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Allusion, oralluding, is afigure of speech that makes a reference to someone or something by name (a person, object, location, etc.) without explaining how it relates to the given context,[1][2] so that the audience must realize the connection in their own minds.[3] When a connection is directly and explicitly explained (as opposed to indirectly implied), it is instead often simply termed areference.[4][5][6] In the arts, a literary allusion puts the alluded text in a new context under which it assumes newmeanings and denotations.[7] Literary allusion is closely related toparody andpastiche, which are also "text-linking"literary devices.[7]
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, such as "In the stock market, he met his Waterloo."
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 infilm or thevisual arts.[8] In literature, allusions are used to link concepts that the reader already has knowledge of, with concepts discussed in the story. It is not possible to predetermine the nature of all the new meanings and inter-textual patterns that an allusion will generate.[7] In the field of film criticism, a filmmaker's intentionally unspoken visual reference to another film is also called anhomage. 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?"[9]
Without the hearer or reader comprehending the author's intention, an allusion becomes merely a decorative device. Allusion is an economical device, afigure of speech that uses a relatively short space to draw upon the ready stock of ideas, culturalmemes 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 theircultural literacy.[8]
The origin ofallusion is from the Latin nounallusionem "a playing with, a reference to", fromalludere "to play, jest, make fun of", a compound ofad "to" +ludere "to play".[10] 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 manyjokes.[11] Some aspect of the referent must be invoked and identified 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".[12]
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.[dubious –discuss] Addressing such issues is an aspect ofhermeneutics.
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."[13] This is the basis for Christian readings ofOld Testament prophecy, which asserts that passages are to be read as allusions to future events.
Allusion differs from the similar termintertextuality in that it is an intentional effort on the author's part.[8] 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 aprivate language.
In discussing the richly allusive poetry ofVirgil'sGeorgics, R. F. Thomas[14] distinguished six categories of allusive reference, which are applicable to a wider cultural sphere. These types are:
A type of literature has grown round explorations of the allusions in such works asAlexander Pope'sThe Rape of the Lock orT. S. Eliot'sThe Waste Land.
InHomer, 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 theCalydonian boarhunt. InHellenistic Alexandria, literary culture and a fixedliterary canon known to readers and hearers made a densely allusive poetry effective; the poems ofCallimachus offer the best-known examples.
Martin Luther King Jr., alluded to theGettysburg Address in starting his "I Have a Dream" speech by saying "Five score years ago..."; his hearers were immediately reminded ofAbraham 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.
Asobriquet is an allusion. Bymetonymy 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 (and therefore an allusion to) New York.
allusion, in literature, an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, or thing or to a part of another text.
The literary allusion is a device for the simultaneous activation of two texts. The activation is achieved through the manipulation of a special signal: a sign (simple or complex) in a given text characterized by an additional larger "referent." This referent is always an independent text. The simultaneous activation of the two texts thus connected results in the formation of intertextual patterns whose nature cannot be predetermined. ... The "free" nature of the intertextual patterns is the feature by which it would be possible to distinguish between the literary allusion and other closely related text-linking devices, such as parody and pastiche.
