A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter I

Intertextuality

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Intertextuality is the relationship between texts, where a text's meaning is shaped by its references to other texts. It asserts that every text is a mosaic of quotations.

Detailed Definition
Kristeva's term highlights that texts are not isolated. In poetry, intertextuality appears through allusions, echoes, or direct quotations of previous works. It enriches meaning by creating a dialogue across time and tradition. Poets use it to situate themselves within a literary heritage, to challenge or reinterpret past authors, and to create layered, sophisticated works that reward the reader's prior knowledge.
Example
Example in poetry:
T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" is deeply intertextual, containing allusions to Dante, Shakespeare, and the Upanishads, among many others; A poem like "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" contains a direct intertextual reference to Dante's "Inferno"; The poetry of John Milton is constantly intertextual, drawing on the Bible and classical mythology; A contemporary poet like Anne Carson frequently uses intertextuality, creating a dense web of references in her work, as in "The Glass Essay."
Additional Notes
Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by other texts, a concept introduced by Julia Kristeva. It asserts that every text is a "mosaic of quotations" and is always engaged in a dialogue with the larger cultural text. Meaning is not self-contained but is generated through a network of relations with other works. In poetry, intertextuality is a fundamental principle, manifesting through allusion, parody, pastiche, and direct quotation. A poem that references Dante or Shakespeare is creating an intertextual relationship. For the poet, intertextuality is both a tool and a condition of writing. It allows for a rich layering of meaning, as the reader brings their knowledge of previous texts to their interpretation. It also situates the poet within a literary tradition, creating a dialogue across time.
Other Meanings of “Intertextuality”
Also Known As
Textual dialogue Allusiveness Citation
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