Allusion: Definition and Examples

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• published: 11 Oct 2015
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Allusion's Definition: The term allusion derives from the Latin verb alludere, which means to play with. It is a figure of speech that makes a reference to a place, person, historical event, myth or a legend. It doesn’t explain the thing in detail it refers to. It is just a reference to it. Mostly, the allusions are made to the things or events in the past, but sometimes, they may refer to the current events or people. Allusions are not only confined to literature, they are also used in every day speech. For example, • His house is the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden is a biblical allusion. It is the garden of God in the book of Genesis. • Adela is the Einstein of this age. Einstein means an extraordinary genius person. It refers to the famous scientist, Einstein. • Money is his Achilles’ heel. Achilles’ heel means a weakness. It refers to a mythological figure Achilles. Example # 1 Now, let’s discuss some examples of allusion from literature. Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra makes an allusion to the story of Heracles. The shirt of Nessus is upon me: teach me, Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage: Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' the moon; And with those hands, that grasp'd the heaviest club, Subdue my worthiest self. (Antony & Cleopatra, Act 4, Scene 12) In Greek mythology, the shirt of Nessus was the poison shirt that killed Heracles. Here Antony compares himself to the mythical hero, Heracles, who was killed by a poisoned shirt sent by his wife, Deianeira. He believes that he has been betrayed by his lover, Cleopatra, when she was supposed to help him. Example # 2 In “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, John Keats refers to tempe and the dales of arcady. Tempe refers to a place called a Valley of Tempe in Greece, while arcady means Arcadia, which is a place in Greece. What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?” Example # 3 In Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare uses a phrase, Aurora’s bed, which refers to the roman goddess of dawn. It means the sun is drawing the curtain from the bed of the goddess of dawn. But all so soon as the all-cheering sun Should in the farthest east begin to draw The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed, (Romeo & Juliet, Act I, Scene I) Example # 4 The very beginning lines of John Keats’s poem, Ode to a Nightingale, is replete with many allusions to Greek mythology. In these lines, the word lethe refers to the river of forgetfulness, which flows through Hades. It is believed that drinking its water results in loss of memory. In Greek mythology, the word dryad refers to deity or nymph of the woods. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-wingéd Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot… (Ode to a Nightingale, Lines 1-8) Credits: Music: Kevin Macleod http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/ Images: www.presentationmagazine.com