The impact of history is present in every encounter with literature; literary works do not appear in an informational vacuum and are not static in their meaning. Yet the historical relevance of literature cannot be determined simply through reference to a coterminous series of events. The significance of literature depends upon the interactive process of literary reception, which is irreducible to external chronological progress. Literature has its own internal historiography, as authors and readers conceive of their objects through their intertextual experience, through the patterns and innovations of literary traditions. In this book, I trace the history of a seminal literary tradition defined as a network of textual affiliation, concerned not only with the interrelation of texts but also with their representation of that interrelation. My focus rests on the uses of allusion, citation, and translation within texts, rather than on the external timelines and situational preconditions enabling textual interrelation, and my basic assumption is that we are best able to reflect upon the way we engage with literature today when we pursue knowledge of how authors of a past era were reading, “imitating, outdoing, or refuting” as they read.