Understanding
Biblical and
Mythological Allusions
Key allusions to enhance your
understanding of literature, and some
literary works in which they appear
Biblical Allusions
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Some key stories to know, from the Old and
New Testaments
Some important motifs from the Bible
A few examples of works of literature in which
allusions to these can be found
Many other motifs and archetypes central to
literature come from the Bible, such as the
opposition between good and evil and the
journey or quest
1. Creation
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“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was
light” (Gen. 1:3).
“There was nothing to say:/ Let there be light!/ All that
story of Mr. God switching on day/ is just conceit”
(D.H. Lawrence, “Let There Be Light!”).
“So God created humankind in his image, in the
image of God he created them” (Gen. 1:26).
“Crawlin’ aboot like a snail in the mud,/ Covered wi’
clammy blae/ ME, made after the image o’ God - /
Jings! But it’s laughable, tae” (Joe Corrie, “The
Image o’ God”).
“And on the seventh day God finished the work that
he had done…” (Gen. 2:2).
2. Garden of Eden/The Fall
 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any
other wild animal…” (Gen. 3:1).
 “Incarnate devil in a talking snake…” (D.H.
Lawrence, “Incarnate Devil”).
 “…therefore the Lord God sent him forth from
the garden of Eden, to till the ground from
which he was taken” (Gen. 3:23).
 All evil in mankind comes from “original sin,”
which caused Adam and Eve to be cast out of
the Garden of Eden, a “paradise” on Earth.
 John Milton – “Paradise Lost”
Emily Dickinson, “Eden is
that old-fashioned House”
Eden is that old-fashioned House
We dwell in every day
Without suspecting our abode
Until we drive away.
How fair on looking back, the Day
We sauntered from the Door –
Unconscious our returning,
But discover it no more.
2.b. Fall of angels / Lucifer
 Satan, or Lucifer, was originally an angel who
was cast out of heaven (“fell to earth”) because
of his ambition.
 Also referred to as “the morning star” -“How
you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of
Dawn!” (Isaiah 14:12).
 “See Lucifer like lightning fall/ Dashed from his
throne of pride” (John Keble, “See Lucifer like
Lightning Fall”).
 “Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell”
(Macbeth 4.3.22).
3. Cain and Abel
 “And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against
his brother Abel, and killed him. Then the Lord said to
Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He said, ‘I do not
know; am I my brother’s keeper?’” (Gen. 4:8-9).
 “Thus she sat weeping,/ Thus Eve our mother,/ Where
one lay sleeping/ Slain by his brother” (Christina
Rossetti, “Eve”).
 Any example of fratricide may hearken back to the
story of Cain and Abel.
 Claudius, when attempting to pray: “O, my offense is
rank, it smells to heaven;/ It hath the primal eldest
curse upon’t,/ A brother’s murder” (Hamlet 3.3.36-8).
4. Noah’s Ark / The Flood
 “Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and
all your household, for I have seen that you alone are
righteous before me in this generation… For in seven
days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and
forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I
will blot out from the face of the ground’” (Gen. 7:1,4).
 “They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all
flesh in which there was the breath of life” (Gen. 7:15).
 “Auld Noah was at hame wi’ them a’,/ The lion and the
lamb,/ Pair by pair they entered the Ark/ And he took
them as they cam’” (Hugh MacDiarmid, “Parley of
Beasts”).
 Timothy Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage
5. The Tower of Babel
 “Now the whole earth had one language and the same
words… Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves
a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let
us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be
scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ …
And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and
they have all one language; and this is only the
beginning of what they will do; nothing that they
propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come,
let us go down, and confuse their language there, so
that they will not understand one another’s speech.’
So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the
face of all the earth…” (Gen. 11:1,4,6-8).
 “Where once prayers said were unison,/ And
conversations harmony,/ We now mistake our dearest
loves;/ Crowds muddle in cacophony” (Laurance
Wieder, “The Tower of Babel”).
6. Sodom & Gomorrah
 “Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners
against the Lord” (Gen. 13:13).
 “Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur
and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew
those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of
the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife,
behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of
salt” (Gen. 19:24-6).
