metareference

plural metareferences

1. countableuncountableA technique in metafiction whereby a character displays awareness of being part of a dramatic work.

   1 more example

   The poem's second line, for example, concludes with the lament "but my nerves. Lord these pensive endings." The latter can be read as a play on words, as in "nerve endings"; as a metareference to the end of that particular line; or even against the very end of the poem itself: "the darkness now confronts me . . ."

   2018, Nicole Seymour, Bad Environmentalism, page 150