【】What is an allusion?||What is an example of an allusion?

What is an allusion?

Answer:

An implicit or indirect reference to another work of literature,a historical or mythical person or event.

What is an example of an allusion?

Answer:


Observe this"Not half so fixed the Trojans could remain ,
While Anna begged and Dido raged in vain."

...........(Pope:The Rape of the Lock)

Here is an allusion to the dilemma of Aeneas,the hero of Virgil's Aeneid.Aeneas falls in love with Dido,the queen of Carthage.Dido implores Aeneas to marry her and get settled permanently in Carthage.Though Aeneas is deeply in love with her,he decides to continue his voyage in search of a permanent empire for the Trojans.
He is torn between love and duty.This dilemma of Aeneas has been recalled here to suggest the intensity of  Belinda's crisis.

Allusion in a Sentence | Allusion Example in Poetry | Allusion Examples in Literature

The winged boy I knew;
But who wastes thou,O happy, happy dove?

                (Keats:"Ode to Psyche")

The "winged boy" is an allusion to Cupid,the god of love.

Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth,when,sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

      .....(Keats:Ode to a Nightingale")

These lines allude to the suffering of Ruth,a character of the old Testament.

Here is an another example of allusion in a Sentence

Observe this "Imagine with thy self, courteous Reader,how often I then wished for the Tongue of Demosthenes or Cicero,that might have enabled me to celebrate the praise of my own dear native Country in a Style equal to its Merits and Felicity."

          (Swift: Gulliver's Travels,Part-II)

The allusion in these lines is the power of eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero.

An allusion, which clarifies meanings and suggests a great deal in a few words,may make a literary work difficult but it adds dignity to it.

What is Alliteration?