Yesterday I mentioned Robert Frost's poem Nothing Gold Can Stay. When I discussed this poem in my classroom a few days ago, I took the opportunity to introduce the literary term "allusion".
As I suspected, the word was unfamiliar to the students, so I explained that an allusion is when an author references some famous person, place, or event but does not explain its relevance because he or she assumes the audience already has the knowledge and can make the connection.
The obvious allusion in Nothing Gold Can Stay is to "Eden":
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
When I started the lesson, I was curious as to how many students might not get the allusion because they did not know of the Garden of Eden. I was thinking of a day about ten years earlier in this same school when I was shocked to find a single sophomore student who had never heard of "Adam and Eve"! What would I find among my current 8th graders?
Sadly, after our discussion in class, I would guess around 50% did not seem to recognize either "The Garden of Eden" or "Adam and Eve"!
I explained to the class that if you don't get an allusion, you are missing out on some part of the message.
But in my heart I was thinking, "If an individual is so ignorant of the Bible as to not even get a reference to Eden, misinterpreting a line of poetry is likely the least of his problems."
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