A literary allusion is a reference to a famous piece of literature with which the literate, cultured reader is expected to be familiar. Examples of this from the play MacBeth by William Shakespeare would be well known titles such as, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, and ‘Out, Out’ by Robert Frost. One might guess that these writers chose to use a literary allusion from MacBeth to give greater meaning to his respective …showed first 75 words of 439 total…

…showed last 75 words of 439 total…common theme: Death. Frost is possibly trying to draw on the idea that the boy’s life was short and now he has passed into oblivion, just like Lady MacBeth. A friend recently made the connection between the MacBeth quote and Beowulf. Beowulf had similar views on life and death. That story stated that life was like a sparrow’s flight through a warm mead hall, and then it returned to the cold, bitter world.