Exploring intertextuality in short fiction: "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" by A. S. Byatt

The aim of this thesis is to explore and analyse the theme of intertextuality in A. S. Byatt’s short stories, with a particular focus on the collection "The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye: Five Fairy Stories" (1994). The analysis begins with a brief overview of the topic of intertextuality, the origins and the development of the concept, with a focus on the studies by Kristeva, Bakhtin and Genette, and a final paragraph on intermediality. A rapid analysis of the genre of the short story and its peculiarities is included as well, in order to better understand how the specific features of the genre coexist with the element of intertextuality. A. S. Byatt’s fiction is no stranger to the presence of intertextual references, not only in the short stories collections but also, and perhaps especially, in her novels: starting from the Frederica Potter Quartet (The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and the Whistling Woman), the exploration of the topic reaches its climax in the 1990 novel "Possession: A Romance," a metafictional novel where intertextuality is not a background element but stands at the centre of the entire work, where past and present, reality and fiction overlap. The core text of the thesis, "The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye," is analysed with a particular attention to how fairy tale features are reprised in the collection, trying to connect Propp’s fairy tale functions to Byatt’s stories and underlining similarities with and differences from traditional folktales. The tales included in the collection, five in total, have their own peculiarities and follow different models and inspirations, offering a diverse corpus of tales and an even more diverse web of intertextual connections. The last, homonymous story of the collection is the one who differs the most, creating a world infused with magic which links a modern-day narration with extraordinary creatures, fairy tale-like marvels, the Arabian Nights and folklore