• Allusion: an indirect or passing reference to some
event, person, place or artistic work, an economic
means of calling upon the history or the literary
tradition that author and reader are assumed to
share
• ⅠAllusions derived from Greek & Roman myth
• 1.
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Cupid/ Cupid’s bow: love
God of love in Roman mythology
Helen: an extremely beautiful
woman for who men would be
willing to fight and die
Daughter to Zeus and Leda, wife to
Menelaus, the king of Sparta, the
matchless beauty with “the face
that launched a thousand ships”
eloped with Paris , Prince of Troy,
which led to the Trojan War and
hence the destruction of Troy.
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Apollo: handsome man, perfect man
Greek god of sun, symbol of
rationality, intellect, justice,
creativity and beauty
• 4.
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Amazon: a strong, aggressive and
masculine woman
The Amazons were a tribe of warlike
women who had their right breasts
cut off to facilitate the drawing of a
bow.
• 4.
Prometheus: a creative and courageous man
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who defies authority
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Titan Prometheus stole fire from the gods and
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gave it to man. As punishment, Zeus chained
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him to a rock where an eagle tore out his
• liver by day; by night, it was restored so the torture could begin again.
• 5.
Pandora’s box: a source of troubles and disasters
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To punish Prometheus, Zeus sent him a mortal
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woman with a sealed box as a gift. Not able to
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contain her curiosity, she opened the box and out
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flew all the evils of mankind.
• 6. Achilles’ heel: a vulnerable point, a fatal
weakness
• The hero was invulnerable to mortal wounds
because his mother had dipped him as an infant
into the magical waters of the River Styx, except
for the heel by which his mother held him.
• 7. Pygmalion: one who creates or remakes another
person by teaching skills or accomplishments and then
falls in love with his or her protégé.
• Pygmalion was a sculptor who rejected the love of all
women and created a statue of the ideal woman with
whom he fell madly in love
• George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion and the musical
My Fair Lady both used the story.
• 8. Icarus: someone who disregard warnings and pays
the price for pride
• Daedalus, an artisan who constructed wings of wax
and feathers to escape from imprisonment warned
his son, Icarus, not to fly too high lest the sun would
melt the wax. Icarus ignored his father’s warning
and fell to his death.
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Odyssey: a long and complicated
journey, be it physical, mental,
emotional or spiritual.
Odyssey, the title hero in Homer’s
epic poem, wandered for 10 years
before he could reach home after the
Trojan War.
Trojan Horse: sth or sb intended to
defeat or subvert from within
It was a strategy devised by the
Greeks to conquer the city of Troy.
• Ⅱ Allusions derived from the Bible
• 1
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Garden of Eden: an unspoiled, idyllic,
peaceful place
• 2
Adam and Eve: man’s ancestors
• 3.
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Noah’s Ark: a sanctuary, a safe
haven
• 4. Solomom: a wise man, a sage
• 5.
Judas: a traitor, a betrayer
• 6.
Last Supper: a farewell dinner
• 7. Ten Commandments: strict rules or orders
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1. Thou shalt have no other
gods but me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image.
3. Thou shalt not take the
name of the Lord thy God
in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath
day to make it holy.
5. Honor thy father and thy
mother.
• 7. Ten Commandments: strict rules or orders
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6. Thou shalt not murder.
7. Thou shalt not commit
adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false
witness.
10. Thou shalt not covet.
• 8. Judgment Day: the end of the world
• 9. Forbidden fruit: sth morally wrong, esp. sex
outside marriage
• 10. Tower of Babel: a confusion or scene of noisy
confusion of sounds and voices
• Ⅲ Allusions derived from the fairy tales,
Aesop’s fables and legends
• 1. Snow White/Sleeping Beauty/Cinderella /Beauty and the
Beast: a pretty girl whose kindness is rewarded in the end
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• 2.
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Pinocchio’s nose: an indicator of
falsehood
• 4.
Cry wolf: send out false alarm
• 5.
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Robin Hood: a heroic figure who
robs the rich to help the poor
• 6.
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Aladdin’s lamp: sth that can satisfy
all wishes and whims of mankind
• 7.
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Bell the cat: to do a daring or risky
deed
• 8. Midas touch: an uncanny ability for making money in
every venture, a golden touch
• 9. Sword of Damocles: an impending potential danger
• Damocles was invited to a banquet where he was seated
under a sword suspended by a strand of hair as a reminder
that people with power are in a similar precarious situation.
• 10. Emperor’s new clothes: something meaningless or
wrong that is automatically and uncritically agreed with
• Ⅳ Allusions derived from historical events
• 1.
