Intertextual references are heavy
Every allusion drags its whole constellation behind it; keep one or two that do real work.
On this page
When you allude to another text you don't borrow only its useful idea — you hitch your essay to everything that text drags behind it. An intertextual reference is a very weighty move: the source arrives hitched to its whole constellation of associations.
The baggage
An essay by Justin, a writer in our community, stacked the Ship of Theseus, Aristotle's four causes, and Borges's Library of Babel — each invoked for one point but importing a cloud of unaddressed associations. The Ship of Theseus specifically means a body changing over time, which wasn't quite the question Justin needed it for.
Done right
The contrast is George Saunders: the Bhagavad Gita allusion in his essay "The Braindead Megaphone" earns its place because it does structural work, casting the narrator as a guide who then admits he has become one of the very voices he is criticizing.
You don't just do it and then drop it.
Try it
- Cap yourself at one or two references, and make each do real work — bridging you and the reader, not advertising your reading.
- Before keeping a reference, name the associations it imports that you are not addressing.
- A reference is a metaphor's heavier cousin; hold it to the same test.