can you give me a good example of literary allusion from the 20th century ?

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googling only throws up robert poxy frost
and seamus tedious heaney
and i want something a bit livelier.
any ideas ? i'm not doing an essay !

― piscesboy, Thursday, 17 April 2003 11:01 (twenty-two years ago)

geoffrey hill if it has to be poetry

philip pullman if it can be books (refs milton/narnia/blake)

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 17 April 2003 11:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I knew I hated them for a reason.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 17 April 2003 11:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Robert Anton Wilson's work is chock fulla literary allusion, referencing the likes of William Burroughs, Bucky Fuller, James Joyce, Albert Einstein, Carl Jung, and Aleister Crowley, among others.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 17 April 2003 12:15 (twenty-two years ago)

For god's sake no one say T.S. Eliot! Oop.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 17 April 2003 12:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Ulysses

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 17 April 2003 12:36 (twenty-two years ago)

"The Western Lands" by Burroughs is full of allusions, Canterbury Tales and Norman Mailer's "Ancient Evenings" are the two that springs to mind. There's also a rumination on The Ancient Mariner in Naked Lunch.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Thursday, 17 April 2003 12:58 (twenty-two years ago)

There's a line on page 3 of Huckleberry Finn ("I felt so lonesome, I almost wished I was dead") that gets repeated at least three times in Catcher in the Rye.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 17 April 2003 13:02 (twenty-two years ago)

riiiight. that'll do justyn my man good work.

― piscesboy, Thursday, 17 April 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.

(Ezra Pound)

― OleM (OleM), Thursday, 17 April 2003 13:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I think you'd be harder pressed to find something of any length from the 20th Century that didn't contain a literary allusion.

― Chris P (Chris P), Thursday, 17 April 2003 13:20 (twenty-two years ago)

True that, Chris. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man works well too.

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Thursday, 17 April 2003 13:23 (twenty-two years ago)

What's wrong with Heaney? (Its' true, he's studded with allusions. Maybe that's what's wrong, or at least not what's right.)

― the pinefox, Thursday, 17 April 2003 13:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Iron Maiden songs are full of them.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 17 April 2003 15:04 (twenty-two years ago)

John Barth's work is mainly composed of these, except I guess they're possibly much too explicit to be called 'allusion' really.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 17 April 2003 17:48 (twenty-two years ago)

My high-school literary magazine was—and likely still iscalled "Allusions". My friend Damian regularly contributed under the name "Russell Bertrand." Heavy stuff.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 17 April 2003 17:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought this thread was about orgasms.

― jewelly (jewelly), Thursday, 17 April 2003 20:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Tracer Hand writes:
Iron Maiden songs are full of them.

the 2nd song on the gybe! ep has some dude ranting and then he busts out a maiden song in a total "found poetry" cop-move.

so like justice is like served like.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 17 April 2003 23:26 (twenty-two years ago)

nine months pass...

SHe has the brain of Athena

― , Thursday, 5 February 2004 01:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Brett Easton Ellis, Glamorama

― Prude (Prude), Thursday, 5 February 2004 04:24 (twenty-one years ago)

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