Allusions are common both in literature and everyday language. In literature, writers, especially poets, make reference to other works of literature. In the Western tradition, this includes reference to classic Greek myths and literature.
For example, Yeats in Lead and the Swan is making reference to the classical Greek myth regarding the rape of Leda by Zeus:
Yeats, “Leda and the Swan” (1923):
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
One can only know what Yeats is referring to only if they are familiar with this myth. The poet here does not mention the name of either Zeus or Leda in the poetry, except in the title where the name of Leda is mentioned.
What is an allusion?
An allusion is a literary device where the writer refers briefly or indirectly to an event, place, person, or another work of literature, common knowledge of which the reader presumably shares. In short, allusions can only work when the author and the reader share a common point of cultural reference.
Otherwise, allusions may make a work difficult to read or understand. Readers may require copious footnotes or wide knowledge and deep familiarity with the “cultural wellsprings” from which the author extracts his references.
Let’s take the example of a Miltonian sonnet — Sonnet 12:
I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
By the known rules of ancient liberty,
When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs:
As when those hinds that were transform'd to frogs
Rail'd at Latona's twin-born progeny
Which after held the sun and moon in fee.
But this is got by casting pearl to hogs,
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
And still revolt when truth would set them free.
Licence they mean when they cry liberty;
For who loves that, must first be wise and good.
But from that mark how far they rove we see,
For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood.
Milton is famous for his mixed allusions. He was a Puritan Christian who was well-versed in classical Greek and Roman literature and mythology, and he thought absolutely nothing of mixing references from these two cultures.
The sonnet is in response to critics of Milton who harshly attacked him over his liberal attitude to advocating for the right to divorce. He was accused of being heretical for it, especially by the Glasgow preacher Robert Baille.
The entire basis of the poem is an allusion — a political disagreement between Milton and his critics over the right to divorce. Someone unaware of that fact would have no clue what the poem is about.
The first four lines introduce the controversy without even mentioning the word divorce. There is only an indirect reference to it, namely, “clogs,” which means loads or weights that obstruct motion. This is Milton referring to the restrictions against divorce.
These first four lines seem mainly interested in mocking and insulting his critics as being stupid and loud:
. . . a barbarous noise environs me
Of Owles and Cuckoes, Asses, Apes and Doggs.
The second line mentions “rules of ancient liberty.” This is a reference to Deuteronomy 24: 1-2, the rule of divorce in the Bible, which Milton relies on to make his original argument concerning divorce.
In the next four lines, there is a reference to Greek-Roman mythology:
As when those hinds that were transform'd to frogs
Rail'd at Latona's twin-born progeny
Which after held the sun and moon in fee
This is a description of the myth of Latona, mother to twin gods fathered by Zeus (Apollo and Diana) who was denied the chance for her and her children to drink water by Lycian peasants.
She prays to Jove for revenge (holding the sun and moon in fee), and the peasants are transformed into frogs for their rudeness. This is not simply a case of Milton showing off his classical knowledge.
He is making a point of showing just how backward and small-minded his critics are by comparing them to rude peasants who would deny a mother and her infants drinking water at a pool. Their views are likened to denying man more freedom and liberty in divorce.
Directly after this, the eighth line alludes to a biblical reference Mathew 7:6. (i.e., casting pearls to swine) It also is Milton making a point. He thinks there is no use in convincing his critics. His knowledge and good arguments are being wasted.
There are more allusions throughout the poem, but this is enough for the point being made. In the remaining article, we discuss rich examples of allusions that can be found throughout English literature.
1. Examples of classical allusions
One of the most common allusions is to works of classical literature. This is especially true for a past generation of writers, who frequently alluded to classical Greek and Roman writers in their works.
Classical works can refer to Greek myths and legends as depicted throughout ancient Greek literature, such as in the Illiad and the Odyssey.
An example of this is W.B. Yeats, “No Second Troy”:
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
Here, the poet is comparing the woman he adores but who doesn’t return his love to Helen of Troy. Helen of Troy is the cause of the Trojan War in the Illiad. As far as the poet is concerned, the beauty of the woman he pines after is so great and “high and solitary” that in the absence of another Troy to burn for it, it is his heart that pays the price.
Matthew Arnold also makes use of classical references in his poem "Philomela." Phiomela is the gruesome Greek myth which the Roman poet Ovid gave a full literary treatment in Book VI of the Metamorphoses. Philomela was raped by her brother-in-law, King Tereus, and had her tongue cut out so it remained a secret.
She and her sister, Procne, came up with a revenge plot that included killing the son of both King Tereus and Queen Procne and feeding him his flesh. They were successful; however, Tereus sought revenge by chasing them with an axe to chop them down. The Gods saved them by turning them into birds, Procne into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale. Here are excerpts from the poem:
Hark! ah, the nightingale—
The tawny-throated!
Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark!—what pain!
O wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain
That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain—
The poet hears a nightingale disturb the night and interprets it as the passion and pain of Philomela. That passion and pain are enlarged to represent the motivations that drive humanity regardless of the pain that they are tormented by.
