Intertextuality describes the connections between literary texts, traditions, creators and ideas. Part of a text's meaning comes from its relationship with other texts. A writer may make that relationship explicit, or readers may discover it through comparison.

What the question asks

The question focuses on how literary texts adhere to the conventions of their literary form or deviate from them. A convention is a recognizable feature that appears repeatedly within a literary form or sub-category. These features shape readers' expectations. A sonnet, for example, is expected to have a compact structure; comedy may use misunderstanding, reversal and some form of resolution.

First identify the broad literary form—fiction, non-fiction, poetry or drama. Then narrow it down to a more precise sub-category, such as the novel, comedy, sonnet or essay. Compare texts from the same category, otherwise the similarity may not be meaningful. Before describing a feature as a deviation, establish the convention from which it departs.

The relationship can be mapped as convention → adherence or deviation → effect → larger meaning. The figure sets out this analytical sequence.

Following a convention doesn't necessarily make a work unoriginal. A writer might use a familiar form to draw on its cultural authority, convey meaning efficiently or introduce a new concern into an established tradition. By deviating from convention, a writer may surprise the reader, criticize assumptions within the form or renovate a tradition that has become predictable.

Paper 2 method and criteria

A Paper 2 question may ask how writers use, challenge or reinvent literary conventions. Choose two works that share a precise convention but differ significantly in how they use it.

• Criterion A: knowledge, understanding and interpretation rewards accurate knowledge of each work's form, structure and implications. Don't simply identify the formal choice; explain what it means within the work.
• Criterion B1: analysis and evaluation rewards close examination of how specific textual features shape meaning. Evaluate why the writer's adherence or deviation matters.
• Criterion B2: comparative analysis rewards sustained discussion of the relationship between the works. Compare the same convention within each paragraph rather than treating the works in separate blocks.
• Criterion C: focus and organization rewards a clear answer to the exact question, supported by a logical sequence of comparative claims.
• Criterion D: language rewards precise literary vocabulary, controlled sentences and a formal register.

A useful comparative claim can follow this pattern: Both works employ the convention of X, but while one uses it to achieve Y, the other alters it to produce Z. Paper 2 requires detailed references, although direct quotations are not expected.

Worked example

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 begins, “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?”, whereas Sonnet 130 opens, “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” and ends, “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare.”

Both poems follow the English sonnet's compact argument and concluding couplet, placing individual love within a recognizable poetic tradition. They handle the love-sonnet convention differently, though. Sonnet 18 initially accepts idealizing comparison: the beloved's relationship to summer develops the idea that poetry can preserve beauty. Sonnet 130, by contrast, opens by rejecting the tradition's exaggerated comparisons. “Nothing like the sun” punctures the expected blazon before the couplet affirms love without decorative falsehood. This deviation serves a clear purpose rather than functioning as mere comedy. Sonnet 130 retains the sonnet form while challenging conventional praise, suggesting that sincere love can inhabit the tradition only after its artificial language has been exposed.

What the question asks

This question presents literature as a changing system of relationships between texts from the past and present. Later writers inherit earlier practices, then repeat, revise or reject them. The question asks how conventions change through this process and how those exchanges create systems of reference.

An allusion is an indirect or explicit reference in one text to another text, figure, story or literary tradition. Rather than reproducing the whole source, it activates meanings already associated with it. Analysis needs to work in both directions: the earlier text sheds light on the later one, while the later text may lead readers to reconsider the earlier text.

For an allusion, establish four stages:

1. the feature of the source text being invoked;
2. the later text's recognizable reference to it;
3. what the later text preserves, changes or disputes;
4. how this relationship affects the interpretation of both texts.

The figure shows this two-way movement between a source text and a later text. The arrows are significant. Intertextual meaning isn't simply borrowed from the past; reception remakes it.

Conventions develop in much the same way. A later work might keep the broad outline of a genre while changing its narrator, moral assumptions, setting or treatment of an inherited character type. Repetition creates continuity. Alteration shows what a new writer or period considers inadequate in the older model.

Paper 2 method and criteria

A Paper 2 question may address tradition, influence, references to earlier literature or changing uses of a literary convention. Choose works with a relationship you can clearly demonstrate. A shared story, form, motif, character pattern or explicit allusion provides stronger grounds for comparison than a vague resemblance.

