8043214805 | All the world's a stage | reducing the life of human beings to a performance | 0 | |
8043214809 | Byronic | romantic poet; dark, moody, mysterious | 1 | |
8043214811 | Camelot | kingdom of King Arthur; represents a land of fantasy | 2 | |
8043214815 | Don Quixote | insane Spanish character who believes he's a knight; consequences aren't accounted for | 3 | |
8043214816 | Don Juan | Spanish character (man) obsessed with seducing women; thought he could escape death and pay for sins later | 4 | |
8043214817 | Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde character; narcissist who committed each sin to see how it affected him; avoiding death | 5 | |
8043214818 | Excalibur | King Arthur's sword, given to him to become King; whoever has it has the kingdom and power | 6 | |
8043214822 | Galahad | Arthurian knight of the round table, known for purity and gallantry; euphemism for virginity | 7 | |
8043214823 | Gauntlet | insulting challenge in medieval times; "running the gauntlet" means going through a challenge | 8 | |
8043214827 | Hatfields and McCoys | two families in the Appalachian mountains known for bitter feuds; similar to Romeo and Juliet | 9 | |
8043214835 | Lemmings | type of rodent that commits mass suicide; describes a person who follows people without question | 10 | |
8043214836 | Lilliputians | "Gulliver's Travel" tiny characters; someone or something that is small, irrelevant, or petty | 11 | |
8043214837 | Lothario | a guy who is a womanizer, selfish with his sexual relations with women | 12 | |
8043214838 | Machiavellian | Nicola Machiavelli's "The Prince" theory; holding onto power, better to be feared than loved | 13 | |
8043214839 | Malaprop | the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar, creating a humorous effect | 14 | |
8043214841 | "Marriage of true minds" | Shakespeare; a love that goes beyond a spiritual connection | 15 | |
8043214843 | Modest Proposal | Jonathon Swift's book about Irish Famine; a satirical work about how the way the saving their country is eating babies | 16 | |
8043214847 | "Out, Damned Spot!" | Shakespeare's "Macbeth"; when Lady Macbeth can't wash away blood stains from the murders they commit; referencing how one cannot escape their actions | 17 | |
8043214849 | Pavlovian | Ivan Pavlov's theory; reflexive and unconscious response to a stimulus | 18 | |
8043214851 | Poetic Justice | outcome in which bias is punished and virtue rewarded, usually in an ironically appropriate manner | 19 | |
8043214852 | "Pound of flesh" | Shakespeare; something that is owed and ruthlessly required to pay back | 20 | |
8043214853 | Primrose Path | Shakespeare's "Hamlet"; a path of ease, or of least resistance, which probably leads to downfall | 21 | |
8043214859 | "Sound and Fury" | Shakespeare's "Macbeth"; an uproar of little importance | 22 | |
8043214860 | Svengali | someone who exercises excessive control or influence over another person | 23 | |
8043214862 | "The best of all possible worlds" | Voltare; satire that is used to represent the benefits of widely different situations | 24 | |
8043214865 | Uncle Tom | "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; a black person who is eager to win the approval of white people and willing to cooperate with them; betrayal of social allegiances | 25 | |
8043214867 | Waterloo | battle between the French and English which ended Napoleon's rule; a defeat that is impossible to recover from | 26 | |
8043214868 | Yahoo | an imaginary race from "Gulliver's Travels"; a rude or violent person | 27 |
AP Literature: Literary Allusions Flashcards
Primary tabs
Need Help?
We hope your visit has been a productive one. If you're having any problems, or would like to give some feedback, we'd love to hear from you.
For general help, questions, and suggestions, try our dedicated support forums.
If you need to contact the Course-Notes.Org web experience team, please use our contact form.
Need Notes?
While we strive to provide the most comprehensive notes for as many high school textbooks as possible, there are certainly going to be some that we miss. Drop us a note and let us know which textbooks you need. Be sure to include which edition of the textbook you are using! If we see enough demand, we'll do whatever we can to get those notes up on the site for you!