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Definition of Allusion
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals, historical events, or philosophical ideas... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Classical Allusion:
In Chapter 1, when Lord Henry first introduces Dorian, and the reader, to his take on hedonism, he references the ancient Hellenic, or Greek, world:
I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be.
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Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Classical Allusion:
In Chapter 1, when Lord Henry first introduces Dorian, and the reader, to his take on hedonism, he references the ancient Hellenic, or Greek, world:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be.
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Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Bacchus and Silenus:
The Portrait of Dorian Gray is chock full of metaphors for the power of language—language as sweet music, language as poison, or language as intoxicating drug. In one striking example, Wilde combines allusion with metaphor to convey the alluring power of Lord Henry’s philosophy as he characterizes it at a party:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled before her like frightened forest things. Her white feet trod the huge press at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round her bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over the vat’s black, dripping, sloping sides.
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Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Shakespeare:
Wilde makes ample allusions to Shakespeare and his plays in Dorian Gray. This is unsurprising, given the emphasis the book places on the enjoyment of the arts and the titular character's particular enthusiasm for theater. Perhaps the most significant allusion is to Shakespeare's most famous play, Romeo and Juliet, which occurs during Dorian's courtship of the actress Sybil Vane:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Yet she was curiously listless. She showed no sign of joy when her eyes rested on Romeo. The few words she had to speak [...] were spoken in a thoroughly artificial manner. The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view of tone it was absolutely false. It was wrong in color. It took away all the life from the verse. It made the passion unreal.
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Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Huysmans' Against Nature:
A turning point in The Picture of Dorian Gray occurs when Dorian Gray reads the "poisonous book" sent to him by Lord Henry. Although specific details on the book are vague, Wilde alludes to the notorious French novel Against Nature. Wilde remarks that it has been written in a “curious jewelled style” from the French “school of Symbolists”:
Unlock with LitCharts A+There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in colour. The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical philosophy. One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner […] The heavy odour of incense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain. The mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music […] produced in the mind of the lad […] a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of the falling day and creeping shadows.
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Chapter 13
Explanation and Analysis—The Lord's Prayer:
In The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Wilde uses Biblical allusion to appeal to the supposedly moralizing power of Christianity. Basil Hallward, as a believer in Dorian’s humanity and his potential for redemption despite his obvious sin, invokes the Lord’s Prayer when he discovers what has become of Dorian’s portrait:
Unlock with LitCharts A+"Pray, Dorian, pray," he murmured. "what is it that one was taught to say in one's boyhood? 'Lead us not into temptation. Forgive us our sins. Wash away our iniquities.' Let us say that together. The prayer of your pride has been answered. The prayer of your repentance will be answered also."
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