 “She only wanted to see the sky split open./ Surely
everybody has wanted to see the sky split open?/ She
is here when we pour at our table. / She is here when
we pour in our sleep” (Albert Goldbarth, “Lot’s Wife”).
7. Abraham and the
sacrifice of Isaac
 “After these things God tested
Abraham… He said, ‘Take your son, your
only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to
the land of Moriah, and offer him there as
a burnt offering on one of the mountains
that I shall show you.’” (Gen. 22:1,2).
 “Then the angel returned, asking that I
surrender/ My son as a lamb…” (Delmore
Schwartz, “Abraham”).
8. Moses
 The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, and Pharaoh
decreed that “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews
you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl
live” (Exodus 1:22).
 Baby Moses was abandoned by his mother “among the
reeds on the bank of the river” (Exodus 2:3) and found
and raised by the daughter of the Pharaoh.
 God appeared to Moses in a burning bush (“the bush
was blazing, yet it was not consumed” (Exodus 3:2).),
instructing him to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
 When Moses asked God for his name, “God said to
Moses, ‘I am what I am.’ He said further, ‘Thus you
shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’’”
(Exodus 3:14).
 Compare Iago: “I am not what I am” (Othello 1.1.66).
9. The Exodus
 After ten plagues afflicting the Egyptians, Moses led his
people out of Egypt, parting the Red Sea, to escape slavery
at the hands of the Pharaoh.
 After escaping Egypt, the Israelites wandered in the
wilderness for forty years, and “the Lord went in front of
them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way,
and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light…” (Exodus
13:21).
 “When Israel out of Egypt came/ Safe in the sea they trod;/
By day in cloud, by night in flame,/ Went on before them
God” (A.E. Housman, “When Israel out of Egypt Came”).
 Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on Mt.
Sinai – “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the
mountain, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the
law and the commandment, which I have written for their
instruction’” (Exodus 24:12).
10. Jericho
 Joshua led the Israelites against the city
of Jericho: “So the people shouted, and
the trumpets were blown. As soon as the
people heard the sound of the trumpets,
they raised a great shout, and the wall
fell down flat…” (Joshua 6:20).
 “O, not by trumpets shall the walls go
down!” (Phyllis McGinley, “Women of
Jericho”).
11. Jephthah’s daughter
 “Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, ‘if you will
give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes
out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return
victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s…”
(Judges 11:30-1).
 After he won the battle, “Jephthah came to his home at
Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to
meet him” (11:34).
 Before being sacrificed, Jephthah’s daughter asked for
two months to “wander on the mountains, and bewail
my virginity” (11:37).
 Hamlet, to Polonius: “Oh, Jephthah, judge of Israel,
what a treasure hadst thou!” (2.2.393).
12. David & Goliath
 David, “a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance” (1
Samuel 17:42), killed Goliath, a champion of the Philistines,
with a slingshot and a stone.
 “‘All you get in this war,’ he said, ‘is one little David against
another.’ Then he threw and broke the tall, thin neck clean
off. ‘Like that. Just a bunch of stone throwers.’ Robert
wondered if the bitterness was only the twist in his throat as
he threw the stone – or was it really that Taffler wanted the
war to pit him against Goliath?” (The Wars 31-2).
 “He was thinking that perhaps he'd found the model he
could emulate - a man to whom killing wasn’t killing at all but
only throwing. Bam! A bottle. A man to whom war wasn't
good enough unless it was bigger than he was. Bam! A
David. A man who made his peace with stones” (The Wars
32).
Emily Dickinson, “I Took
My Power in My Hand”
I took my Power in my Hand –
And went against the World –
’Twas not so much as David – had –
But I – was twice as bold –
I aimed my Pebble – but Myself
Was all the one that fell –
Was it Goliath – was too large –
Or was myself – too small?
13. King Solomon
 God granted Solomon great wisdom: “I give
you a wise and discerning mind; no one like
you has been before you and no one like you
shall arise after you” (1 Kings 3:12).
