Allusion is a figure of speech, in which one refers covertly or indirectly to an object
or circumstance from an external context. It is left to the audience to make the connection;
where the connection is detailed in depth by the author, an allusion is often called
a reference. In the arts, a literary allusion puts the alluded text in a new context under
which it assumes new meanings and denotations. It is not possible to predetermine the nature
of all the new meanings and intertexual patterns that an allusion will generate. Literary allusion
is closely related to parody and pastiche, which are also "text-linking" literary devices.
In a wider, more informal context, an allusion is a passing or casually short statement indicating
broader meaning. It is an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication:
In the stock market he met his Waterloo.
Scope of the term
In the most traditional sense, allusion is a literary term, though the word has also
come to encompass indirect references to any source, including allusions in film or the
visual arts. In literature, allusions are used to link concepts that the reader already
has knowledge of, with concepts discussed in the story. In the field of film criticism,
a film-maker's intentionally unspoken visual reference to another film is also called an
homage. It may even be sensed that real events have allusive overtones, when a previous event
is inescapably recalled by a current one. "Allusion is bound up with a vital and perennial
topic in literary theory, the place of authorial intention in interpretation", William Irwin
observed, in asking "What is an allusion?" Without the hearer or reader's comprehending
the author's intention, an allusion becomes merely a decorative device. Allusion is an
economical device, a figure of speech that uses a relatively short space to draw upon
the ready stock of ideas, cultural memes or emotion already associated with a topic. Thus,
an allusion is understandable only to those with prior knowledge of the covert reference
in question, a mark of their cultural literacy. Allusion as cultural bond
The origin of allusion is in the Latin verb ludere, lusus est "to play with, jest." Recognizing
the point of allusion's condensed riddle also reinforces cultural solidarity between the
maker of the allusion and the hearer: their shared familiarity with allusion bonds them.
Ted Cohen finds such a "cultivation of intimacy" to be an essential element of many jokes Some
aspect of the referent must be invoked and identified in order for the tacit association
to be made; the allusion is indirect in part because "it depends on something more than
mere substitution of a referent." The allusion depends as well on the author's
intent; a reader may search out parallels to a figure of speech or a passage, of which
the author was unaware, and offer them as unconscious allusions—coincidences that
a critic might not find illuminating. Addressing such issues is an aspect of hermeneutics.
William Irwin remarks that allusion moves in only one direction: "If A alludes to B,
then B does not allude to A. The Bible does not allude to Shakespeare, though Shakespeare
may allude to the Bible." Irwin appends a note: "Only a divine author, outside of time,
would seem capable of alluding to a later text." This is the basis for Christian readings
of Old Testament prophecy, which asserts that passages are to be read as allusions to future
events due to Jesus's revelation in Luke 24:25-27. Allusion differs from the similar term intertextuality
in that it is an intentional effort on the author's part. The success of an allusion
depends in part on at least some of its audience "getting" it. Allusions may be made increasingly
obscure, until at last they are understood by the author alone, who thereby retreats
into a private language. Academic analysis of the concept of allusions
In discussing the richly allusive poetry of Virgil's Georgics, R. F. Thomas distinguished
six categories of allusive reference, which are applicable to a wider cultural sphere.
These types are: Casual Reference, "the use of language which
recalls a specific antecedent, but only in a general sense" that is relatively unimportant
to the new context; Single Reference, in which the hearer or reader
is intended to "recall the context of the model and apply that context to the new situation";
such a specific single reference in Virgil, according to Thomas, is a means of "making
connections or conveying ideas on a level of intense subtlety";
Self-Reference, where the locus is in the poet's own work;
Corrective Allusion, where the imitation is clearly in opposition to the original source's
intentions; Apparent Reference "which seems clearly to
recall a specific model but which on closer inspection frustrates that intention"; and
Multiple Reference or Conflation, which refers in various ways simultaneously to several
sources, fusing and transforming the cultural traditions.