• Criterion A rewards secure knowledge of the relationship and an interpretation of its implications. Use context when it clarifies how the reference would be understood, rather than as detached background.
• Criterion B1 rewards analysis of the devices used to construct the relationship, including quotation, naming, parallel characterization, imagery, structural echo or reversal.
• Criterion B2 rewards evaluation of what changes between the texts. The comparison should examine continuity as well as revision.
• Criterion C rewards organization around stages of the intertextual relationship, such as inheritance, alteration and consequence.
• Criterion D rewards accurate use of terms such as allusion, source text, echo, revision and reversal.

A strong thesis explains evolution, not just chronology. The later work matters because it makes a meaningful change to the inherited reference, not simply because it came later.

Worked example

In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan declares, “Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n” (Book I). Mary Shelley's creature in Frankenstein later tells Victor, “I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed” (1818 edition, chapter 10).

Through the creature's reference to Adam and the “fallen angel,” Shelley places Frankenstein in conversation with Milton's epic and the biblical tradition it reworks. At first, the creature expects the protected innocence associated with Adam. Victor's rejection, however, drives him towards Satan's isolation and revolt. Unlike Milton's Satan, the creature claims that he was driven from happiness “for no misdeed.” This shifts attention away from proud rebellion and towards social abandonment. Milton's opposition between service and rule becomes a question in Shelley's novel about a creator's responsibility towards his creation. Reading the texts together complicates both figures: the creature gains epic and theological depth, while his account of exclusion allows readers to reconsider Satan's rebellion.

What the question asks

This question focuses on how texts from different forms, periods, settings or literary traditions can still share significant features. A useful way into the comparison is to examine how separate works explore one concept, such as representation, identity or culture.

A point of similarity is a meaningful connection between texts. It does not prove that they are identical. Texts may resemble one another in subject matter, conflict, imagery or characterization; connections can also appear in structure, narrative perspective or a work’s implications. Such similarities often make the differences clearer. Two works might both address identity, for example, yet construct it through sharply different formal choices.

Build the comparison through three connected moves:

• establish a precise shared concern;
• analyse how each work constructs it;
• explain why the resulting similarity or difference matters.

The comparison grid in the figure separates a shared concern, textual construction and implication. This keeps a broad thematic resemblance from taking the place of literary analysis.

Comparison of identity in Hamlet and Jane Eyre

Form matters particularly when the texts are diverse. Drama can externalize identity through speech, gesture and performance. A novel, by contrast, may use narration to place readers inside a character’s consciousness. Both can explore the same concept while asking the audience to engage in different ways.

Paper 2 method and criteria

Questions from this area may focus on a shared concern, a recurring human experience or the comparable use of a literary feature. Choose two works with a clear basis for comparison, but make sure they also differ enough to support a sustained argument.

• Criterion A rewards detailed understanding of each work and an interpretation of what the shared concern implies within each one.
• Criterion B1 rewards analysis of how form, language and technique construct the similarity. “Both concern identity” only states a topic; it becomes analysis when connected to textual choices.
• Criterion B2 rewards comparison that stays active throughout the essay. Comparative connectives should show the relationship—similarly, whereas, more inwardly, in contrast—instead of merely signalling a move from one work to the other.
• Criterion C rewards paragraphs built around common points of comparison rather than one paragraph per work.
• Criterion D rewards precise distinctions. Don’t treat similar and the same as interchangeable.

A strong thesis states the common ground while also defining its limit: Both works present identity as a conflict between inward selfhood and social appearance, but their different forms determine whether that conflict remains private or becomes publicly performed.

Worked example

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the prince insists, “I have that within which passeth show; / These but the trappings and the suits of woe” (Act 1, scene 2). In Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Jane declares, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will” (chapter 23).

Both speakers separate an inward identity from an external role imposed on them. Hamlet contrasts what is “within” with the visible “trappings” of mourning. His words suggest that theatrical appearances can never fully reveal identity. Jane also rejects a definition imposed from outside through her metaphor of the bird and net. Her first-person declaration, however, goes further than Hamlet’s distinction between being and seeming: she claims an identity capable of action.

