I've just encountered yet another allusion to "the owl of Minerva flying at dusk", which comes from the philosopher Hegel.
I wonder how often the person making this allusion has actually read Hegel?
I've never read Hegel myself. Well, I did read about five or ten pages of one of his books once, and then gave it up a hopeless cause. (Or perhaps I gave up on myself as a hopeless case?)
I think we should start promoting this principle: you shouldn't make a literary allusion unless you've read the actual work it's taken from.
So no more "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here" unless you've read Dante's Inferno. And no more "Midway upon the journey of life...", either.
No more "Fail again. Fail better", unless you've read the actual work by Samuel Beckett from which this flogged-to-death line taken. (I don't know which this is and I'm pretty sure I haven't read it, whatever it is.)
No more "rosy-fingered dawn" unless you've read Homer.
No more "Kafkaesque" unless you've read at least one novel or short story by Kafka.
Lest it should be thought that I'm conferring a privilege on the well-read, I think all these quotations are pretentious and corny at this stage, and are best avoided by everybody anyway. If you're going to make a literary reference, make an original literary reference. Don't go with the tried and tested. Whether it comes from Yeats or Barbara Cartland, it would at least be original. (I hope you're not thinking: "A poor thing but mine own.")
No comments:
Post a Comment