§ 120. LITERARY ALLUSION.

2. Literary allusion is the appropriation of familiar words. from some well-known author, for purposes of explanation or illustration:

"It may be said of him that he came, he saw, he conquered."

"He has fallen into the sere and yellow leaf."

'He has gone to that bourne from which no traveller returns."

"I'm sitting here waiting for the train, like Patience on a monument, and mean to let Patience have her perfect work."

"Arms and the man whose reascending star

Rose o'er an empire."-BYRON.

"That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the heaven and earth
Rose out of chaos."-MILTON.

The most common sources of literary allusion may be summed up as follows:

1. Ancient literature: Homer, Virgil, Horace.

2. Modern literature: The English Bible; Shakespeare; Milton; Pope; Robinson Crusoe; Gulliver's Travels; the Pilgrim's Progress; the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; Fairy tales; certain popular novels, especially Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray.

3. Anecdotes, sayings, etc.:

"He did it with his little hatchet."

4. Sometimes in humorous works allusions are wholly fictitious:

"As the old woman says."

Allusion is effective in all kinds of literature-the grave, the gay, the lively, the severe; and ranges all the way from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The English Bible is the richest source of allusions. The works of Burke and Macaulay abound in them.

"I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate."-Burke. "Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over this great consideration. It is good for us to be here. mense view of what is and what is past. upon the future."-BURKE.

We stand where we have an im-
Clouds indeed and darkness rest

“The anathema maranatha of every fawning dean.”—MACAULAY.

"This makes the character complete. Whatsoever things are false, whatsoever things are dishonest, whatsoever things are unjust, whatsoever things are impure, whatsoever things are hateful, whatsoever things are of evil report-if there be any vice, and if there be any infamy, all these things we know were blended in Barère.”—MACAULAY.

"And O, when stoops on Judah's path,

In shade and storm, the frequent night,
Be thou long-suffering, slow to wrath,

A burning and a shining light.”—SCOTT.
""Tis a populous solitude, festal, fearless,
For men of good-will prepared.

That city he sees on whose golden walls
No light of a rising sun or setting

Of moon or of planet falls;

For the Lamb alone is the light thereof,

The city of Truth-the kingdom of Love."

-SIR AUBREY DE VERE.

Gray's ode on the Progress of Poesy contains a prolonged literary allusion, in the second stanza of which there is a paraphrase of the opening lines of Pindar's first Pythian ode:

"Oh! Sovereign of the willing soul,

Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs!
Enchanting shell! the sullen cares

And frantic passions hear thy soft control.
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War

Has curbed the fury of his car,

And dropped his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feathered king
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:

Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye."

"Pallid death, having seized upon the luckless Princess in her castle of Ahlden, presently pounced upon H. M. King George I. in his travelling chariot on the Hanover road. What postilion can outride the pale horseman ?"

Here the allusion is to Horace's " pallida mors," and to the "pale horse" of the Apocalypse.

§ 121. QUOTATION.

Literary allusion and quotation must not be confounded.

A quotation is an extract from any author, and is formally stated as such. An allusion appropriates well-known words, and incorporates them as one's own without acknowledgment. A quotation may be made from any work; an allusion must refer to writings that are familiar to all.

"Over all the heaven above, over all the earth beneath, there was no visible power that could balk the fierce will of the sun; he rejoiced as a strong man to run a race, his going forth was from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there was nothing hid from the heat thereof.'"-KINGLAKE.

The latter part of the above sentence consists of well-known words, and they are presented as a quotation.

"The scholar in Chaucer who would rather have 'at his beddes head

A twenty bokes clothed in black and red

Of Aristotle and his philosophy

Than robes rich, or fiddle, or psaltrie,'

doubtless beat all our modern collectors in his passion for reading."-LEIGH HUNT.

In the above quotation, as also in that which follows, the words are unfamiliar, but they are presented in an informal way, with the ease and grace of an allusion.

"When any one thinks he has caught her (Nature), it is only a part of her drapery which she yields to his clutches, never herself. 'Science,' says the Persian mystic, 'puts her finger on her mouth and cries because the mystery of life will not reveal itself." "-Dr. F. H. HEDGE.

§ 122. PLAGIARISM.

Literary allusion must not be confounded with plagiarism. Plagiarism is literary theft; where important ideas or expressions are appropriated from sources to which it is supposed that they cannot be readily traced, and presented as the actual work of the appropriator. In allusion the words are well known; they are presented as such; there is no possibility of mistake as to their origin; but in plagiarism the words are not well known, and the writer presents them as his own.

§ 123. OTHER FIGURES.

There are several other figures which may be named here: Syllepsis, paronomasia, annominatio, and antanaclasis. These

are all of the nature of tropes, and by allowing some particular term to be taken in two senses—literal or metaphorical-they give rise to what is called a "play on words." They all have the same general characteristics, and will be considered farther on.

§ 124. IRONY.

Irony is the use of words whose literal meaning is contrary to the real signification.

§ 125. SARCASM.

Sarcasm is irony with vituperation directed generally against personal opponents.

§ 126. INNUENDO.

Innuendo is the employment of insinuation instead of direct

statement.

are

These three figures-irony, sarcasm, and innuendosometimes classified under this head, and it seems proper to make some mention of them here. They will, however, receive a fuller consideration in connection with the subject of the ridiculous.

CHAPTER IV.

FIGURES OF RELATIVITY ARISING FROM THE IDEA OF

CONTIGUITY.

§ 127. FIGURES OF CONTIGUITY.

MANY things which are neither contrasted nor similar are often associated together in the mind from certain connections that may exist between them, as that of cause and effect, antecedent and consequent, and others. Washington may thus be associated with patriotism; a king with his crown; a cup with its contents. By this process of association one of two things may be taken for the other, and this gives rise to a new class of figures. The relation between such objects, upon which these figures are founded, may be designated contiguity.

§ 128. SYNECDOCHE.

Synecdoche is a figure which consists in the substitution for one another of words which indicate the relations of principal and subordinate; as, when a part is put for the whole, or the whole for a part; species for genus, or genus for species; the concrete for the abstract, or the abstract for the concrete.

In this figure we may observe two general divisions: first, where the definite is used for the indefinite; and, secondly, where the indefinite is used for the definite.

I. Where the definite is used for the indefinite. 1. A part is put for the whole.

Thus we say 66

a fleet of fifty sail." "Sail" is a part of a ship, and is here used to signify that to which it belongs.

"Hands" is used to represent "men," as in Dibdin's words, "the call to pipe all hands." "Souls" is used in the same

way, as, "five hundred souls," for five hundred men.

is used for sea; as—

"Though the night shades are gone, yet a vapor dull

Bedims the wave so beautiful."-WILSON.

"Wave"

Further examples may be found in the following: "Sixteen summers" for "sixteen years," or "sixty winters for "sixty years;" "day" for "life;" "horse" and "foot" for "cavalry" and "infantry;" "a force of ten thousand bayonets" for "men."

2. The species is put for the genus; as, "our daily bread," where “bread” represents all "food." The words "panem et circenses," ," "bread and the games," have come to signify employment and amusement for the proletariate. "Cut-throat" represents "murderer."

3. The concrete is put for the abstract; as, "They that take the sword shall perish by the sword." "Sword" is used here for war." "All the father yearns within his heart;" ." "father" means paternal love. To "play the fool" means to simulate folly, and to "play the man. to be valiant. "The lion shall lie down with the lamb" means the fierce shall be at peace with the gentle.

4. Proper names are used to designate a class. This is called antonomasia.