on the shoulders of others

"For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of people , so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice”  - this quote from Woolf is incorpoarated in  the essay I am currently writing on tradition and how the 20th Century authors viewed tradition. By the turn of the 20th Century there was minimal  literary heritage for women writers causing Woolf to champion the rise in feminist issues. But what I have been thinking about further to this discussion is the progression of literature built upon its own shoulders. Taking Jane Eyre and Rebecca, we see Du Maurier rewriting the storyline and the deeper intellectual prepectives of Jane Eyre, creating what is generally seen as a popular fiction novel, as opposed to the "high" fiction of Bronte's novel. Many intertexts have subsequently circled around Rebecca, such as Susan Mills " Mrs de Winter" and Beauman's " Rebecca's Tale" and of course the films, of which the most famous would be Hitchcocks in 1940. I have joined the Du Maurier society - it is free and keeps the members up to date with current events and news  - http://www.dumaurier.org/ . Within these two parallel texts above, the houses themselves become personalised and raise many symbolic issues - the influence of the Gothic; the element of class politics; the psychoanalytical aspect of the third floor being equated to the mind (Bertha) and the fire at the end of each novel symbolising death, either of the guilt that Maxim and the unnamed second Mrs de Winter carry, or Rochester's secret first wife and his hopes of happiness.  It can also symbolise the death of English society as it was then and in fact, in the discussions broadcast on Radio 4 in 2003, this point of view is substantiated. Most of the women interestingly enough start to admire Rebecca's fight and independence, regardless of her sexual infidelities and disregard for marriage. Perhaps this is indicative of how marriage is viewed now. Women got the vote and the patriarchal stronghold on society was gradually dissolved. But returning to the topic of tradition for a final comment. Woolf broke all the boundaries  of gender, genre and time constrictions in her writings; it begs the question of whether there are any more literary traditions left for those of us in the 21st Century to break or do we build on the shoulders of the writers gone before us and re create traditions for our own followers? This is our challenge.