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{{Short description|Figure of speech using indirect reference}}
{{Distinguish|Illusion}}
{{More citations needed|date=February 2014}}
'''Allusion''', or '''alluding''', is a [[figure 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,<ref>{{cite web |title=allusion {{!}} Definition of allusion in English by Oxford Dictionaries |url=https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/allusion |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170906154010/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/allusion |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 6, 2017 |website=Oxford Dictionaries {{!}} English |access-date=1 October 2018}}</ref><ref>"A covert, implied or indirect reference" (''[[OED]]''); Carmela Perri explored the extent to which an allusion may be overt, in "On alluding" ''Poetics'' '''7''' (1978), and [[M. H. Abrams]] defined allusion as "a brief reference, explicit or indirect, to a person, place or event, or to another literary work or passage". (Abrams, ''A Glossary of Literary Terms'' 1971, ''s.v. "Allusion"'').</ref> so that the audience must realize the connection in their own minds.<ref>H.W. Fowler, ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage''.</ref> When a connection is directly and explicitly explained (as opposed to indirectly implied), it is instead often simply termed a [[reference]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/allusion|title=the definition of allusion|website=Dictionary.com|access-date=15 March 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reference|title=the definition of reference|website=Dictionary.com|access-date=15 March 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/allusion |title=Allusion |date=2015 |quote=allusion, in literature, an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, or thing or to a part of another text. }}</ref> In the arts, a literary allusion puts the alluded text in a new context under which it assumes new [[poetic function|meanings and denotations]].<ref name="BenPorot76p107"/> Literary allusion is closely related to [[parody]] and [[pastiche]], which are also "text-linking" [[literary device]]s.<ref name="BenPorot76p107">Ben-Porot (1976) pp. 107–8 quotation: {{quote|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.}}</ref>

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."

==Scope of the term==
[[File:NAMA Tablette 1287.jpg|thumb|right|Backside of a clay tablet from [[Pylos]] bearing the motif of the [[Labyrinth]], an allusion to the mythological fight of [[Theseus#The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur|Theseus and the Minotaur]]]]

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 in [[film]] or the [[visual arts]].<ref name="preminger">Preminger & Brogan (1993) ''The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.'' Princeton University Press.</ref> 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.<ref name="BenPorot76p107"/> In the field of film criticism, a filmmaker's intentionally unspoken visual reference to another film is also called an [[Homage (arts)|homage]]. 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?"<ref>Irwin, "What Is an Allusion?" ''Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'' '''59''' (2001)</ref>

Without the hearer or reader comprehending the author's intention, an allusion becomes merely a decorative device. Allusion is an economical device, a [[figure of speech]] that uses a relatively short space to draw upon the ready stock of ideas, cultural [[meme]]s 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 their [[cultural literacy]].<ref name="preminger"/>

==Allusion as cultural bond==
The origin of {{lang|la|allusion}} is from the Latin noun {{lang|la|allusionem}} "a playing with, a reference to", from {{lang|la|alludere}} "to play, jest, make fun of", a compound of {{lang|la|ad}} "to" + {{lang|la|ludere}} "to play".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/allusion|title=allusion (n.)|last=Harper|first=Douglas|website=Online Etymology Dictionary|language=en|access-date=December 5, 2019}}</ref> 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 many [[jokes]].<ref>Cohen, Ted (1999). ''Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters''. University of Chicago Press]. p. 28f. Irwin 2001:note 8 noted the parallel.</ref> 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".<ref>Irwin 2001:288</ref>

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|date=April 2014}} Addressing such issues is an aspect of [[hermeneutics]].

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."<ref>Irwin 2001:289 and note 22.</ref>  This is the basis for Christian readings of [[Bible prophecy|Old Testament prophecy]], which asserts that passages are to be read as allusions to future events.

Allusion differs from the similar term ''[[intertextuality]]'' in that it is an intentional effort on the author's part.<ref name="preminger"/> 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 a [[private language]].

==Academic analysis of the concept of allusions==
In discussing the richly allusive poetry of [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Georgics]]'', R. F. Thomas<ref>R. F. Thomas, "Virgil's ''Georgics'' and the art of reference" ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology '' '''90''' (1986) pp 171–98.</ref> distinguished six categories of allusive reference, which are applicable to a wider cultural sphere. These types are:
# ''' Casual reference''', "the use of language which recalls a specific antecedent, but only in a general sense" that is relatively unimportant to the new context;
# ''' Single reference''', in which the hearer or reader is intended to "recall the context of the model and apply that context to the new situation"; such a specific single reference in Virgil, according to Thomas, is a means of "making connections or conveying ideas on a level of intense subtlety";
# ''' Self-reference''', where the ''locus'' is in the poet's own work;
# ''' Corrective allusion''', where the imitation is clearly in opposition to the original source's intentions;
# ''' Apparent reference''' "which seems clearly to recall a specific model but which on closer inspection frustrates that intention"; and
# ''' Multiple reference''' or '''conflation''', which refers in various ways simultaneously to several sources, fusing and transforming the cultural traditions.

A type of literature has grown round explorations of the allusions in such works as [[Alexander Pope]]'s ''[[The Rape of the Lock]]'' or [[T. S. Eliot]]'s ''[[The Waste Land]]''.

==Examples==
In [[Homer]], 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 the [[Calydonian Boar|Calydonian boarhunt]]. In [[Hellenistic]] Alexandria, literary culture and a fixed [[literary canon]] known to readers and hearers made a densely allusive poetry effective; the poems of [[Callimachus]] offer the best-known examples.

[[Martin Luther King Jr.]], alluded to the [[Gettysburg Address]] in starting his "[[I Have a Dream]]" speech by saying "Five score years ago..."; his hearers were immediately reminded of [[Abraham 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.

A [[sobriquet]] is an allusion. By [[metonymy]] 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.

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==Bibliography==
* Ben-Porot, Ziva (1976) ''The Poetics of Literary Allusion'', p.&nbsp;108, in [https://books.google.com/books?id=AhtZAAAAMAAJ ''PTL: A Journal for descriptive poetics and theory of literature 1'']
* Irwin, William (2001). "What Is an Allusion?" ''The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'', 59 (3): 287–297.
* Irwin, W. T. (2002). "The Aesthetics of Allusion." ''Journal of Value Inquiry'': 36 (4).
* Pasco, Allan H. ''Allusion: A Literary Graft''. 1994. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 2002.

{{Figures of speech}}
{{Appropriation in the arts}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Figures of speech]]
[[Category:Literature]]
[[Category:Narrative techniques]]
[[Category:Semantics]]