Creating Meaning with Words
Creating Sound
Using Form
Mrs. Barnhart's Poetry Page
Elements of Poetry
Allusion
An allusion is one way that writers can infuse a literary work with description and elaboration without having to use more than one or two words. An allusion is a reference to an object, person, or event from another literary work, history, society, etc., that the reader is expected to understand. The allusion will have connotations for the reader and help the reader understand more fully the point the poet is trying to make. The allusion will also help determine the tone of the writing. For example, one place that most people in our culture can identify and explain is Eden. If, in a piece of writing, the poet refers to a place as Eden, the reader understands through the Biblical allusion the setting the writer is trying to create without the time and space a detailed description of a paradise would inevitably take without such an allusion. Therefore, the one word Eden helps the reader to understand the type of setting and also the writer's attitude toward that setting. On the contrary, referring to a place as Hades, a mythological allusion, would conjure up quite a different image for the reader and create a much different tone.
Assignment: For each of the allusions below, briefly explain what the term makes you think of and what type of tone it may help the writer achieve. Also, identify the type of allusion as biblical, mythological, historical, literary, or social. If there is an allusion that you don't understand (as there often will be), use your resources to find out what it is referring to and then answer the questions.
1. He's a real Einstein.
2. Her class was the Alcatraz of the "classroom as prison" world.
3. The teacher stood in her doorway, a siren beckoning in the new students.
4. It was no Tara, but it was a nice house.
5. He thinks of himself as a modern-day Romeo.
6. Her hands are as clean as Lady MacBeth's.
7. My mother-in-law would easily blend in at a Gorgon reunion.
8. The new leader is a Hussein on a smaller scale.
9. As I looked around, I knew I had reached the belly of the whale.
10. If the class could, they would vote him "Most likely to become Johnny Knoxville".
Class Discussion:Read the following poem and prepare answers to the questions for class discussion.
"Siren Song"
by Margaret Atwood
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn:
the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls
the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can't remember
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don't enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don't enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.
I will tell the secret to you ,to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song
is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique
At last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.
What is the message of the poem? In other words, what does the speaker have to say?
What is the speaker's tone? How does it come across?
How does the allusion help create the tone of the poem?
How does the structure of the poem relate to the tone?
Can you think of any other allusions that would have helped to send the same message? Or, can you think of another way to use the allusion of the siren to say something completely different?
