Laudator Temporis Acti

Tibor Wlassics (1936-1998), "Endpaper," Lectura Dantis 7 (Fall, 1990):

If you are addicted to calling a source «intertextuality» or a plot «narratological strategies» or a puff «self-referentiality» you're in trouble: the MBAs (yes, them, with their in-terms-of and bottom line) are grabbing at your skolarese. It came even to this: the ratatouille in my neighborhood eatery boasts, on the greasy menu, of a «subtle subtext of garlic» ^__ and even we know that that is the closure of that misprision. Before our «Dantisti americani» exhibit withdrawal symptoms, we will produce from a failing memory the Gymnasium ditties of Latin and Greek grammar rules. Intertext, you said? Preposition cum accusativo. How did the versicles go? Ante apud ad adversum / circum circa citra cis / contra erga extra infra / inter intra iuxta ob... Well, how about an apudtext (l'appotesto)? How does a citratext, a iuxtatext, a mysterious ergatext grab you? Maybe a Kafkaesque cistext? A multicultural obtext? Circumtextuality for the ambientalist Dantologue... And there is more: inter intra iuxta ob / penes pone post und praeter / prope propter per secundum / supra versus ultra trans... Let's have propetexts for the philologically minded! Und Posttexte und Praetertexte... L'ultratexte to deconstruct? Transtextuality for the so disposed? ^__ There is stuff here to stuff everyone's curricula.

Hat tip: Ian Jackson.