Allusion in t.s eliot
- 1. Allusion Nawrin Akhtar Notre Dame University Bangladesh Allusion is an object or circumstance from unrelated context is referenced covertly or indirectly. Allusion occurs in literature when an author indirectly references another work, event, person, or place. The reference may be historical or modern. Authors and writers use allusions to express a similar sentiment to the object of the allusion or to evoke particular emotions. Eliot is known for quoting, alluding to, and sometimes borrowing from other literary and historical sources. He used Various kind of allusion is used in the poem “The Hollow Man”. His favorite source for borrowed expressions and ideas is the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, The Waste Land, Heart of Darkness Here, as in The Waste Land, Heart of Darkness is important. "Mistah Kurtz--he dead" emphasizes a connection between savage ritual and Eliot's crossed staves. At the beginning he uses two epigraphs and this two epigraph reflects two type of Allusion. First epigraph is a quotation from a novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad about Western imperialism. In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is a spiritually hollow man. Second epigraph The second epigraph “penny” is a version of an expression used by English school kids to ask for money to buy fireworks to blow up straw dolls the represent the traitor Guy Fawkes. And the "Old Guy" may also represent Charon, the ferryman who would take souls across the Acheron into the realm of death if you gave him a coin.
- 2. The first section of the poems revels the intertextual allusions leading towards the single quote, hollowness inside and vagueness in the and death. In this section “death’s other kingdom”, “Straw”, “hollow men”, “stuffed men”, “filled with straw”, “lost”, “violent”, “whisper”, are the main allusions. “hollow men”, “stuffed men”, “filled with straw” are taken from Guy Fawkes Day, the conspirators in Julius Caesar and Kurtz. “straw” is used for burned on Guy Fawkes Day. It is a roman ritual and means rebirth, fertility of land. “Whisper” is a character of Kurtz. It acts as an instrument of fate. It symbolizing fate, conspiracy, a theme present throughout this poem and seemingly inherent in the hollow men. “Death other’s kingdom” is a reference from Dante’s “Paradiso”. In the second section of the poem the speaker “The Hollow Man” alluded Dante’s Inferno and Frazer’s The Golden Bough references. Here “eyes”, “crossed stave”, “star”, “crow skin”, “rat’s coat”, “final meeting” are the main allusions. “Eyes” is the reference from Dante’s Heart of Darkness where Dante cannot meet Beatrice eyes because he feels shame and “death’s dream kingdom” refers heaven and “broken column” is a traditional graveyard memorial for a premature death and “fading star” is reference of Dante’s earthly paradise, Dante used this as a symbol of God or Mary. “Rat’s coat”, “crow skin”, “crossed staves” is reference from “The West Land”, where Eliot associates the “man with three staves”. In section three the words “the dead land”, “cactus land”, “stone images” are taken from Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land”. The line ‘‘Lips that would kiss’’ is a perversion of Romeo and Juliet’s line “lips that must be use in prayer”, another allusion is Kurtz’s lips are being used in pagan worship instead of to express love for his intended.
- 3. In section four “eyes”, “valley”, “last of meeting place”, “tumid river”, “twilight”, are main allusions. “Eyes” is the reference of Dante’s first meeting with Beatrice, her eyes were shameful for him to look upon, it is also symbolizing redemption. “valley” is biblical allusion and “last of meeting place” and “tumid river” encountered by the pilgrim on his journey, last meeting is the elements of conspiracy on Julius Caesar and Gunpowder plot and Marlow’s experiences with the secretive trading company. This final meeting is a doomed conspiracy, the meeting of lost, hollow souls before they sentenced to the inferno. “star” is a reference from Paradiso xxxi where God as the ‘single star’ and Paradiso xxxii Mary as a rose. And “twilight” refers to Marlow’s meeting with Kurtz’s intended, to the twilight that is physically gathering and to the hopelessness in Marlow’s own soul. It represents a choice, but it can also be the mere memory of that choice. The river is most likely Acheron, a branch of the mythical River Styx. Acheron and the ferryman Charon also appear in Canto 3 of Dante's Inferno. Section five starts with children’s parody song mulberry bush ‘on a cold and frosty morning’. “five o’clock in the morning” is the traditional time of Christ’s resurrection. It represents the redemption of hollow man. “Between the idea......the shadow” are taken from Julius Caesar. "For Thine is the Kingdom" alludes to the ending of the Lord's Prayer. The end of the poem modifies a different part of the "Mulberry Bush" song.