Cryptic Subtexts in Literature and Film: Secret Messages and Buried Treasure

One of the primary objectives of comparative literature is the study of the relationship of texts, also known as intertextuality, which is a means of contextualizing and analyzing the way literature grows and flourishes through inspiration and imitation, direct or indirect. When the inspiration and imitation is direct and obvious, the study of this rapport falls into the more restricted category of hypertextuality. What Steven Walker has labeled a cryptic subtext, however, is an extreme cas...