AP Lit Allusions # 1-15

Pound of flesh (how it is used/defined today)

Describes someone’s insisting on being repaid, even if the repayment will destroy or harm the debtor.

Pound of flesh (background info)

shakespeares merchant of venice

shaylock a moneylender

pound of Antonios flesh

ships are lost at sea

insists that he must have a pound of flesh as the contract demanded

Crossing the Rubicon (how it is used/defined today)

to ——- is to take an irreversible step, often involving some danger

Crossing the Rubicon (background info)

Julius Caesar

River

boundary

led his army across the river

no turning back

Rubicon

Achille’s Heel (how it is used/defined today)

Used to depict a persons particular vulnerability

Achille’s Heel (background info)

River styx

Immortality

heel

vulnerability

Greek mythology

Pearls before swine (how it is used/defined today)

to offer smth precious to someone, or a group of people, unable to appreciate the value of what they are being given

Pearls before swine (background info)

Sermon on the mount

Jesus

who would appreciate it

incapable of appreciating smth of value

Sacred cow (how it is used/defined today)

The idiom —— refers to smth that cannot be interfered with or harmed In any way

Sacred cow (background info)

Hinduism cows

sacred

not allowed to interfere with it

Once in a blue moon (how it is used/defined today)

It describes smth that happens very rarely

Once in a blue moon (background info)

second full moon within the same calendar month

approximately every 3 years

Sirens (how it is used/defined today)

Anything that tempts a person away from safety and toward a destructive path. A —— song is the temptation used to lure a person

Sirens (background info)

Greek mythology

sea creatures

beautiful irresistible song

lured sailors to their deaths on the rocky shores

Read the riot act (how it is used/defined today)

to issue a stern warning that if unacceptable behavior does not cease, severe consequences will follow

Read the riot act (background info)

English common law

read the riot act before action could be taken

Thirty pieces of silver / betrayed with a kiss (how it is used/defined today)

payment received for an act of treachery / a supposed friends treachery

Thirty pieces of silver / betrayed with a kiss (background info)

Bible

Judas

Disciple

Betray Jesus to the authorities

payment

identified jesus

kiss of identification

sound and fury (how it is used/defined today)

great passionate uproar that is actually unimportant or meaningless

sound and fury (background info)

In Shakespeares macbeth

signifying nothing

all that glitters is not gold (how it is used/defined today)

smth which appears valuable on the outside may in. fact be less than valuable. appearances can be deceptive

all that glitters is not gold (background info)

proverb

Aristotle

Mrs grundy (how it is used/defined today)

the word grudyism/ ——- refer to such an attitude of narrow minded prudishness

Mrs Grundy (background info)

speed the plough

play

narrow minded, conventional, prudish

what would mrs grundy say

ivory tower (how it is used/defined today)

a person who is secluded / protected from the real world and thus out of touch with reality is said to be residing in an ——

ivory tower (background info)

poet

fairy tales

unreachable place

come to have negative connotations

shut himself in an ivory tower so that he could compose

Gordian knot (how it is used/defined today)

any extremely complex problem, cutting —— refers to solving such a problem in a quick and decisive manner

Gordian knot (background info)

legend

greek king

oracle

Alexander the great

cutting through it with his sword

whoever untied it would rule all of Asia

extremely complex knot