Editing Allusion (section)

==Examples==
In [[Homer]], brief allusions could be made to mythic themes of generations previous to the main narrative because they were already familiar to the epic's hearers: one example is the theme of the [[Calydonian Boar|Calydonian boarhunt]]. In [[Hellenistic]] Alexandria, literary culture and a fixed [[literary canon]] known to readers and hearers made a densely allusive poetry effective; the poems of [[Callimachus]] offer the best-known examples.

[[Martin Luther King Jr.]], alluded to the [[Gettysburg Address]] in starting his "[[I Have a Dream]]" speech by saying "Five score years ago..."; his hearers were immediately reminded of [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s "Four score and seven years ago", which opened the Gettysburg Address. King's allusion effectively called up parallels in two historic moments without overwhelming his speech with details.

A [[sobriquet]] is an allusion. By [[metonymy]] one aspect of a person or other referent is selected to identify it, and it is this shared aspect that makes a sobriquet evocative: for example, "the city that never sleeps" is a sobriquet of (and therefore an allusion to) New York.