The Power of Allusion

"Eliot's allusions work when we know them - and to a great extent even when we do not know them, through their suggestive power."
~Wimsatt and Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy"

I remember AP English with Mrs. Jacomme. You were crazy if you took the class, and even crazier if you didn't. I remember reading James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" three times to finally figure out what was going on. We read poetry, such as Coolridge's "Kubla Khan" and Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." And I loved reading all of it. I loved the music of the lines and how the words ran out of my mouth, over my lips, ringing into the silent air. But I didn't understand them. Charlie, the obvious genius of the class, knew every allusion, and voiced each one, making Mrs. Jacomme quite proud, and people like me - who didn't even realize there were allusions at all - feel quite stupid.

Now a senior in college, I have begun to internalize the obvious allusions found in poetry and prose alike. And I thought that you really had to know what all the allusions meant. It adds layers to the poetry and prose that would not be there if we did not pick up on the author's allusions. But, Wimsatt and Beardsley say they can work just on their suggestive power alone. How can this be? Does that mean I can forget all the allusions I have labored to "remember" and just let the poem speak to me on its suggestive power alone? I wonder...

I want to connect this to Eliot's "The Waste Land." First off, I again loved reading the poem, even though upon first reading, I had no idea what was going on. But as I started to study it and to look up commentaries on the poem, I realized that it was rich in all the allusions you could possibly dream of, allusions from Dante, Homer, Milton, Shakespeare. The list goes on. But I would not know half of these if I didn't have the commentaries. But were they still suggestive to me, as Wimsatt and Beardsley say? I think I was perceptive enough to realize that the ideas were rich in meaning, but there was nothing deeper than that. I only picked up on the allusions I knew previously, but it took me going to outside sources to figure out about 90% of the other allusions. And this means I'm going outside the poem. Which means the poem, at least for me, is not "speaking for itself" as the Formalists wanted. But is that my fault, or theirs?

The Formalists (and Eliot) believed that the poet was first a reader and then a poet. So, if you were truly "educated," you would most likely understand each and every allusion in "The Waste Land," because you would have read everything that he alludes to. You have internalized every piece of literature, every subtlety and nuance of the classic writers. The poem speaks for itself only because you have been a reader, not because you can understand the poem on your first try, with absolutely no knowledge of anything but the lines in front of you. So I think suggestive power is out of the question. How can allusions have suggestive power, unless we make up our own meanings for the allusions? And how could one possible find all of Eliot's allusions unless they spend countless hours reading his work and then reading anything that would possibly hint at the allusions Eliot wanted? We have all these commentaries and notes because people did just that... searched for Eliot's meanings though his allusions. And we, the students, could not survive without them. But again, that means we have to go outside the poem, and the allusions are not speaking for themselves. And doesn't this go against the whole of Formalist philosophy in the first place?

I will agree that allusions obviously add tremendous depth to a piece of literature. Without them, we wouldn't be able to even attempt understanding of the poem. And in some cases, the allusions (because they are so well known), speak for themselves. But in other cases, the obscure allusions cause us to miss the meaning and therefore go outside the poem. And Wimsatt and Beardsley acknowledge this, admitting that "it may be questioned whether the notes [or commentaries, etc.] and the need for them are not equally muffling." For again, that means that the poem cannot truly stand on its own.

Did I like reading Eliot? Yes, I loved it. Did I understand it? On the most obvious level, yes. Did I truly understand it all, as the poem stood on its own? Most decidedly, no. But then again, does that mean I just have to read more??