When you can select a subject for yourself, it ought to in-terest you, and interest others as well, at least potentially. It should be within the range of your experience and skill, though it is best if it stretches you. | For more material and information please visit 312 DICTION More often the reference is indirect and the writer depends on the reader s recognizing the source and significance We Western peoples tend to have a Micawberish attitude toward life a feeling that so long as we do not get too excited something is certain to turn up. Barbara Ward A writer making an allusion should be reasonably sure that it will be familiar. Barbara Ward for instance could fairly refer to Mr. Micawber confident that her readers know Dickens s David Copperfield well enough to remember Mr. Micawber burdened by family and debt yet cheerfully optimistic that some lucky chance will rescue him from ruin. Some allusions are not to persons but to well known passages a verse from the Bible say or a line from Shakespeare. The passage may be paraphrased or quoted literally although it is not usually enclosed in quotation marks. There is no question of plagiarizing the writer assumes readers know what he or she is doing. In this sentence for instance the allusion is to the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes 3 1-8 I didn t know whether I should appear before you there is a time to show and a time to hide there is a time to speak and also a time to be silent. Norman O. Brown While many allusions are drawn from literature some refer to historical events or people ancient or more recent These moloch gods these monstrous states are not natural beings. . . . Moloch was an ancient Semitic deity to whom children were sacrificed. Suzanne K. Langer And it is not opinions or thoughts that Time provides its readers as news comment. Rather the newsreel is provided with a razzle-dazzle accompaniment of Spike Jones noises. Spike Jones was a popular orchestra leader of the 1940s famous for wacky comic For more material and information please visit FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE 313 arrangements of light classics and pop tunes. He used automobile horns cow bells steam whistles and so on.