 Two women both claimed to be the mother of
an infant. Solomon decreed that the child
should be cut in half, and then gave him to the
woman who was unwilling to see the child
harmed, declaring her the true mother.
14. Job
 Job was an honorable servant of God: “That
man was blameless and upright, one who
feared God and turned away from evil” (Job
1:1).
 God agreed to let Satan inflict suffering upon
Job, to prove his faithfulness, and Job refused
to curse God, even after his family was killed
and all his possessions destroyed.
 Eventually, “the Lord restored the fortunes of
Job… and the Lord gave Job twice as much as
he had before” (Job 42:10).
15. Ecclesiastes
 Several key motifs come from the book of Ecclesiastes, which
emphasizes repetition and mystery in human existence.
 “Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is
vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil
under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but
the earth remains forever” (Eccl. 1:2-4).
 “As he said vanity, so vain say I,/ Oh! vanity, O vain all under sky”
(Anne Bradstreet, “The Vanity of All Worldly Things”)
 “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter
under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up what is planted…” (Eccl. 3:1-2).
 “To everything - turn, turn, turn/ There is a season - turn, turn, turn/
And a time for every purpose under heaven…” (The Byrds, “Turn!
Turn! Turn!”).
16. The Trinity
 The motif of a tripartite God (father, son
and holy ghost – like in Don McLean’s
“American Pie”) has become a major
archetype in literature.
 “Batter my heart, three person’d God”
(John Donne, Holy Sonnet XIV).
17. The birth of Christ
 “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this
way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to
Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found
to be with child from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18).
 Joseph, who was from Nazareth, took Mary to
Bethlehem, where the child was born “and laid… in a
manger, because there was no place for them in the
inn” (Luke 2:7).
 “Strange news! a city full? will none give way/ To lodge
a guest that comes not every day?” (Sir John Suckling,
“Upon Christ his Birth”).
18. John the Baptist
 The angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, whose wife
Elizabeth was barren, and said that she would bear a
son and that his name would be John.
 John baptized many people in the name of God: “John
beheld the great and holy,/ Hailed the love of God
supreme;/ O how gracious, meek, and lowly,/ When
baptized in Jordan’s stream!” (Christopher Smart, “The
Nativity of St. John the Baptist”).
 John was imprisoned by Herod, and Herod promised
Salome, the daughter of his brother’s wife, to grant her
anything she might ask. Salome asked for “the head of
John the Baptist here on a platter” (Matthew 14:8).
19. Judas
 “Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot,
went to the chief priests and said, ‘What will you give
me if I betray him to you?’ They paid him thirty pieces
of silver. And from that moment he began to look for
an opportunity to betray him” (Matthew 26:14-6).
 “Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The
one I will kiss is the man; arrest him.’ At once he came
up to Jesus and said, ‘Greetings, Rabbi!’ and kissed
him” (Matthew 26:48-9).
 When Judas saw Jesus condemned, he repented,
brought back the silver, and hanged himself.
20. Peter’s denial of Christ
 “Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I tell you, this very night,
before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.’
Peter said to him, ‘Even though I must die with you, I
will not deny you.’ And so said all the disciples”
(Matthew 26:34-5).
 “A servant-girl came to [Peter] and said, ‘You also were
with Jesus the Galilean.’ But he denied it before all of
them…” (Matthew 26:69-70).
 “…even the Prince/ of the Apostles so long since/ had
been forgiven, and to convince/ all the assembly/ that
‘Deny deny deny’/ is not all the roosters cry” (Elizabeth
Bishop, “Roosters”).
21. Pilate
 “So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but
rather that a riot was beginning, he took some
water and washed his hands before the crowd,
saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it
yourselves.’” (Matthew 27:24).
 Bloody/dirty hands become associated with guilt.
 Macbeth, after killing Duncan: “Will all great
Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/ clean from my
hand?” (2.2.57-8).
 Lady Macbeth, washing her hands while
sleepwalking
22. The crucifixion
 Jesus was crucified at Golgotha, and his cross
was carried there by a man named Simon.
 “They stripped him, and put a scarlet robe on
him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown,
they put it on his head” (Matthew 27:28-9).
