What Is Allusion? | Definition, Explanation & Examples

An allusion is commonly used in literature, cinema, music, and art. It is a reference to a person, place, or event that the speaker or writer assumes will be understood by their audience, with the effect that it adds a layer of meaning or insight to the text.

What is an allusion?

An allusion is a type of figurative language that uses a mutually understood reference to make a point. For example, describing something as “forbidden fruit” makes reference to the story in the Tanakh, Bible, and Qur’an where Adam and Eve eat the fruit that is forbidden to them, thus introducing sin into the world. In this way the allusion introduces the idea that partaking of this particular “forbidden fruit” will have terrible consequences (and also that the temptation is probably overwhelming).

The power of an allusion is that it is a kind of shorthand that adds a layer of meaning without having to go into too many details. It relies on shared knowledge, however, because if the audience doesn’t know the reference, it will not understand the layers of meaning. Used carefully, an allusion will work even if some readers do not know the reference, and for those that do, they will share a sense of belonging that comes from shared knowledge.

What is a literary allusion?

Authors often employ allusion to add depth to their writing. Some writers are particularly well-known for it, from T. S. Eliot to Bob Dylan, while others use it more sparingly. It can add to the enjoyment of a piece of writing and add to its resonance.

There are several things that an author can hope to achieve through the use of allusion:

• Give context: Many characters in the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? have names that reference The Odyssey, which is the inspiration for the film. Knowing this helps us to understand this updated retelling of the travails of Homer’s Ulysses.
• Increased depth: The author Donna Leon often names her detective novels using a phrase that comes from literature or the Bible. For instance, Through a Glass, Darkly comes from 1 Corinthians 13:12 in the King James translation of the Bible. The whole verse reads, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known,” which is rather telling for a mystery about the Venetian glass industry (even if the “glass” in the original is actually a mirror).
• Communicating meaning quickly: By describing an occurrence as a “Damascus Road experience,” an author is able to quickly make the point that this was a turning point in their life as radical and revolutionary as that of the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus in the book of Acts.
• Paying homage to a previous writer: The cinematography in Girl with a Pearl Earring is an homage to Vermeer, the painter of the eponymous subject of the film. It uses as much natural light as possible to capture the beautiful lighting effects of the artist’s work.

Examples of allusion

Literature is full of examples of allusion for all of the above reasons. Sometimes it can run the risk of exhibiting literary or intellectual snobbery, but most often it is an invitation to explore the deep patina of meaning available to writers.

The Bible is a rich source of allusions in much English literature, and given its wide use and common knowledge for centuries, this is not really a surprise.

Frequently asked questions about allusions

What is an example of an allusion?

An example of allusion is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel Tender is the Night which takes its title from John Keats’ poem “Ode to a Nightingale.” The poem is a paean to the beauty of the nightingale and, by extension, nature.

The phrase used by Fitzgerald refers to fleeing from reality to the presence of the nightingale on the “viewless wings” of poetry, and Keats’ declaration “Already with thee! tender is the night.”

Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age novel chronicles the fall of a bright young psychiatrist, Dick Diver, who is sucked into the milieu of American “old money” and spat out when he is of no further use. By the novel’s close, Dick might well echo the poem’s plea:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
…
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow.

To those who know the poem, the allusion to it in the novel’s title adds whole new layers of meaning. Importantly, if you don’t get the allusion, the title of the novel still works, but on a more surface level.

Is allusion figurative language?

Yes, allusion is considered to be figurative language. Figurative language covers a range of features like similes, metaphors, and sibilance that authors use to help their audience see or imagine what they are describing, or see things the way the author intends.

When C. S. Lewis opens A Grief Observed with the words, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear,” he is using a simile to help the reader understand what he has experienced. Fear, a commonly shared sensation, is used as a reference point for us to picture his situation.

The same is true for the use of allusion. In these lines from Bob Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm,” “In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes,” is an allusion to the account of Jesus’ crucifixion where the Roman soldiers gambled for his clothes as they waited for him to die.

By making this allusion to Jesus, Dylan is inviting the audience to see him as, perhaps, a suffering savior who “offered up (his) innocence, and got repaid with scorn.”

Allusion helps the author communicate depth and nuance in their descriptions. It is indeed figurative language, and a kind of shorthand that communicates more than its surface meaning.