Abstract: This paper uses the concepts of interculturality and intertextuality to explore influence of poems in YU Dafu’s novel Sinking on its language, artistic conception, emotion and plot, and then to investigate the cross-cultural features of YU Dafu’s literary creation, impact of Chinese and Western cultures on his writing and ideology as well as the significance of interculturality for the literary revolution. Through textual analysis, we find that old-fashioned Chinese poems and allusions or images in them reflect the novel’s intertextuality with intracultural texts, while foreign poems demonstrate its connection with cross-cultural texts. The intertextuality between poetry and novel makes it an indispensable element in the artistic conception, emotional expression and plot. Quoting Chinese and foreign poems at the same time highlights the cross-cultural characteristics of YU Dafu’s writing techniques, lyrical methods and perception, together with the profound influence of Chinese and Western literary forms and ideology on him. YU Dafu's unique way of citing poetry also pushes us to think further about the interplay between language, literature and social innovation.