我想讨论的，是文学作品里的用典，叫做 allusion。第一次接触这个单词，是在高中上英语文学課的时候。我不记得是哪一部作品了，但老师提及到 biblical allusion 这个修辞手法，意思是引用了《圣经》里面的内容或者文字。
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许多时候，文学作品里出现的典故，都是与基督教、希腊神话和莎士比亚作品有关的。
最近我读了一首艾略特（T S Eliot）的诗：The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock，里面就有许多这样的典故。

现在英语里通用的reference来自流行文化更多一点，不太像中文里大部分来自成百上千年前的经典著作，但是就算get不到本源，大部分reference最多就是稍微想一下就能知道想表达什么，不影响交流

应该说 就算是中文 我们也只掌握了家喻户晓的典故..
英文母语者也同理

不懂帮顶

国外的有些典故，感觉来源可靠性不可查，像是某个人编的一个故事，然后在一定范围内流传，知名度一般。查询来源是，一般会提供好几个可能性，这可能就是没有历史文献记载的缘故，依靠口口相传。

或许现在用AI 查就可以了。
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前两天我还跟朋友解释 野人献曝。这成语现在是用来自谦，或者嘲笑别人。但我的意思并非这两者之一。

中文里面用来创造最多成语的人大概是 祢衡

比起当年，现在学习英语文学应该容易得多，因为网上有不少资料，还有解说的视频。然而，过于依赖科技，就会削弱了自身的赏析能力，也少了乐趣。
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就拿我说的这首 Love Song 做个例子吧！当中有以下一段：
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
这几行诗给我的第一个感觉就像《圣经》中一卷叫做《传道书》里面说的万物皆有定时。我看了一个视频，博主没有提及，要在另外一个博主的视频里才印证了我的想法。
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这首诗里还有其他基督教的典故，包括：
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet ...
这里提到的是被斩首的先知 ”施洗约翰“。
以及：
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
这里提及的是被接到天上去享福的乞丐 ”拉撒路“。

另外一个典故的来源是莎翁的剧作，其中比较明显的是《哈姆雷特》。诗里有一段如下：
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

有一个大学讲师说过：Poetry is the most challenging kind of literary writing. In your first readiing, you may well not understand what the poem is about. Don't jump too swiftly to any conclusions about the poem's meaning.
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别人的解说可以用作参考，但不代表可以照单全收，拾人牙慧。比方说，诗里有一段描写大雾的：
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
不少分析说这是拟人法（personification），但这里形容的是一头猫的样子，所以我认为是 zoomorphism。

我遇到英语问题都是问我女儿…