Literary allusions impress and annoy readers

Few writing problems require more understanding of one’s audience than the art of making literary allusions.

If the writer wants to refer to a person who seems to be measuring out his life in coffeespoons, he must know if his readers will take the words for his own and be mistakenly impressed.

Yet other readers may respond by calling the writer a thief because he quotes T.S. Eliot’s words without referring to him or even using quotation marks.