Perspectives: Postmodernism Key Words 7

• Metafiction
• A form of literature that emphasizes its own constructedness in a way that continually reminds the reader to be aware that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions and traditional narrative techniques.
• Intertexuality
• The relationship between texts, the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. It is the interconnection between similar or related works of literature that reflect and influence an audience's interpretation of the text. 
• Mise-en-abyme
• A formal technique of placing a copy of an image within itself, often in a way that suggests an infinitely recurring sequence. In film theory and literary theory, it refers to the technique of inserting a story within a story.
• The 4th Wall
• A performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes, the actors act as if they cannot. Some artists draw direct attention to it for dramatic or comic effect when the boundary is "broken", when an actor or character addresses the audience directly.