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One aspect of DD's work that I find especially intriguing (and has been commented on in passing in various places on these discussion boards and elsewhere) is her use of 'self-intertextuality' *. As this has never been discussed at length, to my knowledge, here is a compendium of all the instances of 'self-intertextuality' concerning the YW books I know about, either from noticing them myself or from reading someone else's report. Please let me know if I have missed any, which is probably likely, considering that I have not read all of DD's oeuvre by any means. I have also attempted to attribute the discovery of these instances of 'self-intertextuality' as much as possible (via internet searches) --my apologies for any failures or misattributions:
Nita's Manual was written by Herewiss (from the Middle Kingdoms books), as he is Hearn's son. Priority for discovery of this (which has been verified by DD) seems to go to Kathy Li (kli6 on these forums) --see either this post from net.startrek or this one from rec.arts.sf-lovers (further [rather interesting] corroboration is mentioned here).
"Bridling the nightmare," which Nita reads about in her Manual in SYWTBAW is developed in The Door into Shadow (see DD's comment here).
'Stiheh' appears as a dracon word in The Door into Shadow in addition to its appearance in Dilemma. This was noticed by kli6 (see her post in 'dai stiheh' in 'The Language of Wizardry'), Birdhead (see her post [from the 15th of October] on the second page of the 'Books' thread in 'Chatter II') and me at about the same time (though I didn't 'publish,' so I can't claim precedence
).
The "delphine ambassador" mentions 'The Song of the Twelve' in Dark Mirror (noted by lots of people: Lee S. Billings here, Joanie Laurel in her comment concerning the October 19th, 2003 'Out of Ambit' entry, Khendon in the September 28th, 2002 chat with DD [chat log available here] and Persephone Kore [PK on these forums] here --I am not even going to attempt to try to establish precedence in this case).
There are some other connections between the YW series and DD's 'Star Trek' work as regards alien species. According to Merri-Todd Webster, one of the characters in Holiday was first introduced in Doctor's Orders and some of DD's other Trek aliens, such as the Mizarthu, also appear in various YW books.
According to Joanie Laurel (loc. cit.), "Lee notice[s] Tom and/or Carl and some cat-wizards at one point." I would assume that she meant Lee Enfield from Stealing the Elf-King's Roses except that I can't find anything in that book that could even remotely be construed as a reference to them, so either I'm missing something, Joanie Laurel was remembering incorrectly (and she did preface her statement with "I swear I read") or there is another Lee in one of DD's books. (I'll turn that last question over to those members who've read more of DD's oeuvre than I have.)
Spoiler for The Door into Fire:
While I could be reading more into this passage than DD actually intended, Sunspark's appearance as a joke-telling "bright-feathered bird" in the inn in Chapter 6 of The Door into Shadow strikes me as a reference to Peach.
In case you are doubting the necessity of spoiler space here, I included it to avoid spoiling the fact that Sunspark doesn't actually die in The Door into Fire, for, while this would already have been spoiled for readers who read the jacket 'blurb' for The Door into Shadow on the Meisha Merlin edition, I prefer to err on the side of caution in such matters.
Please note that I have tried to include in this list only bits of 'self-intertextuality' that strike me as intentional and are specific (i.e., not simply thematic ideas). I have also excluded various bits of intertextuality in the YW books which, although they could be considered 'self-intertextuality,' do not involve one of DD's personal creations, but something she has worked with but not created.
This brings me to the main point of this post: speculation on DD's intentions in including all of this 'self-intertextuality' in her works. (Note that, while I have only listed instances of 'self-intertextuality' that involve the YW universe, these are not the only occurrences in DD's work: Joanie Laurel (loc cit.) and DD (here) both mention connections between the Star Trek and Middle Kingdoms universes.) For, while the element of an inside joke between author and readers is certainly present to a large degree here, I can't help but think that there is a larger and more philosophical reason for these allusions. My personal feeling is that DD wanted to make connections between all of her different worlds --perhaps showing that they all inhabit the same "sheaf of universes." Of course, not all of these allusions have the same import for connections between her different worlds, but I think that enough of them have a significant enough import to warrant this conclusion.
