The politics of classical allusion at the end of the eighteenth century: radical or redundant?

Abstract

My epigraphs offer a stark contrast in their basic assumptions about the place of classical allusion in eighteenth century writing. The second, published only last year in a series devoted to classical reception, implies that allusion – whether conscious or unconscious – is always ‘significant’; the first, fifteen years old and from the first number of the International Journal of the Classical Tradition, suggests that it is largely incidental and superficial. To be fair to Kennedy, the passage quoted above comes from an abbreviated history of classicism from the Hellenistic period to the twentieth century which could not be expected to offer a nuanced account of the nature of classical allusion in the various periods it discusses; but the basic question remains: is classical allusion in the eighteenth century ornamental or essential?