1(2)2016+.pdf


On the Ludic Character
of Literary Allusion

The view that literary allusion is closely associated withthe notions of game and playing has long been
established, the ludic aspect of alluding being acknowledged
by a number of scholars1. Indicative of the ludic component
enclosed in allusion is the etymology of the word (alludere;
lus = play) too. However, the stating of the above is not
sufficient unless the nature of such a game is disclosed, in
other words, the key concepts by means of which it is defined
are presented and the constant characteristics are specified.

To start with, central to literary allusion as a textual
phenomenon is the so-called hermeneutical dialogue between
text and reader, in which the potential of game is realized due

to an interaction between the horizons of text and reader, which Gadamer calls ‘fusion
of horizons’2, and in which the role of reader’s interpretive effort is essential. Moreover,
literary allusion provides more complex and at times intricate possibilities for
interpretive unfolding as it is not confined to one text only and, using Schaar’s vivid
description, “layers of infracontexts fan out underneath one another”3. Being a complex
sign of double (and at times of multiple) textual reference and having the power of
relating texts4, literary allusion occurs in the centre of another dialogue: intertextual,
which makes the role of powerful reader more meaningful, and therefore, the
hermeneutical situation richer. In other words, literary allusion is constituted in and
through interpretation and acquires hermeneutical value. The latter, as it will be shown
below, is decisive in defining the nature of the game in which the reader is involved.

It can hardly be argued that the expanse of playing and games is immense: it ranges
from children’s games to intellectual contests, etc. On the other hand, despite the vast
variety of forms, this sphere of human activity should have general characteristics,
which stand through all the possible manifestations inasmuch as the desire to play and
the faculty for creating new play-forms are existentially indispensable to human nature.

That playing is a necessity and, as such, permeates culture is best illustrated by
Huizinga, some of whose observations prove helpful in this attempt to define the ludic
character of literary allusion. Proceeding from the standpoint that the notion of playing
is beyond the polarization of such concepts as truth and falsehood, good and evil, etc.,
as well as seeing no controversy between playing and the serious, Huizinga considers
playing as a self-sufficing and temporary activity whose aim is playing itself5. On this

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Armenian Folia Anglistika Linguistics

Gayane Girunyan