in which texts are articulated, fostering dialogue between past and present and producing new narratives and meanings. In addressing this phenomenon, Samoyault (2008) employs the term “the writer’s library” to emphasize the relations of intersection and transposition between an author’s prior readings and their own literary production. In the novel Sede (2021), by Amélie Nothomb, there is a significant presence of intertexts, which motivated the choice of this work as the object of the present study. The aim of this research is to analyze the role of intertextuality, particularly citations, allusions, and references, in the novel’s narrative construction, thereby contributing to studies both to scholarship on this author’s body of work and to theoretical reflection on intertextual processes in contemporary literature. To this end, the study sought to examine the relationships between the writer’s library and the novel’s main narrative, drawing primarily on “O trabalho da citação” by Antoine Compagnon (1996), “A intertextualidade” by Tiphaine Samoyault (2008), and “Nos riscos da alusão” by Jacqueline Authier-Revuz (2007), as well as on contributions by Julia Kristeva (1969), Gérard Genette (1982), Roland Barthes (2004), Vânia Lúcia Menezes Torga (2007) and Paul Ricoeur (2007). Methodologically, the intertexts identified were organized into three thematic axes: literary, religious, and philosophical. The analyses conducted within the literary axis revealed the complexity of the effects of meaning produced by intertextuality, highlighting the capacity of a single intertext to generate both proximity to and distance from the meanings of the source text, as well as the role of citation in the narrator’s argumentative validation. The importance of the reader and of their cultural repertoire in identifying allusions was also observed, along with the presence of intertexts that challenge rigid theoretical classifications, reaffirming the primacy of aesthetic experience over adherence to theoretical models. Within the religious axis, the study examined the retrieval of intertexts through memory, as well as the rewriting of the biblical narrative from the perspective of Jesus, the novel’s narrator, who subverts the canonical text and exposes the instability of intertextual meanings. It was also noted how different narrators reinterpret the same event according to their own criteria of relevance and memory. Finally, within the philosophical axis, the research reflected on the fluidity of the boundaries between intertextual typologies, the use of allusion as a means of validating ideas, and the processes of translation, version, and interpretation as practices linked to textual (re)production. Based on the analyses developed, it is concluded that intertextuality operates as a dynamic movement of construction and expansion of networks of meaning, whose strength lies in its ability to establish continuous dialogues that often extend beyond literature and become valuable practical tools in life experiences.