When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.
Literary and Philosophical References
- Philoctetes (throughout)
- John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (II.ii.13; II.iii.15)
- Dante Alighieri, Inferno (X.ii.59; XIII.ii.74; XIII.iii.75)
- Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio (XIII.ii.74)
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest (VIII.ii.45)
- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (XIII.i.72)
- Myth of Sisyphus (XIII.ii.74)
- Homer, Iliad (throughout)
- Circe (XI.i.64; XVIII.i.96; XXIX.iii.155)
- Cyclops (II.ii.13; XIX.iii.102; LIX.iii.299)
- Judith 1.15 (XVIII.ii.97)
- Susanna (XVIII.ii.97)
- Harry H. Breen, St. Lucia: Historical, Statistical and Descriptive (XIX.i.99-100)
- William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1 (Mortimer and Glendower) (XIX.i.101)
- St. Lucy (XXIX.ii.154)
- Vladimir Mayakovsky,"A Cloud in Trousers" (XXXIII.i.170)
- John Milton, Paradise Lost (XXXIII.ii.172)
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick (XXXVI.i.184)
- Statue of Queen Boadicea or Boudicca (XXXVIII.ii.196)
- James Joyce, Ulysses (XXXIX.iii.200)
- James Joyce, Dubliners—"The Dead" (XXXIX.iii.201)
- Henry David Thoreau (XLI.iii.209)
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (XLI.iii.209)
- Transcendentalism (XLI.iii.209)
- Adam Zagajewski (XLII.i.212)
- Zbigniew Herbert (XLII.i.212)
- Czeslaw Milosz (XLII.i.212)
- Telemachus (LII.iii.263)
- The Judgment of Paris (LV.ii.275)
- Charon (LVII.i.285)
- Hephaestus (LVIII.i.289)
- Ogun (LVIII.i.289)
- Xenophon, Anabasis (LIX.ii.297)
Historical References
- Marcus Garvey (Chapter XIII)
- Battle of the Saints (throughout)
- Admiral George Rodney, The Marlborough (XV.i.84)
- Comte de Grasse, Ville de Paris (XV.ii.85, XV.iii.86)
- Battle of the Somme, World War I (XVI.i.87)
- The Anglo-Boer War, or the Second Boer War
- Battle of Agincourt (XVI.i.87)
- Zouaves (XVI.i.87)
- William Wilberforce (XXIX.iii.156)
- Hiroo Onoda (XXXIII.ii.171)
- Manifest Destiny (XXXIV.i.175)
- Catherine (or Caroline) Weldon (throughout)
- Trail of Tears (XXXV.i.177)
- Colonel (or Buffalo Bill) Cody's Circus (XXXV.ii.179)
- Pope Alexander VI and the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas (XXXVI.ii.191)
- The Troubles, Northern Ireland (XXXIX.i)
- The Ghost Dance (1890) (XLII.iii.213)
- Wounded Knee Massacre (XLII.iii.213)
Pop Culture References
- Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil (III.ii.18)
- The Beatles, "Yesterday" (VI.ii.34)
- Bob Marley, "Buffalo Soldier" (XXXI.i.161)
- Winslow Homer, "The Gulf Stream" (XXXVI.ii.185)
- Marcel Duchamp, "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors" (LX.iii.205)
- Dada (LX.iii.205)
- Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (LXI.i.304)
- William Etty (LXI.i.304)