John Foster's Allusion

Just as how Foster proved his claim that every literary piece is a spinoff of Shakespeare’s works in Chapter 6, Foster shows how every literary work has biblical allusions by showing how biblical allusions are utilized for different purposes. He continues this claim by connecting poetry, modern texts, postmodern texts, plays, nonreligious texts and many more to the Bible. He proves this by providing examples such as a scene in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) where the characters view four white men riding on horses on the road. However, Foster claims this scene as an allusion to Judgement Day which is what the author intended. Foster proves this allusion by the diction of the text. By saying the four are “horsemen” not rides or men and the fact one of the horseman’s descriptions is similar to the fourth horseman in Revelation which is from the Bible. This example shows how much the allusion changes the depth of the text. Without the reference to the Bible, ordinary readers and even the characters would view the four men as ordinary men riding on horses. However, with the addition of the allusion to the Bible, readers will now view the scene as Judgement Day and draw conclusions upon the …show more content…
This other side of authors claims to only want a title that generalizes the meaning within the text. There are multiple actual examples in the past such as Tim Park’s Tongues of Flame and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Foster brings a hypothetical situation where the text overall is about hopelessness and the monotone routine of life. Foster concludes this broad description and references Ecclesiastes which has the same general meaning as well. These examples prove to show how Bible references do not have to be enriching figurative language within the text, but more of just a title to overarch the meaning of the