Criteria of Identity

This study investigates the striking similarities between major characteristics of Raymond Federman's experimental novel "The Voice in the Closet" and selected works by the American painter and graphic artist Jasper Johns. Samuel Beckett's prose fragments "Foirades / Fizzles" serve as the connecting link between the oeuvre of Federman and Johns, whose parallel concerns support the thesis that selfreflexiveness, intertextuality and plagiarism are constitutive of both postmodern fiction and the visual arts.