The difference in form makes the comparison sharper. Hamlet speaks in a court scene where others continually watch identity being performed. Jane, on the other hand, narrates and claims her own story. Both texts present authentic selfhood as resistant to social representation, but Brontë expresses that resistance through a more explicit language of freedom and will.

What the question asks

A classic literary text is a work that has been granted lasting value and continues to hold cultural or critical importance. The question asks whether that designation is valid and how people make judgements about literary merit.

Describing a work as a classic involves evaluation; it isn't a neutral label. That judgement may rest on formal complexity, distinctive language, interpretive richness, historical influence or continued relevance. Education, publication, translation and criticism can also shape it, as can the institutions that preserve some works more successfully than others.

The idea remains contestable. Longevity may show that a work can generate new readings, but survival doesn't prove that it is inherently “better” than literature that has been neglected. A critical response considers the text's qualities alongside the processes that assign literary value.

The figure arranges textual qualities, historical influence, continued relevance and institutions of reception around the judgement of literary merit. None of these factors settles the judgement on its own.

Validity is better treated as a matter of degree. The label is useful when it identifies works that remain artistically and intellectually productive. It is less convincing when presented as permanent, universal or free from cultural perspective.

Paper 2 method and criteria

A Paper 2 question might focus on lasting value, relevance across time, literary quality or why certain works continue to be read. Choose two works that support an arguable evaluation instead of depending on reputation alone.

• Criterion A rewards knowledge of the works and an interpretation of why their concerns or implications remain significant.
• Criterion B1 rewards analysis of the formal qualities that support a claim of literary value. Reputation cannot replace analysis of language, structure, voice or genre.
• Criterion B2 rewards comparison of the criteria applied to both works. Rather than praising each text separately, ask whether the same standard treats both fairly.
• Criterion C rewards a clear evaluative position sustained throughout the essay. Define what classic or literary value means in your argument.
• Criterion D rewards measured language. Terms such as enduring, influential and canonized make different claims, so don't use them as synonyms.

A balanced argument can acknowledge literary achievement while questioning whether the category is universal. The aim isn't to rank the works, but to examine how and why value is attributed.

Worked example

Jane Austen opens Pride and Prejudice with, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Frederick Douglass writes in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man” (chapter 10).

Both sentences help to explain why these works continue to support new readings, though their literary value works in different ways. Austen's apparently universal “truth” is immediately unsettled by irony. The sentence sounds authoritative, yet it exposes a society in which marriage is treated as an economic arrangement. Douglass uses balanced clauses to reverse the dehumanizing process named in the first half, making the narrative's structure an assertion of recovered agency. Austen's social irony and Douglass's rhetorical transformation reward close rereading, but style alone cannot measure their importance. Douglass's testimony also has historical and ethical force. Austen's novel, meanwhile, has powerfully influenced later fiction and popular culture. This comparison supports a flexible idea of the classic based on continuing interpretive power, while challenging any single standard of merit that disregards form, purpose and historical experience.

What the question asks

This question focuses on how literary works present one issue, topic or theme from different points of view. A perspective is the position from which an issue is perceived, represented and judged. Literary choices create that position; it isn't simply the writer's stated opinion.

Different speakers, narrators, characters, forms, settings or structures can produce different perspectives. Works may also disagree about the causes, consequences or moral significance of the same concern. Power, for example, might appear as personal ambition or political authority. It could also take the form of social control, resistance or fragility.

Keep three levels distinct:

• issue, topic or theme: the shared subject being investigated;
• perspective: the work's particular way of viewing that subject;
• construction: the language, form and technique used to create that perspective.

The figure traces these levels as they branch from one shared concern into different literary constructions and interpretations.

A work doesn't have to endorse every perspective equally. Drama may set conflicting voices against each other, while irony can distance readers from a speaker's claim. Analysis should identify the viewpoint being presented, then examine how the text treats it.

Paper 2 method and criteria

A Paper 2 question may explore the representation of a recurring theme or ask how different writers approach a shared human concern. Choose works whose perspectives differ in precise, useful ways. Two works that merely contain the same topic may not lead to a productive comparison.