 “From noon on, darkness came over the whole
land until three in the afternoon. And about three
o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, … ‘My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”
(Matthew 27:45-6).
Andrew Lansdown,
“Golgotha”
Finally, one arrives at the place
Of the skull because there is nowhere
Else to go. And there before the face
Of bone one pauses to despair.
The culmination of all evil
Is displayed before one’s eyes:
Man’s heart conspired with the devil
And cared little for disguise.
23. Resurrection
 Before his death, Jesus predicted that he would be
crucified and would rise again three days later.
 “‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is
not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you,
while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must
be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the
third day rise again.’” (Luke 24:5-7).
 “May then sins sleep, and deaths soon from me pass,/
That waked from both,/ I again risen may/ Salute the
last, and everlasting day” (John Donne,
“Resurrection”).
24. Apocalypse
 The Book of Revelations, the final book of the New
Testament, describes the second coming of Christ and
the “Apocalypse” or end of the world.
 Many works of literature (and movies) refer to images
found in this book, like the four horsemen or the last
trumpet.
 This is where Christ is referred to as Alpha and Omega
(the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet): “‘I am
the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is
and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev.
1:8); “Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha
and the Omega, the beginning and the end’” (Rev.
21:5).
Allusions from Classical
Mythology
 Some key stories to know from ancient
Greek and Roman mythology
 Some important characters to recognize
 A few examples of works of literature in
which allusions to these can be found
1. Prometheus
 Prometheus, a Titan, created man out of earth,
in the image of the gods.
 Prometheus brought fire to man by lighting his
torch at the chariot of the sun (with help from
Athena).
 He was punished by Zeus by being chained to
a rock, where a vulture perpetually ate his liver.
 “Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,/ Wilt thou
withstand the shock?/ And share with him - the
unforgiven-/ His vulture and his rock?” (Lord
Byron, “Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte”).
2. Persephone
 Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, and
she was abducted by Hades and taken to the underworld to
be his wife.
 Demeter sought her daughter everywhere and, once she
learned where Persephone had been taken, begged Zeus to
intervene and force her return.
 Zeus agreed that she should be returned, on the condition
that she had not eaten anything during her stay in the
underworld.
 Unfortunately, Persephone had eaten a few pomegranate
seeds, and so a compromise was reached; she was to
spend half the year with her mother and the other half in the
underworld with her husband.
 This story is used to explain the changing of seasons.
During the winter months, Demeter punishes the earth with
winds and cold, and when her daughter returns, she
unleashes the beauty of spring.
3. Perseus and Medusa
 Medusa was a Gorgon, a group
of monstrous women with
snakes for hair, whose gaze had
the power to turn men to stone.
 Perseus, who was a son of Zeus (conceived when he
impregnated Danae with a ray of light), killed Medusa
by using his shield to reflect her gaze, and then used
her head as a weapon in his further battles.
 Pegasus, a winged horse, was created by Medusa’s
blood sinking into the earth after Perseus cut off her
head.
 Perseus married Andromeda, who he rescued from a
sea monster.
4. Jason & the Argonauts
 Jason took a crew of fifty men (called Argonauts after
their ship, the Argo) on a quest for the Golden Fleece,
which eventually led them to Colchis.
 Medea, the daughter of the King, who was also a
sorceress, helped Jason complete the quest, and in
exchange he promised to marry her.
 After she killed his uncle, Jason had Medea
imprisoned, and, as revenge, she killed their children
and fled to Athens.
 Her story is told in Euripides’ Medea. In addition, the
cauldron and chants of the witches in Macbeth can be
read as an allusion to Medea and her spells.
5. The labours of Hercules
 Hercules was another son of Zeus and a
mortal woman, so Hera hated him from his
birth.
 She sent two serpents to destroy him in his
cradle, but he strangled them with his hands,
an early sign of his great strength.
 Hercules was forced to perform twelve
impossible labours, such as killing the Nemean
lion and the Hydra, and he completed them all.
6. Minos, Theseus, Icarus
 Minos, King of Crete, had a monster called a Minotaur,
which was kept in a labyrinth designed by Dædalus.