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Cross the Rubicon: make an irrevocable
decision
Julius Caesar crossed the river, knowing
well that this step would mean civil war.
• 2. Pyrrhic victory: a victory won at excessive cost, a cost
that outweighs expected benefits
• Pyrrhic, the king of Epirus, defeated the Romans with heavy
losses.
• 3. Cut the Gordian knot: take decisive, swift action to
resolve a complicated problem once and for all
• The Gordian knot is an intricate knot and whoever
could undo it would rule all Asia. Many tried to untie
it but in vain until Alexander the Great cut the knot
with a single stroke of his sword.
• 4.
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Meet one’s waterloo: suffer a decisive
or final defeat or setback
Waterloo was the scene where
Napoleon was totally defeated by
Duke of Wellington.
• 5.
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Dunkirk: a retreat to avoid total defeat
or a crisis situation that requires a
desperate last effort to forestall failure
Dunkirk was the scene of the greatest
military evacuation in history. During
WWⅡ, 340,000 men were rescued
from the beach by allied ships while
under attack by Germans.
• 6.
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D-day: any beginning day of a major
event
June, 6, 1944 was the date when allies
forces launched a massive counterattack against Nazi German in
Normandy, France.
Pearl Harbor: a surprise attack
On Dec., 7, 1941, a Day of Infamy in
US history, Japanese forces
secretly attacked US naval base of
Pearl Harbor.
• 8. The Fifth Column: hidden traitors within an
organization
• In the Spanish Civil War, the fifth column referred
to a group of secret sympathizers or supporters of an
enemy that engage in espionage or sabotage within
the country.
• Ⅴ Allusions derived from the literary
works(titles, characters, quotations)
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1. Shakespeare’s works
Romeo and Juliet: devoted lovers
Hamlet: a melancholy and hesitant man
Much Ado About Nothing
All’s Well That Ends Well
2. Shakespeare’s characters
Shylock: a cruel, merciless loan shark (The Merchant of
Venice)
• Falstaff: a cheerful, sociable and mischievous man (Merry
Wives of Windsor and Henry Ⅳ)
• Iago: a villain (Othello)
• 3. Shakespeare’s quotations
• All the world’s a stage: all life is theater and we have to
play our part in it (As You Like It)
• All the world’s a stage,
• And all the men and women merely players;
• They have their exits and their entrances;
• And one man in his time play many parts….
• Sound and fury: great but meaningless noise (Macbeth)
• Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
• That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
• And then is heard no more; it is a tale
• Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
• Signifying nothing.
• 4.
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Don Quixote: a chivalrous man who is
romantically unrealistic and
unrealistically idealistic (Don Quixote
by Cervantes)
• 5.
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Don Juan: a womanizer, a libertine, a
lady-killer (Don Juan by Lord Byron)
• 6.
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Robinson Crusoe: a castaway living in
a isolated place (Robinson Crusoe by
Daniel Defoe)
Man Friday: an efficient and devoted
aide (ibid)
• 8.
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Uriah Heep: a fawning sycophant, a
unctuous hypocrite (David
Copperfield by Charles Dickens)
• 9.
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Mr. Micawber: a kindhearted,
incurable optimist (ibid)
• 10.
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Scrooge: a miser, a skinflint, a
cheapskate (A Christmas Carol by
Charles Dickens)
• 11.
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Mr. Pickwick: a fat, naïve, kindly,
cheerful man (Pickwick Papers by
Charles Dickens)
• 12.
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Jekyll and Hyde: one having a twosided personality, one side of which is
good, the other evil (The Strange Case
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert
Stevenson)
• 13.
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Frankenstein: one who creates and
is ultimately destroyed by a
technological marvel or scientific
advance (Frankenstein by Mary
Shelley)
• 14.
Faustian bargain: a bargain made
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for present gain without regard
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for future cost or consequences, a
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pact with the Devil– selling one’s
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soul in order to gain power,
knowledge, wealth, beauty or other desired goals (Faust
by Goethe)
• 15.
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Holden Caulfield: a teenager who is
repelled by the phoniness and
hypocrisy of the adult world (The
Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger)
• 16.
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Lolita: a precociously seductive girl
(Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov)
• 17.
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Main Street: an environment of
materialistic, complacent
provincialism (Main Street by
Sinclair Lewis)
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Walter Mitty: a hen-pecked
daydreamer who escapes boredom
by imagining himself in heroic
adventures (The Secret Life of
Walter Mitty by James Thurber)
Catch-22: an illogical,
unreasonable, senseless situation
(Catch-22 by Joseph Heller)
• 20.
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Shangri-la: a remote, beautiful, ]
peaceful place, a utopia (Lost
Horizon by James Hilton)