The Full-Knowing Reader

Literary allusions abound in Western literature, and those who study them tend to focus on the authors intentions to demonstrate erudition, embellish meaning, or exert control over tradition. In this original and illuminating bookthe first full-scale consideration of literary allusion in any languageJoseph Pucci contends that the key to grasping the meaning of an allusive text is in the hands of the "full-knowing" reader. Pucci shows how allusion authorizes the desires of such a readerone who is active, engaged, and historically sensitiveat the expense of the author. He considers allusiveness in an array of ancient, medieval, and modern texts by authors as diverse as Homer, Virgil, Catullus, Augustine, Abelard, Dante, Goethe, Baudelaire, and Pound. Pucci begins with a discussion of modern and contemporary debates about allusions function; offers a fresh definition of allusion that emphasizes readerly desire and the manifold meanings occasioned in allusions best function; and considers ancient and medieval evidence of readerly power. Although Greeks and Romans described allusion in the context of a powerful reader, Pucci finds that allusion became a legitimated mode of literary discourse only after early Christian readers became meaning- makers, empowered to make sense of dissonant passages of Scripture. In a concluding chapter the author contemplates hypertext and allusion in other media.