Modelling Intertextuality with N-gram Embeddings

An intertextual link between Frances Burney's Cecilia and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice established by semantically similar trigrams Intertextuality, the allusive relationship between literary texts, is a fundamental concept in literary studies. It is the idea that texts are not isolated entities, but are interconnected through a network of references, allusions, and influences. Intertextuality is a key aspect of both literary creativity and interpretation, and it has been a popular research topic since it was put forward by the French semiotician Julia Kristeva in the 1960s ( Kristeva, 2024, 1968). Traditionally, the analysis of intertextuality has been a qualitative and interpretative endeavour, relying on close reading and critical judgement, and focusing only on a small number of texts.