The matrix and the echo: Intertextual re-modelling in Stoppard’s Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are dead

Abstract

This article investigates the ‘intertextual dialogue’ between Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Stoppard’s Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. A tangential look is also directed at Stoppard’s Dogg’s Hamlet and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. The intertextual relationship between the texts is approached from different angles and different defining concepts are used - Topia’s typology (1984), involving the view of both vertical and horizontal perspectives to effect fusion, separation or intertextuality, is used to help determine that Stoppard’s remodelling of the Shakespearian matrix results in completely new texts, not merely a ‘slightly’ distorted text.