Sunday, August 22, 2010

It's an allusion!

Resolve the paradox of this poem by identifying the allusion.
IN THE GARDEN
by Anonymous

In the garden there strayed
A beautiful maid
As fair as the flowers of the morn;
The first hour of her life
She was made a man's wife,
And was buried before she was born.
Do you recognize the allusion?

Oh, you want me to define allusion?  Okay, an allusion is a reference to a literary work, person, place, or event.  Allusion is a means of suggesting far more than it actually says.  This picture is a visual allusion to another part of the same story.

I ran across my old copy of Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry, Second Edition, by Laurence Perrine, 1963.  My notes in the book show that we discussed this poem in my college English class on March 28, 1966.
__________
I posted this on my Bonnie's Books blog a couple of months ago and intended to cross-post it here.  I guess I forgot.

No comments: