Glossary: intertextuality

A term used to define 'texts in relation to other texts', i.e. in any given text (written or read) a continual 'dialogue' is being set up with other texts (both literary and non-literary) that exist outside it, both currently and historically. For example, Allan Ahlberg's The Jolly Postman plays on our awareness of famous fairy tales; and when e. e. cummings writes all in green went my love riding he evokes the medieval ballad form.