frame 21 | allusion

I Sequestrati di Altona | Vittorio De Sica, 1962

Main Entry: allusion
Pronunciation: \ə-ˈlü-zhən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Late Latin allusion-, allusio, from Latin alludere
Date: 1548

1: an implied or indirect reference; also: the use of such references
2: the act of alluding to or hinting at something

Merriam-Webster online dictionary

In literature, an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, or thing or to a part of another text. Allusion is distinguished from such devices as direct quote and imitation or parody. Most allusions are based on the assumption that there is a body of knowledge that is shared by the author and the reader and that therefore the reader will understand the author’s referent. [...] Similarly, an allusion can be used as a straightforward device to enhance the text by providing further meaning, but it can also be used in a more complex sense to make an ironic comment on one thing by comparing it to something that is dissimilar. The word is from the late Latin allusio meaning “a play on words” or “game” and is a derivative of the Latin word alludere, meaning “to play around” or “to refer to mockingly”.

Encyclopædia Britannica

We could say then, that allusion is the most ideological of all rhetoric, stylistic (narrative) methods. If you compare allusion to other (literary) devices such as metaphor, aphorism, analogy, allegory, symbolism, alliteration, repetition, simile, imagery, irony, and parody, it seems that allusion is the only device that necessitates a presupposed shared body of knowledge, i.e. a set of commonly shared beliefs and values. Though most of the stylistic devices mentioned above are, in one way or another, dependent on an ideological discourse (irony and parody are the obvious examples), it is allusion that actually works in an ideological way, that is: its functioning is ideological (whereas irony or parody function on behalf of ideological conventions).

In this way, allusion is a rhetoric device that materializes ideology, and transforms discourse into practice, or knowledge into process. Allusion is a liberating and intrinsically critical style element. Huray for allusion!