Palimpsests : literature in the second degree /

French literary critic and historian Genette, a pioneer of structuralism, has given this literary study an appropriate title. A palimpsest may be defined as a "written document, usually on vellum or parchment, that has been written upon several times, often with remnants of erased writing still visible." Here Genette explores the interrelationships between literary works and explains literary devices such as parody, antinovels, pastiches, caricatures, commentary, allusion, and imitation. For the author, later literary works or "hypertexts" are transpositions of earlier "hypotexts." Thus, Joyce's Ulysses, a hypertext, can be viewed as a transposition of Homer's Ulysses and Vergil's Aeneid, both hypotexts. Unfortunately, Genette's rambling style, termed narralogical criticism, will appear incoherent and disorganized to the unfamiliar reader, and he poses more questions than he answers. This books will be very useful to comparative literature scholars familiar with Genette's style, but it will have little appeal to lay readers.‘Robert T. Ivey, Univ. of Memphis, Tenn. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.