But all of that is only true if readers are familiar with the allusion.

This is one of the costs of declining cultural literacy and rebellions against ‘tradition’ -- it culls powerful weapons, both intellectual and emotional, from any author’s repertoire. —[substack.com/@scholarst…]

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I felt something similar when I was writing my piece about Robert Moses and The Power Broker [[maximumnewyork.com/p/mo…]].

I reference The New York Times Book Review, which reviewed TPB when it came out in 1974. The image that dominated the display in the paper was of three figures being ensnared by highways, with Robert Moses floating above it all on a cloud.

This is a direct reference the statute of Laocoön and His Sons, which depicts the horrible demise of a Trojan priest and his two sons by sea serpents. Like many Roman/Greek stories, this one has multiple origins, including Virgil’s Aeneid. But the basic idea is the same: a horrible end. Serpents that both constrict and bite. Poison and bone crushing. A father watching his sons perish before him. With Robert Moses, like a god in Athenian fashion, hovering above it all in sanction.

That is quite the comparison to make to New York City and Robert Moses’s highways, and it does not land if the viewer doesn’t have the context of the allusion.