2. Examples of Biblical allusions
We have already come across numerous biblical allusions in Milton's Sonnet 12. For example, reference to the law of divorce in Deuteronomy and “casting pearls to hogs.”
Another example of a subtle biblical allusion can be found in Derek Walcott’s A Far Cry From Africa:
Corpses are scattered through a paradise (Line 4)
. . . but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain (Lines 16-17).
Line 4 refers to the Edenic paradise that the Kenyan Savanna resembles. “Upright man” and “his divinity” refer to the idea of man being higher than animals and closest to God after the angels. The poet brings this up as sarcastic irony to show that man is the exact opposite of being divine and close to God because of the cruelty he inflicts.
While Walcott uses biblical allusion to speak about a current or historical event, Wallace Stephens is more ambitious in "Sunday Morning." He is exploring what a substitute for religion could be in the modern era. Here is the first stanza of the poem:
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.
The poet here begins with a woman lounging at home on a Sunday morning and moves on to hints of the crucifixion of Christ. The character of the poem is at home instead of church on a Sunday morning. So with the very title of the poem, we begin with Wallace Stevens' complicated and ambitious attempt to stake out a substitute for traditional religion.
The hints at traditional religious symbols such as the Crucifixion of Christ begin in Line 5, which mentions the "ancient sacrifice." This reference is repeated in phrases such as "the old catastrophe" (Line 7) and the last four lines that do something wonderful.
Lines 12-15 refer to the miracle of Christ walking on water and rising from the dead. However, it is not Christ performing these feats here. It is the character featured in the poem, a lady daydreaming about walking on water and reaching Palestine, the place famous for the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The poet here is committing a kind of literary blasphemy with his biblical allusions, where a young lady in a peignoir dress is taking on the role of Christ himself. Wallace's vision of an alternative to traditional religion could be an interesting study in and of itself. However, such an analysis is beyond the scope of this article.
The point we should carry away is that biblical allusions can be used in a wide variety of innovative ways. The poet or author does not even have to believe in traditional Christian concepts.
3. Example of historical allusions
A Far Cry From Africa also references current events. Well, at the time it was written the Kikuyu rebellion or guerilla struggle would have been a current event. To us now, it’s history.
An example of a poem that makes reference to historical events would be Auden’s "Musée des Beaux Arts." Musée des Beaux Arts alludes to the famed museum in France. Auden uses his visit there as an opportunity to reflect on how isolating human suffering can be, how the rest of the world just moves on while the individual suffers.
. . . the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner . . .
. . . the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
These four lines at the end of the first stanza is referring to The Massacre of the Innocents by the 16th-century Netherlands painter Pieter Bruegel. It depicts the Biblical event of Herod killing all the newborns in Jerusalem in an attempt to liquidate the newborn Jesus who was prophesied to be the new Messiah.
Other historical and mythic events referenced include the Fall of Icaraus from Greek myth, and The Census at Bethlehem or to be more historically accurate, the Census of Quirinius, a census of the Roman province of Judea taken in 6 CE.
I must say the allusions made by Auden work on three levels. They are historical allusions to historic works of art, that is, paintings by the famous Pieter Bruegel. The paintings allude to both Biblical and classical events. In short, they are allusions within allusions.
The poem is written in easy-to-read and conversational language. Nonetheless, a reader would have to be highly familiar with Western cultural references and artistic traditions to understand what's going on in the poem.
The following is the fourth stanza from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous "The Charge of the Light Brigade."
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
The poem is a memorial to the bravery of British soldiers who participated in a historical battle, namely, the Battle of Balaclava, during the Crimean War.
4. Examples of Personal allusions
Sometimes allusions can be personal. They can refer to events that pertain specifically to the author. Sometimes these personal allusions can be mixed with historical or classical allusions.
In the case of Yeats’ “No Second Troy,” it’s a mixed personal-classical allusion. Another good example of a poem with personal allusion is Milton’s Lycidas:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not flote upon his watry bear
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of som melodious tear.
Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string.
The poem is an elegy to the poet’s friend, Edward King, who drowned at sea and who was also an aspiring poet. The poem takes the form of a pastoral poem, a form of poetry in ancient Greek literature that places its subjects, peasants, in an idyll natural setting.
“Sisters of the sacred well” is making reference to the muses that Greek poets often invoked to inspire their poems. The poet deftly mixes the personal allusion his friend’s death with references to a grand Greek classical tradition of literature.
W.B. Yeats’ Wild Swans at Coole is a much more subtle personal allusion. The poet is contemplating on Wild Swans and their companionship and how it reflects something deep and personal that he has lost and now mourns:
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
We are given scant clue as to what the poet is mourning. Perhaps it's a lost love or someone close to him has died. We don't know. The only thing that we are sure of is the melancholy sense of loss and deep quiet grief that the author suffers from and which the swans simultaneously stir up and soothe. We know the name of Milton’s friend and how he died. But here Yeats leaves us only with the heavy impression of the sad mood of the event that he alludes to without ever naming it.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, October 07). Allusion. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/allusion |
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