Robert Cohen: “Refer Madness”: Writing in an Age of Allusion (July 2012)

In this lecture, Robert Cohen considers the dilemma faced by contemporary fiction writers seeking to create work not reliant on allusion or reference. Using as a jumping-off point Franz Kafka’s short story, “The Wish to be a Red Indian,” Cohen discusses reference and allusion in Joyce’s Dubliners, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and William Gaddis’s The Recognitions. Cohen demonstrates how difficult it is for contemporary writers to avoid these stratagems, but argues that therein lies opportunity for new kinds of creativity.