Commenting on the work of Manfred Pfister and his qualitative criteria “that offers a more comprehensive approach to the complex ways in which intertexts are embedded,” Finn Damgaard summed up Pfister’s six criteria thusly:
a Referentiality refers
to the qualitative manner by which a pre-text is incorporated into the new
text: the stronger the referential character is to the pre-text, the more
powerful is the intertextual relationship (explicit quotation suggests a higher
intertextual relationship than allusions etc).
b Communicativity assesses
the communicative relevance of a proposed intertext. A higher degree is
intended to recognize the intertextual reference.
c Autoreflexivity is
present in a text if the author reflects on his or her text’s intertextual
referentiality within the text itself.
d Structurality refers
to the syntagmatic integration of a pre-text into the text. The
intertextual intensity is highest in those texts whose literary framework has
been affected by the structural concern of the pre-text.
e Selectivity examines
the conciseness of the intertextual reference. A higher degree of selectivity
is achieved if the author draws from a distinct segment of the pre-text.
f Dialogicity evaluates
the degree of tension by comparing the original and the new context of the
texts. A high degree of dialogicity and intertextual intensity is achieved if
the texts exhibit conflict and conceptual divergence. (Finn Damgaard, Rewriting
Peter as an Intertextual Character in the Canonical Gospels [London:
Routledge, 2016, 2019], 9-10)