I don't know of any other author who uses 'self-intertextuality' to the same degree (or in the same way) that DD does (though I wouldn't be surprised if other forum members do) --the best analogue I can find lies in music: this use of 'self-intertextuality' seems very similar to some of the more subtle uses of cyclic recall. In general, the term 'cyclic recall' can denote anything from the cleverly disguised return of a short motif from a previous movement to an entire section of a previous movement being repeated verbatim (in some cases this disguising of motifs can be so clever that a listener might never notice that it was an instance of cyclic recall, even after listening to the piece repeatedly). While cyclic recall is stereotypically thought of as a trait of Romantic music, it can be found in far earlier works, including, fascinatingly enough, J. S. Bach's Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin **. As mentioned above, there are some very blatant instances of cyclic recall, such as the 'motto themes' of Romantic symphonies (of which Cesar Franck's Symphony in d minorSymphony No. 9 in e minor 'From the New World'), but I am not interested in those in making my analogue here. I am more concerned with instances of cyclic recall that are at least as subtle as those found in Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1 'The Titan': for instance, the opening 5 notes of the main theme from the (withdrawn) 'Blumine' movement make an important appearance in the Scherzo (this work also has even more subtle cyclic ideas [such as the prevalence of falling and rising fourths throughout all of the movements] as well as an incredibly blatant piece of cyclic recall [perhaps most amazing, in my opinion, for how well it works musically] of an entire section from the first to the last movements --I am not intending to reference this as a instance of subtlety here!).
However, as noted above, cyclic recall functions within the confines of a single piece, which is designed to be heard in its entirety (even the Bach Sonatas and Partitas are part of a set of pieces which were published together), while DD's 'self-intertextuality' functions over very disparate individual books or series of books (sequences of books, to be mathematically correct). There are instances of 'self-intertextuality' in the tone poems and operas of Richard Strauss and the operas of Richard Wagner, but these are quotations designed to make a particular reference to the work, or leitmotif being quoted (such as Strauss' method of revealing himself as the hero of Ein Heldenleben through quotes from his tone poems, or Wagner's use of leitmotifs from Der Ring des Nibelungen and Tristan und Isolde in both and Parsifal). It is Anton Bruckner's use of 'self-intertextuality' seems to lie the closest to DD's, though, in that there are interconnections between all of his symphonies (well, at least from No. 5 onward) as well as between several of his symphonies and his Te Deum (see the entry on Bruckner in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. [in particular, '11. Narrative and Intertextuality'] for some specifics). It could be argued, of course, that a set of symphonies forms a de facto 'series' (sequence), but that does not strike me as particularly compelling, even for Romantic symphonies, although it could very well be true for Bruckner (especially as the Grove article suggests that he may have considered all of his symphonies as "component[s] of a single 'meta-symphony' encompassing all nine symphonies"), which, in some sense, would strengthen my argument (and perhaps provide insight into DD's thoughts on the matter). However, regardless of how interesting as these connections may be, there is always the danger of reading too much into then, especially as I somehow doubt that DD planned on emulating Bach or even Bruckner in her use of 'self-intertextuality.'
As a matter of interest, I have nominated this topic for inclusion in The Errantry Concordance, so we may find out more when that appears. I especially indicated a desire to find out matters of precedence (e.g., was "Bridling the nightmare" first conceived in the Middle Kingdoms universe and then included in SYWTBAW, or was it first developed as an incidental detail in SYWTBAW and then expanded on in The Door into Shadow?).
Nathan
* The "self" part of this term is, as far as I know, my own innovation (though this page does come up when I do a Google search on the term). In addition, I may be using "intertextuality" incorrectly in this context, as I came across it in an article (referenced above) on Anton Bruckner, where it was used to refer to borrowings/allusions in music.
** This 'cyclic recall' (which is quite subtle) functions both within the individual sonatas and partitas, as well as throughout the complete set of works. For more information, see Joel Lester's Bach's works for solo violin: style, structure, performance (which, if my memory serves me correctly, contains some insightful musings on the nature of this cyclic recall).
