Intertextual networks in the correspondence of Lady Katherine Paston

In the dialogue of correspondence, letters both respond to previous letters and anticipate new ones. The intertextuality existing between letters in a chain of correspondence can be made explicit, and it is these manifest intertextual connections that are explored in this paper. More specifically, the study focuses on the use of references to other letters as intertextual links.

The analysis reveals that other letters, previous, future, and even some that were planned but never written, are explicitly present in the majority of the letters passing between Lady Katherine Paston and her fellow correspondents. Some types of references to other letters are constrained by the relationship of the correspondents and the frequency of the correspondence, while others function independently of such factors.