ABSTRACT
The originality of intertextuality begins in the field of literary criticism. Most of literary scholars have expanded the research of intertextuality to many other fields, for instance, the linguistics. More recently, they have had a growing interest in exploring the interrelations between literary texts without, however, focusing on how readers have generated these connections. With the development of intertextuality in linguistics, this paper attempts to deal with intertextuality with a particular focus on places in two famous literary works: William Shakespeare`s Romeo and Juliet as representative of English and Qais Ibn Al- Mulawwah’s Layla and Majnun as representative of Arabic within the borders of contrastive studies. English and Arabic are two universal languages with rich literary legacy and this legacy is full of cultural load which carry the traits of men of literature. Among these traits is intertextuality which is assumed to be the plain through which literary men tried to communicate rhetorical intentions. Accordingly, the present paper is a new attempt in the realm of English and Arabic contrastive studies that aims at sorting out intertextual features in those classical works that represent English and Arabic.
KEYWORDS
Layla and Majnun, Intertextuality, Shakespeare