Eureka High School AP English Literature and Composition

Literary Allusions Wiki 2008-09

Contribute to our course list of literary allusions here. Try to keep your contributions in roughly this format:

"Forget Dr. Spock or Dr. Brazelton, I took my cue from Dr. Pangloss" (Time Magazine 8/6/2007, p. 40). Allusion to Candide.--Mr. Staiano

First Quarter

In Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" series, The main character, Bella, is often seen with a worn copy of Wuthering Heights. She also has a discussion about Catherine and Heathcliff's love with her boyfriend, Edward. Allusion to Wuthering Heights.-- Ashton Powers

In the new Sex and the City movie, the character Carrie mentions Wuthering Heights and alludes to her realtionship with John that their relationship is very much like Catherine's and Heathcliff's in that they have the kind of love that sometimes is unattaniable even though they are so in love with each other. (Sex and the City 2008, Home Box Office Inc.) Allusion to Wuthering Heights. --Corinne Rushing

In the show Desperate Housewives, Lynette im's her son, Porter, under an alias, about poetry because she feels that this is the only way she is able to communicate with him because he is going through his rebelLious teenage years. The relationship becomes too deep, however, when Porter essentially declares his love for his own mother over the internet by posting a steamy love poem. Then, when Tom (the father who has been telling her to stop the internet relationship all along) finds out that their son is in love with his wife's internet alias, he says, "Are you going to tell him the truth now, or are you going to wait until after he kills me and blinds himself?" This was an allusion to the Three Theban Plays, because Oedipus, Antigone's father, accidently kills his own father and then gouges out his eyes when he finds out that he slept with his own mother, Jocasta. ("We're So Happy You're So Happy." Season 5, Ep 2. Desperate Housewives. Felicity Huffman, Doug Savant. ABC, 05 Oct 2008.) --Sarah Knight

In the movie Purple Violets, a stupid sappy love story/comedy that was truely terrible, a character nicknamed Murph said, "Look I know you and Brian want to be these literary giants but guess what, nobody reads that s*** anymore. I mean think about it. You're on the train going to work or enjoying your one weeks vacation down the shore, do you really want to suffer through Faulkner or do you want to kick back with a little Grisham?" A reference to the book were reading! Or possibly The Sound And The Fury. Either way hes obviously speaking about the general pain one must suffer through when reading Faulkner, something we are all now familiar with. Although this movie is not from last week, it is from last year and I had never heard of it until yesterday, so I think it should count as recent, either way I'll post it just for the sake of contributing. (Purple Violets. Dir. Edward Burns. Perf. Selma Blair and Debra Messing. DVD. 2007.) --Reed Williston

"My Funny Valentine" a jazz standard, is an allusion to Shakespeare's 130th sonnet. This song simultaniously insults and compliments the object of the writer's affection in each line. "Your looks are laughable, unphotographable/ yet you're my favorite work of art" is strikingly simliar to shakespeare's description of his mistress's beauty being less than supernatural. My Funny Valentine mentions her beauty, figure, and use of speech, but says often "don't change a hair for me". All of these things are mentioned in Sonnet #130. Compared to Shakespeare, this is extremely recent since it was written in the 1900's and I will most certainly hear it on the radio within the next year. I bet my life.

Hart, Lorenz. Rodgers, Richard. My Funny Valentine.

Eva Hamer

In a Hindi movie called Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (which is new and which I just saw, so I think it qualifies as current), in the final scene as a group of friends is leaving an airport, the camera comes in on an old man dozing on a bench and holding a sign that reads "Mr. Godot". So, he is waiting for Godot. Get it? (Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. Dir. Abbas Tyrewala. Perf. Imran Khan and Genelia D'Souza. DVD. 2008.) - Janie Ryan**

In a report I once heard on NPR (Morning Edition), the researcher and analyst, Daniel Markey, reported on how Pakistan was using militia groups to influence Afghanistan and India, and how the groups became more and more out of control. "'It's only in the past several years,' Markey says, that 'top leaders within Pakistan are starting to see them as having gotten out of control, as looking more like Frankenstein monsters' that occasionally move against Pakistan." This of course, is a direct allusion to Frankenstein. Markey, Daniel. "Analyst: Pakistani Group Behind Mumbai Attacks". Morning Edition. 2009. NPR.org. 4 Dec. 2008. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97776680>.

I found this while scanning cartoons and I laughed.  I can see one of Staiano's conversations going like this. :) Just some comic relief.

"Iambic Pentameter." XKCD WebComics. XKCD Store. 3 Feb 2009 <http://xkcd.com/79/>. ~Lacey Gibson

"Is that your King Lear essay? Dan has this amazing Cordelia reference in one of his stories."  "Carnal Knowledge." Gossip Girl. CW. KUVU-LP, Eureka. 02 February 2009.--Alexa Costa