Pauca sed matura. --Karl Friedrich Gauss
Non doctrinam, sed perspicuitatem quaero.
[edited to whiteout the spoiler. --kli.]
Nita's Manual was written by Herewiss (from the Middle Kingdoms books), as he is Hearn's son. Priority for discovery of this (which has been verified by DD) seems to go to Kathy Li (kli6 on these forums) --see either this post from net.startrek or this one from rec.arts.sf-lovers (further [rather interesting] corroboration is mentioned here).
"Bridling the nightmare," which Nita reads about in her Manual in SYWTBAW is developed in The Door into Shadow (see DD's comment here).
'Stiheh' appears as a dracon word in The Door into Shadow in addition to its appearance in Dilemma. This was noticed by kli6 (see her post in 'dai stiheh' in 'The Language of Wizardry'), Birdhead (see her post [from the 15th of October] on the second page of the 'Books' thread in 'Chatter II') and me at about the same time (though I didn't 'publish,' so I can't claim precedence
).The "delphine ambassador" mentions 'The Song of the Twelve' in Dark Mirror (noted by lots of people: Lee S. Billings here, Joanie Laurel in her comment concerning the October 19th, 2003 'Out of Ambit' entry, Khendon in the September 28th, 2002 chat with DD [chat log available here] and Persephone Kore [PK on these forums] here --I am not even going to attempt to try to establish precedence in this case).
There are some other connections between the YW series and DD's 'Star Trek' work as regards alien species. According to Merri-Todd Webster, one of the characters in Holiday was first introduced in Doctor's Orders and some of DD's other Trek aliens, such as the Mizarthu, also appear in various YW books.
According to Joanie Laurel (loc. cit.), "Lee notice[s] Tom and/or Carl and some cat-wizards at one point." I would assume that she meant Lee Enfield from Stealing the Elf-King's Roses except that I can't find anything in that book that could even remotely be construed as a reference to them, so either I'm missing something, Joanie Laurel was remembering incorrectly (and she did preface her statement with "I swear I read") or there is another Lee in one of DD's books. (I'll turn that last question over to those members who've read more of DD's oeuvre than I have.)
Spoiler for The Door into Fire:
While I could be reading more into this passage than DD actually intended, Sunspark's appearance as a joke-telling "bright-feathered bird" in the inn in Chapter 6 of The Door into Shadow strikes me as a reference to Peach.
In case you are doubting the necessity of spoiler space here, I included it to avoid spoiling the fact that Sunspark doesn't actually die in The Door into Fire, for, while this would already have been spoiled for readers who read the jacket 'blurb' for The Door into Shadow on the Meisha Merlin edition, I prefer to err on the side of caution in such matters.
Please note that I have tried to include in this list only bits of 'self-intertextuality' that strike me as intentional and are specific (i.e., not simply thematic ideas). I have also excluded various bits of intertextuality in the YW books which, although they could be considered 'self-intertextuality,' do not involve one of DD's personal creations, but something she has worked with but not created.
This brings me to the main point of this post: speculation on DD's intentions in including all of this 'self-intertextuality' in her works. (Note that, while I have only listed instances of 'self-intertextuality' that involve the YW universe, these are not the only occurrences in DD's work: Joanie Laurel (loc cit.) and DD (here) both mention connections between the Star Trek and Middle Kingdoms universes.) For, while the element of an inside joke between author and readers is certainly present to a large degree here, I can't help but think that there is a larger and more philosophical reason for these allusions. My personal feeling is that DD wanted to make connections between all of her different worlds --perhaps showing that they all inhabit the same "sheaf of universes." Of course, not all of these allusions have the same import for connections between her different worlds, but I think that enough of them have a significant enough import to warrant this conclusion.
