The textual reference is internationalized in that intertextual references are increasingly interlingual. The reference horizon no longer belongs to just one literary culture. The world literature in the text appeals to a worldwide audience. In the Modern era, tradition became more pluralistic, so that recourse to other national literary classics, genres, and formal languages was a signal for a transnational audience. Authors, I argue, tried to inscribe themselves into the global literary canon through their own references to that canon. The new intertexts formed a transnational system of reference that competed with the national and ancient systems of reference. Unlike the earlier Latin universe of intertexts and literary references, the new national-language versions circulated less in their original languages and more in translation. German authors are linked to a network of world literature. This thesis is proven by paratexts and intertexts of works by Brecht, Goethe, Rilke, W.G. Sebald, and Christian Kracht.