THE USE OF INTERTEXTUALITY IN WYSTAN HUGH AUDEN AND JAIME GIL DE BIEDMA

Abstract

This article offers an introduction to the concept of intertextuality, and
presents the strong intertextual connection, the interrelation, between
Wystan Hugh Auden’s and Jaime Gil de Biedma’s texts. But this research has been more productive in the Catalan poet’s work than in the Anglo- American author’s. Nonetheless, an interesting, though less extensive, intertextual analysis is possible in the work of Auden, whose admiration for William Shakespeare, alluded to in some of his texts, is clear. In Gil de Biedma’s case, intertextuality occupies a more prominent place in his poetry, because it includes numerous references that recall compositions of figures such as T.S. Eliot, John Donne, Antonio Machado, Luis Cernuda and, especially, W.H. Auden, among others. Of all these, the intertextual references between Auden and Biedma acquire, for obvious reasons, a greater importance in this article, whose analysis confirms the intimate knowledge that the author of Las personas del verbo has of the Anglo-American poet’s work.
INTRODUCCIÓN