The Count of Monte Cristo | Classical Allusion in The Count of Monte Cristo
In the following essay, McDermott examines specific classical allusions in The Count of Monte Cristo, including references to the story of “Pyramus and Thisbe,” and Virgil’s “Dido.”
The pages of The Count of Monte Cristo are dotted with classical allusions, little markers of the regimen of voracious reading which the previously little-lettered Dumas had undertaken at the onset of his literary career. To cite only a sample of close to a hundred such allusions, reference is made at one time or another in the novel to aspects of Plutarch, Martial, Pliny, Caesar, Cornelius Nepos, Ennius, and Pindar. Gods, mythological figures, and figures from history or historical legend abound, from Jupiter to Hebe, from Tantalus, Icarus, and Omphale to Curtius, Nero, and...
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