A type of literature has grown round explorations of the allusions in such works as Alexander
Pope's The Rape of the Lock or T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land.
Examples In Homer, brief allusions could be made to
mythic themes of generations previous to the main narrative because they were already familiar
to the epic's hearers: one example is the theme of the Calydonian boarhunt. In Hellenistic
Alexandria, literary culture and a fixed literary canon known to readers and hearers made a
densely allusive poetry effective; the poems of Callimachus offer the best-known examples.
Martin Luther King, Jr., alluded to the Gettysburg Address in starting his "I Have a Dream" speech
by saying 'Five score years ago..."; his hearers were immediately reminded of Abraham Lincoln's
"Four score and seven years ago", which opened the Gettysburg Address. King's allusion effectively
called up parallels in two historic moments without overwhelming his speech with details.
A sobriquet is an allusion. By metonymy one aspect of a person or other referent is selected
to identify it, and it is this shared aspect that makes a sobriquet evocative: for example,
"the city that never sleeps" is a sobriquet of New York.
An allusion may become trite and stale through unthinking overuse, devolving into a mere
cliché, as is seen in some of the sections below.
15 minutes of fame Andy Warhol, a 20th-century American artist
most famous for his pop-art images of Campbell soup cans and of Marilyn Monroe, commented
on the explosion of media coverage by saying, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous
for 15 minutes." Today, when someone receives a great deal of media attention for something
fairly trivial, and he or she is said to be experiencing his or her “15 minutes of fame”,
the allusion is to Andy Warhol's famous remark. Lot’s Wife/Pillar of Salt
According to the Book of Genesis, God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but Lot,
the nephew of Abraham, was given time to escape with his family before the destruction. God
commanded Lot and his family not to look back as they fled. Lot’s wife disobeyed and looked
back, and she was immediately turned into a pillar of salt as punishment for her disobedience.
An allusion to Lot’s wife or to a pillar of salt is usually a reference to someone
who unwisely chooses to look back once he or she has begun on a course of action or
to someone who disobeys an explicit rule or command.
Cassandra In Greek mythology, Cassandra, the daughter
of Trojan king Priam, was loved by Apollo, who gave her the gift of prophecy. When Cassandra
later angered Apollo, he altered the gift so that her prophecies, while true, would
not be believed. Thus, her accurate warnings to the Trojans were disregarded, and disaster
befell them. Today, a “Cassandra” refers to someone
who predicts disasters or negative results, especially to someone whose predictions are
disregarded. Catch-22
This phrase comes from a novel by Joseph Heller. Catch-22 is set on a U.S. Army Air Force base
in World War II. “Catch-22” refers to a regulation that states an airman’s request
to be relieved from flight duty can only be granted if he is judged to be insane. However,
anyone who does not want to fly dangerous missions is obviously sane, thus, there is
no way to avoid flying the missions. Later in the book the old woman in Rome explains
that Catch-22 means "They can do whatever they want to do." This refers to the theme
of the novel in which the authority figures consistently abuse their powers, leaving the
consequences to those under their command. In common speech, “catch-22” has come
to describe any absurd or no-win situation. T. S. Eliot
The poetry of T. S. Eliot is often described as "allusive", because of his habit of referring
to names, places or images that may only make sense in the light of prior knowledge. This
technique can add to the experience, but for the uninitiated can make Eliot's work seem
dense and hard to decipher. James Joyce
The most densely allusive work in modern English is Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Joseph Campbell
and Henry Morton Robinson wrote A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake that unlocked some of
Joyce's most obscure allusions. References
Bibliography Ben-Porot, Ziva The Poetics of Literary Allusion,
p. 108, in PTL: A Journal for descriptive poetics and theory of literature 1
Irwin, William. "What Is an Allusion?" The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 59:
287-297. Irwin, W. T.. "The Aesthetics of Allusion."
Journal of Value Inquiry: 36. Pasco, Allan H. Allusion: A Literary Graft.
1994. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 2002.