Intertextuality as a way of transforming an epic into a novel (According to “The Book of Mher’s Door” by Levon Khechoyan)

Abstract

In the article, we have examined the intertextual manifestations of Levon Khechoyan's "The Book of Mher's Door", as well as their semantic and structural functions. The work is an attempt to retell the epic from the perspective of an individual's perception, as a result of which the epic has acquired genre features typical of a novel. Examining Levon Khechoyan's ways and means of presenting the national epic in a new way, we have tried to uncover the new literary realities formed as a result, understand the expediency of novelizing the epic, and analyze the result.

We have come to the conclusion that the author’s interwoven texts help to reveal additional epistemological and semantic layers present in the national epic: one text becomes more expressive and understandable in the light, semantic background of another text. The intertextual layers present in the epic, as theorist Lachman notes, are textual memories that activate the messages of the epic text, on the other hand, according to theorist Barnett, they ensure cultural continuity, showing the chain process of existence. With all this, Khechoyan's text also proves the opinion of literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin about the absolute completion of the epic, its being a self-sufficient and closed cycle. It does not need a continuation.