Abstract

Returning intertextuality to its roots in Bakhtinian linguistics, this study argues that intertextuality, in contrast to allusion, provides a model for articulating the relations between fixed literary texts and informal oral traditions, linking them to larger political concerns and so exposing their mutual responsiveness. As an illustration, the study demonstrates that Pindar’s Olympian 10 and ‘Hero of Temesa’ legend, while not in a relationship of allusion, offered visions of Epizephyrian Locri that responded to each other, and so reveals a complexity to contemporary Locrian society that would be obscured if the oral traditions were not utilized.