Allusion
What can be alluded to
- Allusions in a text can reference literary works including myths and sacred texts; other works of art including paintings and music; or people, places or events outside the text.
- Three categories, and the third is much wider than students expect.
- A place name, a date, a public figure — each can be an allusion.
Select all the categories the CED says allusions can reference.
The third category is much wider than students expect.
An allusion imports
- An allusion brings the referenced thing's associations into the poem without spending lines on them.
- That is its economy: two words can carry a whole story the reader already knows.
- So the analysis asks what was imported, and what the poem does with it.
An allusion brings the referenced thing's ____ into the poem cheaply.
Two words can carry a whole story the reader already knows.
You do not need to recognise every allusion
- An exam passage will not depend on knowledge you were never taught.
- If a name is unfamiliar, read what the poem tells you about it — texts usually supply enough.
- Guessing at a half-remembered myth is riskier than reading the line in front of you.
Which category of allusion is this?
Sort each reference by the CED's three categories.
If you half-remember a myth, guessing is better than reading the line closely.
An exam passage will not depend on knowledge you were never taught.
Do not guess at a half-remembered story. An exam passage will not require outside knowledge you were never taught, and the text usually supplies what you need about the reference. A confident wrong claim about a myth costs more than a careful reading of the line in front of you.
A poem that names a famous reunion and then does not deliver one is...
Always ask whether a poem borrows an association or contradicts it.
Allusions can be used against themselves
- A poem may invoke a story in order to refuse it.
- Naming a famous reunion and then not delivering one uses the allusion as a measure of the difference.
- So always ask whether the poem is borrowing the association or contradicting it.
Put the allusion pass in order.
The last question is where an allusion analysis stops being a footnote.
An allusion pass
- Name what is referenced and which of the three categories it falls in.
- Say what associations it brings — using what the poem itself supplies, where possible.
- Then ask whether the poem borrows those associations or turns against them.
A poem names a river famous in myth for carrying the dead. The poem then describes children swimming in it on a hot afternoon. The allusion is used against itself: the reader arrives expecting solemnity, and the ordinary afternoon is what the poem is actually about.
Allusions may reference literary works including myths and sacred texts; other works of art including paintings and music; or people, places or events outside the text. An allusion imports associations cheaply. Read what the poem supplies rather than guessing, and ask whether it borrows the association or turns against it.