	Site Map \| FAQ in Daily Almanac for Nov 27, 2009 Search White Pages
Skip Navigation Home American Indian Heritage Month Atlas Encyclopedia Dictionary Thesaurus Features Quizzes Timelines Countries Slideshows

Fact Monster Kid's reference,
games, quizzes

Editor's Favorites

Arts and Entertainment > Writing & Language

Allusions

According to the Random House Dictionary, an allusion is "a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication." It is a common practice in literature to make allusions to a variety of sources. The following lists describe some common allusions to Greek or Roman mythology, the Bible, other works of literature, and history. These resources will help you determine why a character is described as having an "Achilles heel," the "patience of Job," or an "Oedipus complex." But hopefully not all three!

Mythological Allusions

Biblical Allusions

Literary Allusions

Historical Allusions

See also: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

LSSU's Banished Words of the Year

Writing & Language

More on Allusions from Infoplease:

allusive: meaning and definitions - allusive: Definition and Pronunciation
Shakespeare Quotes: Tragedies - Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears
Shakespeare Quotes: Comedies - All the world's a stage
Shakespeare Quotes: Histories - The better part of valour is discretion . . .
Literary Allusions - Literary Allusions Boswell: James Boswell (1740–95) is best known for his 1791 book The Life ...

Premium Partner Content

HighBeam Research

Related content from HighBeam Research on: Allusions

Literary Allusion and the Poetry of Seamus Heaney. (Style)

A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah.(Book review) (Hebrew Studies Journal)

A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66 (The Catholic Biblical Quarterly)

Scriptural Allusions and Exegesis in the Hodayot (The Catholic Biblical Quarterly)

Motives for Allusion: Context and Content in Nineteenth-Century Music.(Book Review) (Notes)

Liberation story or apocalypse? Reading biblical allusion and Bakhtin theory in Toni Morrison's Beloved.(Mikhail Bakhtin)(Critical essay) (Bible and Critical Theory)

Beyond Lexicon: Biblical "Allusion" in Faulkner. (The Mississippi Quarterly)

Gail H. Coffler: Melville's Allusions to Religion: A Comprehensive Index and Glossary.(Book review) (Leviathan)

STORY-SENSITIVE EXEGESIS AND OLD TESTAMENT ALLUSIONS IN MARK (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society)

THE TIMOTHY ALLUSION IN "A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND".(Critical Essay) (Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature)

Additional search results provided by HighBeam Research, LLC. © Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

Infoplease Tools