Allusion: A Literary Graft

Since Julia Kristeva first coined the term ‘intertextuality,’ explanations of the way literature incorporates other literature have produced few distinctions and much obscurity. In contrast, Allan H. Pasco’s Allusion looks at the way allusion works in specific fictions and how it affects the process of reading. Drawing from a wide range of French authors, including Flaubert, Stendhal, Proust, Balzac, Zola, Sartre, and Robbe-Grillet, Pasco uses a number of examples to show how allusions work, how texts integrate other texts to create new metaphorical constructs. The text being read reminds us of another text, and the two texts come together to create an image (or text) quite different from either of the constituent texts. While distinguishing allusion from other forms of intertextuality like irony, satire, plagiarism, and imitation, Pasco follows a straightforward logic from the uncomplicated to the complicated, from the simple to the complex. What he calls parallel allusions serve to contrast with other devices and to clarify the way allusion functions. He discusses how the perception of irony may distort understanding, and he illustrates how allusion can illuminate a theme and render a feeling palpable. A discussion of ‘allusive complex’ considers the way a set of parallel allusions work together to create something that differs significantly from both the text being read and the works it refers to. The device appears even more complicated when authors call on it set up oppositions, in some cases to imply that the work in hand might end different from the older text. The potential allusion remains as unlimited as the creative minds of authors, but the pattern, as Pasco demonstrates, remains simple and straightforward.