• Criterion A rewards understanding of each work's position and interpretation of its implications.
• Criterion B1 rewards analysis of how voice, imagery, characterization, dramatic irony, narrative distance or structure constructs perspective.
• Criterion B2 rewards direct comparison between the works' perspectives and the methods used to create them.
• Criterion C rewards organization around aspects of the shared issue—for example, the attraction, exercise and collapse of power.
• Criterion D rewards language that distinguishes speaker, character, narrator and author. Don't collapse these categories without evidence.

In each comparative paragraph, link viewpoint to method: Where one work represents power through a ruler's confident speech, the other places the ruler's command inside a structure that reveals its eventual failure.

Worked example

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Caesar announces, “But I am constant as the northern star” (Act 3, scene 1). In Percy Bysshe Shelley's “Ozymandias,” the ruined statue bears the command, “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Both rulers imagine that their power will last forever, though each work takes a different route to expose this illusion. Caesar's celestial simile places him above ordinary change. Its certainty becomes dramatic irony when he is assassinated immediately afterwards. Ozymandias's imperative also tries to control future viewers, but the command survives only among ruins and “lone and level sands.” Shakespeare presents political power as dangerously rigid during an immediate public crisis. Shelley, by contrast, views imperial authority through historical distance and decay. The shared theme isn't simply the existence of power. Through staged reversal in drama and a layered poetic account of a ruined monument, the works offer complementary perspectives on power's confidence and impermanence.

What the question asks

Transformative comparison happens when reading texts together changes how the reader understands one or both works. Rather than simply listing similarities and differences, comparison can bring out what is distinctive about each text and reveal the wider network of literary relationships around them.

One work can act as a critical lens for another. It might strengthen an existing interpretation by developing a theme or pattern. Alternatively, it may challenge that reading by offering a different point of view. This is particularly clear when a later writer retells, answers or re-centres an earlier work, though readers can also establish such connections themselves.

The process has three stages:

1. develop an initial interpretation of each work;
2. bring the works into conversation through a shared feature or relationship;
3. revise the initial interpretation in light of what the comparison reveals.

The figure shows comparison as a cycle of initial interpretation, connection, critical lens and revised interpretation. That revised reading may lead to further connections.

Transformation doesn't require the reader to abandon textual evidence or treat a later text as the only correct interpretation of an earlier one. The earlier work keeps its distinctive form and context. Comparison matters because it exposes assumptions and opens another line of interpretation.

Paper 2 method and criteria

A Paper 2 question might ask how comparison deepens understanding, how one work alters the reading of another, or how writers reinterpret an established story, character or idea. Choose two works whose relationship creates a genuine shift in interpretation.

• Criterion A rewards informed interpretation of both works, before and after the connection is made.
• Criterion B1 rewards analysis of the textual choices that make the transformed reading possible, such as changes in voice, focalization, characterization or structure.
• Criterion B2 is central. It rewards an explanation of what becomes newly visible through comparison; listing parallels isn't enough to demonstrate transformation.
• Criterion C rewards a progressive argument. An essay might begin with an established reading, complicate it, then move towards a more developed interpretation.
• Criterion D rewards precise verbs of relationship: one text may reframe, complicate, extend, contest or expose assumptions in another.

A transformative comparison must preserve difference. One work shouldn't become an appendix to the other. Instead, the essay should show how the relationship between them expands the interpretation of both.

Worked example

During the revelation of Bertha Mason in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Jane describes a figure that “grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal” (chapter 26). Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea re-centres the silenced Caribbean woman who becomes Brontë's Bertha. Rhys gives her a history, consciousness and voice before her confinement in England.

On its own, Brontë's animal imagery can be read as part of the Gothic shock surrounding the interruption of Jane and Rochester's wedding. Through Rhys's novel, however, that description becomes ethically troubling. Words such as “grovelled,” “snatched” and “animal” expose how the first novel's perspective denies Bertha human interiority. Rhys's change of focalization doesn't erase Jane Eyre's concern with Jane's independence. It does, however, complicate the apparent freedom promised by Jane and Rochester's union, foregrounding the colonial woman whose confinement makes that ending possible. The transformation works in both directions. Wide Sargasso Sea draws force from revising a recognizable figure, while Jane Eyre becomes newly readable as a work in which an empowering first-person voice exists beside another woman's enforced silence.