Popular Literature

Intertextuality in Young Adult Literature: A Study of Girl Online by Zoe Sugg

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Oleksandra Nikolova1, Yana Kravchenko2 & Roman Vasylyna3
1Dr of Science in Philology, Professor at the Department of German Philology, Translation and World Literature, Zaporizhzhia National University, Ukraine. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2327-1941. Email: anikolova@ukr.net
2PhD in Philology, Associate Professor at the Department of German Philology, Translation and World Literature, a vice dean of the Faculty of Foreign Philology, Zaporizhzhia National University, Ukraine. ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1219-4688. Email: yana_kr@yahoo.com
3Ph.D. Student, Department of English Philology and Linguodidactics, Zaporizhzhia National University, Ukraine. ORCID iD: 0009-0006-1541-5462. Email: romanvasylyna888@gmail.com

[Sustainable Development Goals: Reduced Inequalities, Gender Equality]

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 2, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n2.30
Full-Text PDF Issue Access

Abstract
This article explores how intertextuality works in Young Adult literature, a key cultural trend of the 21st century. It focuses on Zoe Sugg’s novel Girl Online, a popular and representative example of this genre among young readers. The authors of the research aim to examine the features of intertextuality in this novel: they identify and describe the references to other texts and interpret the novel in relation to the cultural heritage of the past and the present. Using intertextual and contextual methods of analysis, they conclude that the novel’s potential reader is expected to “recognize” certain texts that are symbolic, “cult” or appealing to young people, and that are used as effective tools for creating a story that follows the parameters of mass culture. This also leads to a hypothesis that some types of texts, related to specific traditions and sources, are more dominant than others in the novel’s intertextuality. The study reveals that the novel Girl Online draws on, firstly, the literature of the past (well-known works of English classics that have a “cult” status); secondly, fairy tales; thirdly, products of contemporary, mostly youth, culture (other Young Adult texts, movies, cartoons, etc.); and finally, established narrative techniques that belong to various genres and are not bound by a specific time or place and that are updated by the author. These intertextual links make the novel successful.

Keywords: Young Adult literature, intertextuality, reminiscence, cultural context, literary tradition.

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Popularity of India’s Regional Comic Strips: A Study of the Stylistics of Narayan Debnath’s works

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Rima Namhata, PhD

Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

ORCID id: orcid.org/0000-0002-9108-9519. Contact: rimanamhata@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.05
Popularity of India’s Regional Comic Strips: A Study of the Stylistics of Narayan Debnath’s works

Abstract

Though celebrated amongst the western literati and the intelligentsia thereof, Comic strips, especially the Indian produce with regional flavours in them, are seemingly juxtaposed, in the acceptance of their stylistic essence, if placed next to their western counterparts. This is also the reason why they have been infamously disregarded in the Indian academia. This paper proposes to study the stylistics aspect of the comic strips from Bengal especially the ones written by Shri Narayan Debnath, and the coming into vogue of this printed visual medium. This article aims to identify the uniqueness and the formal aspects of the stylistics of Indian Comic tradition from Bengal. Additionally, it aims to leaf through the popularity markers through Debnath’s stylistics aspect of the three comic strips that have kept the imagination of his audience alive for more than five decades. He successfully addressed the first objective through a systematic literary review with inclusion and exclusion set as a benchmark. The identification of the stylistics through close reading of the texts along with their systematic review of secondary literature, formed the basics of the second objective. Particularly those stylistics were considered which were typical of their prominence and were integral across the literature and the texts. Furthermore, a matrix was also successfully designed to map the identified stylistics. A couple of implications portray that the said interpretation may help the Post-Millennials or the Generation Z to examine and consider the sublimity and allegiance of reading, and shape the imagination prowess of young minds, apply their intellectual faculty and develop a comic disposition in life. Development of creativity in any narrative style and development of conversational mechanisms are often found to be an added bonus. However, making today’s generation read this form of narrative and chisel their fertile imagination remains a challenge for the digital-natives. There is no doubt however, that this age-old art form can be tremendously advantageous as an academic endeavour and become an integral part of children’s systematic reading habit.

Keywords: Bengal comics, stylistics, conversation mechanics, children’s literature, Narayan Debnath