# Reading > General Literature >  What is the use of Allusions?

## Amylian

Hey guys,
Our Prof. asked us yesterday to think about the use of Allusions and since then, I've searched the internet and of course, Wikipedia, but gain nothing. So what is the purpose of referring to other literary pieces?


Regards,
Amylian.

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## RobinHood3000

Allusions can be a useful tool in that, in certain situations, an allusion can provide helpful context in a much shorter span than if the author tried to explain everything from scratch. In other situations, it can offer foreshadowing that enriches the reading for people who catch it but isn't required for those who don't.

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## Dark Muse

An allusion can give a deeper meaning to a story by referring to another work which has a similar theme. It can also be a way for the author to further emphasize the main point which he or she is trying to make with the story. By using allusions it may give the reader to better understand what the author is meaning to say if they can draw the similarities between the two different works and so how they relate to one another. 

It may just encourage one to think more deeply about what they are reading. And well I think at least to some degree it lets the author show off a little bit, while allusions will serve a greater purpose in the story and not just be added randomly, they sill offer the opportunity to the author to display their own knowledge

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## Amylian

Thank you guys for pointing those great notes. It is really helpful as I took some notes from your posts. Thank you again.

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## Skipping Record

Mustn't also forget, though, that often an author alludes to another work simply to show that he or she is learned in the literature.

(edit: which is exactly what someone else said, now that I am re-reading the posts....)

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## JBI

Polyphony. Read T. S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent". Generally it works to increase the amount of voices speaking in one text. Also, it has a nice effect - not only does it change the perspective of the text, if it is done well, it can change the reader's perspective of the original text, meaning that one cannot read the Epithalamion the same way, once someone has read The Waste Land.

In truth, the theorist Julia Kristeva argues that everything is intertextualized, and building on everything around it. The ideas and concepts borrowed into texts create multiple layers. But the explicit reference, which is an allusion, goes further than that, to allow the other text to speak within the new text, in a voice less appropriated.


Of course, there is a lot of theory done on this. One must ask how far to take the allusion - to consider the whole referenced text, to merely appropriate it within the new context, to change it, to ignore it - there, like I said, are many view points on this. I'm of the mind that you really need to know all the texts well, and hold them in your mind when you read the allusion.

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## Mag Master 21

> And well I think at least to some degree it lets the author show off a little bit, while allusions will serve a greater purpose in the story and not just be added randomly, they sill offer the opportunity to the author to display their own knowledge


Joyce turned it into an art form  :FRlol:

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## *Classic*Charm*

Dunno if anyone's mentioned this...

Allusions typically fall into specific categories as well:

1) Biblical
2) Historical
3) Topical

And I think I'm missing one...

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## msulaiman

So, could u plz state the main difference between allusions and intertexts ?

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## mystery_spell

Intertexts are literally what the word is, the text that is within a text. 

Allusions are references to past works, mythology, an event, a place, a person, etc.

There is not always a designated purpose to allusions because sometimes they just make sense to reference wherever the author is referencing them. However, there can be a definite purpose, as is true with T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Wasteland."

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## pufferfishpower

Allusions enhance the subject the author is writing about without distracting the reader that may cause them to lose focus.

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## kelby_lake

Great to show off- also allows the reader to re-read the book in a different light once they are made aware of the allusions.

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## desiresjab

It is as if allusions allude to footnotes which are not there, or are too long to present, "invisible" footnotes which hope to evoke instances or feelings out of past works to reinforce the present narrative.

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## Red Terror

How could you forget:* mythological and Shakespearean or literary allusions*. By the way, great and interesting thread.


> Dunno if anyone's mentioned this...
> 
> Allusions typically fall into specific categories as well:
> 
> 1) Biblical
> 2) Historical
> 3) Topical
> 
> And I think I'm missing one...

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## ajvenigalla

John Milton's highly allusive Paradise Lost can serve as an explanation of the art of allusion.

Allusions are used by Milton to contain classical epic, and the classical world, and ultimately to surpass it. The daemonic catalogue of Book 1, the classical references sprinkled throughout, particularly around Paradise, do connect the poem to history, add a rousing multivocality to it, gives a polyphonic echo, and seeks to surpass the classical via the Christian.

I do think the difficulty of Paradise Lost is sometimes exaggerated.

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## ennison

Allusion means the writer / speaker assumes you have the same General or Specific knowledge that she has. If it goes over your head then you don't. If you think there may be an allusion you don't get then you check it and learn. Who was this Andrew Jackson who chased the Creeks up the creek? Look it up. Learn.

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## Eiseabhal

It is also part of the show-don't-tell of fiction. Since you have mentioned Lee (by allusion) Ennison you may recall that on the first page (I think it was) of that text, the writer states that her invented town had recently been told "it had nothing to fear but fear itself" The reader will blink (metaphorically) and will Google the words. And lo the setting is established in both place and time without the writer stating it dully. So that there is a craftsman-like use of allusion.

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## ennison

Yes. Do you know the poem Mrs Midas? The main allusion there is the story of King Midas which most of us have heard of but there are also references to a houseproud character from a CS Lewis story and to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. These references / allusions create resonance and depth. They help to create the illusion of a real active intellect behind the monologue. (It's not a dramatic monologue as there is no other character present) The allusions are followed almost immediately by the words "You know the mind". That is how it works - each sensory experience creates a memory of another. Everything is linked.

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## Eiseabhal

In the case of the speaker in that poem the associations arise in an uncontrollable way as they do for ourselves. Allusion for the creative writer may be simply to show off as someone says (That sounds rather pointless to me) but usually has a function within the text. In the poem to which you refer it has an important function for a theme - examination of a materialistic view of life. It's a comic examination. Tragi-comic.

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## ennison

Yes. The reader is being encouraged to go deeper. Resonance. That is important. We are small-minded by nature but through art our minds enlarge. (Too few of us) If allusion seems to you an indulgence just read the Daily Mail and feel sorry the Huns lost - or vote UKIP!

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## ennison

The writer is paying her reader the compliment of assumed intelligence by using allusion. Like these sites which expect you to identify "all the images containing houses" to prove you are human.

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## Eiseabhal

Would you consider Airidh Innes Ranish a house Ennison?

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## ennison

S tric a bhitheas mi a muigh cho fada ri siud s mi a deanamh beachd gun thogainnse a ris e. Many the happy hour was spent there in summer weather; many's the number that they would have wished themselves home again too.

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