Allusion

Allusion is a literary device that indirectly refers to a past literary work, historical circumstance, or other cultural or geographic reference point. Allusions help readers make connections between concepts in a body of work. Generally, authors assume that their readers have enough knowledge of a specific allusion to make the intended connection, but the reference is often in passing so as not to detract from the overall work. Allusions can lead to a shared cultural understanding and can help convey the overall intent of the writers or artists, ultimately creating a bond between the artist and the audience or even among audience members.

Background

Historically, allusions referred to literary works and were commonly found in plays and epic works. Modern allusions encompass other artistic formats, such as film and paintings. As with many other literary devices, such as alliteration, allusions have been identified in texts written in a variety of languages and from a variety of cultures and time periods.

In literature, allusions are often used to link concepts with which readers may be familiar, either because of their cultural relevance or because they were introduced to the reader earlier in the work. These references may be intended to help readers understand a character’s experience, a plot point, or themes. In visual arts, such as film, allusions are often unspoken and visual and may refer to another film with which the audience may be familiar. Overall, understanding and appreciating allusions requires a certain level of cultural literacy and awareness of cultural references and figures of speech. Regardless of the forum in which the allusion is used, it loses its purpose or meaning if the reader or audience interacting with the art form does not grasp its intention.

At times, readers may discover unintended allusions in a work. These instances are sometimes referred to as “unconscious allusions” and are merely coincidences, though likely underpinned by a collective cultural unconscious. Richard F. Thomas outlines six categories of allusion, including casual reference, single reference, self-reference, corrective allusion, apparent reference, and multiple reference (conflation).

Overview

Allusions rely on an audience’s knowledge of well-known stories, events, or people to aid in the comparison. Many Western texts allude to both the Bible and Greek mythology because of their central place in the cultural and religious development of the modern Western world. Such stalwart twentieth-century writers and poets as James Joyce (1882–1941), T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), and William Faulkner (1897–1962) alluded to biblical and mythical characters and circumstances to comment on their own society, strengthening the rhetorical and didactic impact for those readers equipped to recognize the allusions.

Allusions can also be used by public speakers to enhance both the persuasiveness of their arguments and their connection with the audience. Rhetorical use of allusion provides a certain level of intensity to a speech, or component of a speech, that can effectively convey a mood or attitude to the audience. Such use of allusion helps a speaker captivate his or her audience and typically results in a more engaging or distinctive speech. Significant speeches that have effectively employed the technique of allusion include President Barack Obama’s second inaugural address in 2013, which included the following line: “Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free.” This is an allusion to President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural in 1865, in which he stated, “If God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’” (the latter part being itself an allusion to the Old Testament book of Psalms).

Overall, allusion helps connect audiences with significant concepts based on the audiences’ knowledge and experiences without having to provide details or additional information that might detract from the work.

Bibliography

Cook, Eleanor. Poetry, Word-Play, and Word-War in Wallace Stevens. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988. Print.

Delahunty, Andrew, and Sheila Dignen. Adonis to Zorro: Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.

Fallows, James. “The Two Most Powerful Allusions in Obama’s Speech Today.” Atlantic. Atlantic Monthly Group, 21 Jan. 2013. Web. 3 Oct. 2014.

Goff, Janet Emily. Noh Drama and The Tale of Genji: The Art of Allusion in Fifteen Classical Plays. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991. Print.

Loftis, John Clyde. Renaissance Drama in England and Spain: Topical Allusion and History Plays. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987. Print.

Newlyn, Lucy. Coleridge, Wordsworth, and the Language of Allusion. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP. 2001. Print.

Parker, Robert Dale, ed. Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.

Ricks, Christopher. Allusion to the Poets. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.

Thomas, Richard F. “Virgil’s Georgics and the Art of Reference.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 90 (1986): 171–98. Print.