Diatextual Exchanges and Appropriation Mechanisms in the Absurdist Tragicomedies of Tom Stoppard and Sanchis Sinisterra

This article will apply the theoretical framework of intertextuality and hypertextuality to study appropriation mechanisms used in two absurdist tragicomedies: Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are dead (1966) by Tom Stoppard, and Ñaque, o de piojos y actores (1980) by José Sanchis Sinisterra. These two plays, both stylistically and generically influenced by Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, hold the same writing processes and purposes: that is, to take minor characters of their main hypotexts (Hamlet and El viaje entretenido, respectively) and convert them in main characters of their own, but also transforming them and implementing changes in structure, genre, and style. To break down these textual phenomena and their inter-textual procedures, some concepts will be introduced, restructuring both intertextuality and hypertextuality according to a new theory named as diatextuality. Specifically, this study will deepen in the transformations occurred in between these plays and their hypotexts, and how those transformations may affect, not only in the construction of the new texts, but also in the interpretation of the former.