I don't know of any other author who uses 'self-intertextuality' to the same degree (or in the same way) that DD does (though I wouldn't be surprised if other forum members do) --the best analogue I can find lies in music: this use of 'self-intertextuality' seems very similar to some of the more subtle uses of cyclic recall. In general, the term 'cyclic recall' can denote anything from the cleverly disguised return of a short motif from a previous movement to an entire section of a previous movement being repeated verbatim (in some cases this disguising of motifs can be so clever that a listener might never notice that it was an instance of cyclic recall, even after listening to the piece repeatedly). While cyclic recall is stereotypically thought of as a trait of Romantic music, it can be found in far earlier works, including, fascinatingly enough, J. S. Bach's Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin **. As mentioned above, there are some very blatant instances of cyclic recall, such as the 'motto themes' of Romantic symphonies (of which Cesar Franck's Symphony in d minorSymphony No. 9 in e minor 'From the New World'), but I am not interested in those in making my analogue here. I am more concerned with instances of cyclic recall that are at least as subtle as those found in Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1 'The Titan': for instance, the opening 5 notes of the main theme from the (withdrawn) 'Blumine' movement make an important appearance in the Scherzo (this work also has even more subtle cyclic ideas [such as the prevalence of falling and rising fourths throughout all of the movements] as well as an incredibly blatant piece of cyclic recall [perhaps most amazing, in my opinion, for how well it works musically] of an entire section from the first to the last movements --I am not intending to reference this as a instance of subtlety here!).
However, as noted above, cyclic recall functions within the confines of a single piece, which is designed to be heard in its entirety (even the Bach Sonatas and Partitas are part of a set of pieces which were published together), while DD's 'self-intertextuality' functions over very disparate individual books or series of books (sequences of books, to be mathematically correct
). There are instances of 'self-intertextuality' in the tone poems and operas of Richard Strauss and the operas of Richard Wagner, but these are quotations designed to make a particular reference to the work, or leitmotif being quoted (such as Strauss' method of revealing himself as the hero of Ein Heldenleben through quotes from his tone poems, or Wagner's use of leitmotifs from Der Ring des Nibelungen and Tristan und Isolde in both and Parsifal). It is Anton Bruckner's use of 'self-intertextuality' seems to lie the closest to DD's, though, in that there are interconnections between all of his symphonies (well, at least from No. 5 onward) as well as between several of his symphonies and his Te Deum (see the entry on Bruckner in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. [in particular, '11. Narrative and Intertextuality'] for some specifics). It could be argued, of course, that a set of symphonies forms a de facto 'series' (sequence), but that does not strike me as particularly compelling, even for Romantic symphonies, although it could very well be true for Bruckner (especially as the Grove article suggests that he may have considered all of his symphonies as "component[s] of a single 'meta-symphony' encompassing all nine symphonies"), which, in some sense, would strengthen my argument (and perhaps provide insight into DD's thoughts on the matter). However, regardless of how interesting as these connections may be, there is always the danger of reading too much into then, especially as I somehow doubt that DD planned on emulating Bach or even Bruckner in her use of 'self-intertextuality.'As a matter of interest, I have nominated this topic for inclusion in The Errantry Concordance, so we may find out more when that appears. I especially indicated a desire to find out matters of precedence (e.g., was "Bridling the nightmare" first conceived in the Middle Kingdoms universe and then included in SYWTBAW, or was it first developed as an incidental detail in SYWTBAW and then expanded on in The Door into Shadow?).
Nathan
* The "self" part of this term is, as far as I know, my own innovation (though this page does come up when I do a Google search on the term). In addition, I may be using "intertextuality" incorrectly in this context, as I came across it in an article (referenced above) on Anton Bruckner, where it was used to refer to borrowings/allusions in music.
** This 'cyclic recall' (which is quite subtle) functions both within the individual sonatas and partitas, as well as throughout the complete set of works. For more information, see Joel Lester's Bach's works for solo violin: style, structure, performance (which, if my memory serves me correctly, contains some insightful musings on the nature of this cyclic recall).
Pauca sed matura. --Karl Friedrich Gauss
Non doctrinam, sed perspicuitatem quaero.
[edited to whiteout the spoiler. --kli.]
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