 Theseus slew the Minotaur and found his way out of the
labyrinth by following a thread he had unraveled on the way
in.
 When Dædalus lost the favour of King Minos, he was locked
up in a tower. To escape, he made wings, which were held
together with wax, for himself and his son Icarus, and
warned his son not to fly too close to the sun.
 Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax melted, and he fell
into the sea and drowned.
 “with melting wax and loosened strings/ Sunk hapless Icarus
on unfaithful wings…” (Erasmus Darwin).
 “And, like Icarus, the rocket foolishly soared too high…”
(Kent Brockman, The Simpsons).
Allusions to Icarus
This painting, “The Fall of Icarus,” is by 16th-century Dutch painter
Pieter Brueghel, and is the subject of two poems in The Broadview
Anthology: “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by William Carlos
Williams (p. 436), and “Musee des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden (p.
553).
7. Orpheus & Eurydice
 Orpheus was a renowned musician, the son of Apollo and
the Muse Calliope.
 His wife, Eurydice, died shortly after their wedding, and
Orpheus went to the underworld to find her.
 He charmed the inhabitants of Hades with his music, and
was permitted to take Eurydice away with him on the
condition that he not turn to look at her until they had
reached the world above.
 Orpheus glanced behind him, and Eurydice was lost forever.
 “But soon, too soon the lover turns his eyes;/ Again she
falls, again she dies, she dies!” (Alexander Pope, “Ode to
St. Cecilia’s Day”).
 Orpheus died when he was torn apart by women observing
the Bacchanalian feast. They left only his head and his lyre.
8. The Trojan War
 This war between the Greeks and the Trojans began over
Helen of Troy, who was supposedly the most beautiful
woman in the world (“the face that launched a thousand
ships” – Marlowe, Doctor Faustus).
 Helen was married to Menelaus, the king of Sparta, and was
taken away by Paris, son of Priam, the king of Troy.
 All of the gods were involved in this war – Aphrodite on the
side of the Trojans, and Athena and Hera on the side of the
Greeks, among others.
 The “Trojan Horse” incident occurred during this war.
 Some key characters to know: Achilles (and his heel),
Agamemnon, Hector, Paris
 The story of the Trojan War is most famously told in
Homer’s Iliad.
9. The travels of Odysseus
 Odysseus (or Ulysses) fought in the Trojan
War, and afterwards had many adventures
trying to make his way back home to Ithaca.
 His story is told in Homer’s Odyssey.
 Key characters to know: Penelope – his wife,
who had to hold off suitors for a total of 20
years while waiting for her husband’s return,
Telemachus – his son, the Cyclops, the Sirens,
who tempt men to their deaths with singing
 Tennyson – “Ulysses”
 Margaret Atwood – “Siren Song”
10. Aeneas and Dido
 Aeneas also fought in the Trojan War.
 He was destined to found the city of Rome, so
his love affair with Dido, the Queen of
Carthage, ended in tragedy when he left, called
by the god Mercury, and she stabbed herself
on her already-lit funeral pyre.
 His story is chronicled in Virgil’s Aeneid, which
famously begins “I sing of arms and the man”
(alluded to in the title of Wilfred Owen’s WWI
poem, “Arms and the Boy”).
11. Oedipus and his family
 It was prophesied by the Delphic Oracle that Oedipus
would marry his mother (Jocasta) and kill his father
(Laius) and, although he tried to run away, he
unwittingly did just that.
 After they realized what they had done, Jocasta killed
herself and Oedipus blinded himself.
 His younger daughter, Antigone, took care of him until
his death, and then became the subject of her own
tragedy when she buried her brother Polyneices
against the wishes of the king, Creon, her uncle.
 The story of the “House of Thebes” is most famously
told in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonnus,
and Antigone (collectively referred to as the Theban
plays).
Other sources for GrecoRoman mythology
 There are countless other Greek and
Roman myths which are the subject of
literary allusions.
 For further reading, consult:
 Bulfinch’s Mythology (online at
www.bulfinch.org)
 Edith Hamilton - Mythology
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses