While there have been articles in the past that have discussed Woody Allen’s allusions to other modes of creative work, this census represents the first substantial listing of Allen’s literary, philosophical, and artistic allusions throughout his films, short fiction, and interviews. With all three of these source types included, there is an average of three to five sources for each five-year span of Allen’s almost 50 years of creative productivity (1965–2010), thus allowing this chart to provide a representative sketch of Allen’s familiarity with major writers, artists, and philosophers, and the works that they crafted. This census is meant to provide direct insight into both Allen’s creative process and his views concerning the meaning of life and the nature of the universe; it is therefore much more than an index of “buzz words” that have been collected from a broad spectrum of sources. This census will be a key resource to anyone – student, professor, or general moviegoer – who consults this Companion in order to understand the intellectually rich, highly original nature of Allen’s corpus of creative work. For instance, this list will allow those interested in Allen’s work to see that out of all nationalities of world literature, Allen thinks Russian novelists are the best, that he considers William Butler Yeats to be the greatest English-language poet since Shakespeare, or that he thinks Shakespeare’s plays are “dumb and bumpkin oriented” (Björkman 1993: 211, 200; Lax 2007: 85). This list, then – because it is meant to be representative rather than exhaustive – should be a means by which readers might gain insights into Allen’s artistic tastes and influences, or even the merits of different genres of creative activity (comedy vs. drama), without necessarily including every individual reference that Allen makes throughout the body of his work.

This census also offers a thorough and up-to-date bibliography of Allen’s major interviews, while exemplifying the wide array of publication types in which these interviews appear. It includes publications from such varied periodicals as Playboy, Rolling Stone, and Village Voice to Paris Review, Positif, and The New York Times. In addition, this bibliography contains major interviews from some of the more well-known collections, such as those by Stig Björkman (1993), Eric Lax (1975, 2007), Robert Kapsis and Kathie Coblentz (2006), and Richard Schickel (2003). The decision regarding which interviews would be included here rested upon a short series of considerations: the magazine or collection in which the interview was published, the country in which the interview originated, and the purpose the interview was meant to serve. Furthermore, there was a requirement that at least one major interview be included from each decade of Allen’s cinematic productivity. Since Allen has always engaged in a multitude of interviews for each film that he releases, an exhaustive listing of every interview Allen ever did would make this census unwieldy, while at the same time providing little improvement to the reference as a whole. Allen does not discuss literature, art, or philosophy in all of his interviews, just as all of his films do not include references to these subjects. Thus, the listing of interviews here is meant to be representative in much the same way as the listing of the allusions themselves.

In order to make this census both useful and manageable for Companion readers, I have used specific rules for defining which references should be included as significant allusions. First, for a reference to be included in this list, Allen’s quote from the original source must state more than merely the title of the work or the name of the writer or artist. The reference must offer at least a marginal amount of commentary about the work or author in question in order to prove that Allen knew about the writer or work on an intellectual rather than a popular culture level. Because of this restriction, some works that fans of Woody Allen might consider to be heavy in literary content, such as Bullets Over Broadway (1994), had most of their references excluded from this list, mainly because the references themselves were more like name-dropping than thoughtful commentary. Many of Allen’s allusions within his short fiction had to be overlooked for the same reason. One particular example is the story “Yes, But Can the Steam Engine Do This?” from Getting Even (1966), wherein Allen describes how the invention of the sandwich passed through a series of stages involving a number of historically important figures. However, for the most part, within this story he only gives the names of the figures themselves, with no indication of a deeper knowledge of the personality in question. Readers may also notice that some of Allen’s most important films are not represented in this census, such as The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and Broadway Danny Rose (1984). Simply put, the reason for these exclusions was that they lacked any allusions that fit the aforementioned criteria for this census.

In spite of the benefits that a work of this nature can provide, there are some problems that producing this type of census creates, and it will be helpful for readers to be aware of these issues when attempting to make sense of the allusions that follow. In general, when reading through this list readers should keep in mind the context of each quote or reference. The references from Allen’s interviews, which make up the majority of this listing, are typically straightforward and serious, meaning these references can typically be taken at face value. The movie and short fiction references, however, should be read with an understanding that much of what is listed is thoroughly tongue in cheek because the references themselves are typically rather silly. Yet, even the silliest references in this list in some way provide interesting or useful commentary upon the work or author in question, while also telling readers something about Allen himself. Still, it will be helpful to remember that while the interviews are a forum in which Allen notes his tastes and ideas at length, his thoughts in his films and short fiction are much more fleeting and lighthearted in nature.

Another key distinction between Allen’s interview references and those in his films and short fiction is that Allen himself may disagree with some of the claims made in the latter. In his interviews, Allen clearly states what he thinks is true and what he thinks is false or exaggerated in discussions of his favorite authors or works. In his movies and short fiction, however, the characters that Allen creates will often have a different view of life from that of the director and writer. Thus, viewers and readers should not always expect Allen to depict himself or his personal views in his films and short stories: some of the more parodic references may not necessarily make claims that Allen agrees with. For example, in the film Manhattan (1979), Diane Keaton’s character, Mary, mentions a short list of authors she refers to as “the academy of the overrated.” While Allen’s character Ike Davis immediately disagrees with Mary’s evaluation of these authors, it is unclear what Allen’s own personal opinion of these writers is. Another such example of this problem can be found under the listing for Christopher Marlowe, where Allen parodically discusses the details of the Shakespearean authorship controversy in the short story, “But Soft . . . Real Soft,” published in Without Feathers (1972). While it is clear that Allen is satirizing the issue, he does not take an immediately apparent stance on either side. In most cases, it will be up to the readers to make their own decisions about where Allen as a director, writer, and thinker stands on these particular issues.

Something else that readers of this census will no doubt notice is how at times Allen displays a tendency to contradict himself, particularly in his interviews. In his 1970s interviews with Eric Lax (On Being Funny, 1975), for example, Allen claims quite openly that he is a voracious reader, a claim that is thoroughly confirmed by the rest of this list. Yet, when being interviewed by David Itzkoff in 2010, Allen told The New York Times that reading was more of an obligation or duty for him, not a passion. This is not the only place that readers can find an apparent self-contradiction in Allen’s ideas, but it is one of the most obvious. It seems to me, after examining such a large swath of Allen’s work over such a broad expanse of time, such inconsistencies can be accounted for in two ways:

First, it is likely – or even inevitable – that Allen’s views on life and literature would metamorphose over a 50-year period of writing and filmmaking and that these changes would be reflected in the responses he gives to different interviewers over time. In fact, a key interview for this change, and from which all subsequent interviews take a completely different tone, is the 1993 Rolling Stone article with Anthony DeCurtis, in which Allen describes some of the hardships he experienced during the Soon-Yi controversy. In general, it will be helpful for readers to consider at what point in Allen’s career the interviews occur before jumping to any conclusions about the unity and consistency of his worldview.
Second – and I think most interestingly – a key reason that some of Allen’s answers to interview questions at times seem to contradict one another is because Allen has a tendency to tailor many of his responses to whom the interviewer is and where the interview will be published. Two key interviews that depict this issue are the 1967 Playboy interview with Sol Weinstein and the 2010 Commonweal Magazine interview with Robert Lauder. In the first, Allen is clearly speaking in the comedic persona that was then beginning to make him famous. He seems antsy and restless throughout the interview, and he responds to every question with a quirky joke or a short witticism. This is not to say that Allen dodges any questions; in fact, Weinstein encourages Allen’s use of this persona with the types of questions that he asks. However, the Commonweal interview is completely different in nature and tone. In a short introduction, Lauder is identified as a priest, and accordingly, many of his questions for Allen concern the filmmaker’s views of the bleak nature of the universe. In this interview, readers will find nothing of the jocularity and humor seen in the Playboy article; rather, Allen goes on at length about how the universe itself has no meaning and that life is a dark and hopeless experience. Therefore, while it is important to note at what point in his career Allen is giving the interview, it is also important for readers to notice the ideological preconceptions of the interviewer and those of the intended audience because Allen seems to play off of both at will.

“Who’s He When He’s at Home?,” the title of this census, comes from James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), and it is a common Irish witticism invoking the idea that people are never what they present themselves to be. It concerns the difficulties human beings have in understanding each other on a deeper level, the ability to see past the façade of daily existence and into the true nature of another person. In the end, none of us can truly or ultimately know one another; we can never say with certainty who another person is “when he’s at home.” Since the Husbands and Wives imbroglio, Allen has taken great care to portray himself as an average guy, who leads an average life, and who happens to also make movies. His self-constructed persona is that of a non-intellectual – of an autodidact who, at the end of the day, feels more at home at a baseball game than in a film studio. But as it is with almost all learned and successful individuals, when we as readers and moviegoers know who and what those people are reading and thinking about, we gain greater insight into their personalities. We get to see the world through their eyes, if only for a moment, and because of that insight, we learn something about life and ourselves in the process. Thus, it is fitting that the title of this census evokes James Joyce – a writer who, Allen claimed, read everything and knew more about art and literature than his critics (Kakutani 1996: 212). Despite what he would have us think to the contrary, it seems the same could easily be said of Allen himself.

Census of Woody Allen’s Allusions¹

Agathon
Visits narrator in a dream to discuss death	Allen 1975: 34–40
Albee, Edward
As serious author	Ciment and Tobin 2006: 136
Alighieri, Dante
And the circles of Hell	Deconstructing Harry
First read with a Columbia tutor	Lax 1975: 38
The Inferno, erotica, and a circle of Hell for contractors	Allen 2007: 108
Archilochus
The fox and the hedgehog	Husbands and Wives
Aristophanes
Plagued by the problems of life	Foundas 2009
Aristotle
First read with a Columbia tutor	Lax 1975: 38
Comedy compared to drama in The Frogs	Lax 1975: 72
Parody of Ethics	Allen 2007: 142
Auden, W.H.
Read Auden instead of asking why you deserve terrible things	Anything Else
Bacon, Francis
Parodied author of Shakespeare’s Works	Allen 1972: 186–187
Parody of essays	Allen 1972: 101
Baker, Josephine
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Balzac, Honoré de
Great entertainment	Kakutani 1996: 207
There goes another novel	Annie Hall
Vastly overrated	Midsummer
Barnes, Djuna
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Beckett, Samuel
As serious author	Ciment and Tobin 2006: 136
Allen has seen and does not care for	Kakutani 1996: 207
Less scary waiting for Lefty than waiting for Godot	Deconstructing Harry
Narrator as first interpreter of Waiting for Godot	Allen 1966: 103
Nature of meaningless relationships	Annie Hall
Super intelligent	Kelley 2006: 26
Beowulf	Annie Hall
Berdyaev, Nikolay
Romantic mindset in philosophy	Lax 1975: 231
Bergman, Ingmar
Allen’s “Death Knocks” as parody of The Seventh Seal	Lax 1975: 225
Best filmmaker Allen ever saw	Lax 2007: 358
His films make Allen wonder “what I’m doing”	Lax 1975: 168
As philosophical interest	Lax 1975: 45
Worked because he believed in it, not for money	Björkman 1993: 127
Blake, William
Believed in unseen forces	Allen 1972: 122
Call girls hired to discuss literature	Allen 1972: 36
Böll, Heinrich
Member of Mary Wilkie’s academy of the overrated (Isaac disagrees)	Manhattan
Brecht, Bertolt
Need to be a devoted Brechtian, Mother Courage	Another Woman
Buñuel, Luis
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
The Exterminating Angel as a movie idea pitched to Buñuel	Midnight in Paris
Byron, George Gordon
Being Byronic and not moronic	Lax 1975: 231
Gabe Roth is crazy about	Husbands and Wives
Camus, Albert
Allen’s preferred reading	Kelley 2006: 26
Exciting to read	Lax 2007: 85
Part of fictitious, philosophical reading list	Allen 1966: 27
Romantic mindset in philosophy	Lax 1975: 231
Suicide and the meaning of life	Foundas 2009
Women are all we’ll ever know of paradise on Earth	Anything Else
Capote, Truman
Look-alike contest	Annie Hall
Carlyle, Thomas
Visit to his grave	Midsummer
Carroll, Lewis
Alice in Wonderland as allegory for Shakespearean authorship conspiracy theories	Allen 1972: 187
Chaucer, Geoffrey
Author of King Lear as satirical revue	Allen 1972: 187
English major, minor in foreplay	Sleeper
Chekhov, Anton
Allen’s adoration for	Björkman 1993: 156
Allen has no compunction stealing from	Kakutani 1996: 213
And human crises	Kakutani 1996: 207
As initial model for Allen’s drama	Lax 2007: 86
As main influence on September	Björkman 1993: 179
Negative characters	Moss 2006: 56
Said life is a soap bubble	Melinda and Melinda
Uncle Vanya played with a limp	Melinda and Melinda
Chomsky, Noam
Call girls hired to discuss literature	Allen 1972: 35
Pseudonym for analyst	Manhattan
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
And the nature of genius in a contractor	Allen 2007: 110
Conrad, Joseph
Kurtz and “the horror” from Heart of Darkness as major theme	Whatever Works
Coward, Noel
And martinis	Manhattan
Mistaken as classical composer	Scoop
Cummings, E.E.
Allen’s favorite poet (among others)	Lax 2007: 84
Character purchases Complete Poems: 1913–1962	Hannah
As a witty poet	Björkman 1993: 200
“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond” as main theme	Hannah
Dali, Salvador
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Importance of the rhinoceros	Midnight in Paris
Defoe, Daniel
Moll Flanders as proposed film	Melinda and Melinda
Degas, Edgar
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Distinguished between apple and pear shaped behind	Whatever Works
Democritus
Components of the universe	Allen 1966: 30
Descartes, René
On Cartesian dictum	Allen 1966: 29
Dualistic universe	Allen 1966: 145
On knowledge	Allen 1966: 29
Parody of mind/body dualism	Allen 2007: 142
Deus ex Machina	Mighty Aphrodite and Allen 1972: 141
Dewey, John
Sober and uncharismatic philosophy	Lax 1975: 231
Dickinson, Emily
Allen’s favorite poet (among others)	Björkman 1993: 200 and Lax 2007: 84
“My life closed twice before its close”	Shadows
Source of title, “Hope is the thing with feathers”	Allen 1972
Cliff and Lester compete in quoting poem with lines, “Death kindly stopped for me”
	Crimes
Dinesen, Isak
Member of the academy of the overrated (Isaac disagrees)	Manhattan
Donne, John
“For Whom the Bell Tolls”	Allen 2007: 57
“Ask for whom the toilet flushes”	Celebrity
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Allen’s personal depression as reason for interest	Lax 1975: 45
The Brothers Karamazov murder as philosophical	Lax 2007: 24
Compared to writing students	Husbands and Wives
Crime and Punishment murder as philosophical	Lax 2007: 24
Fifteen-minute reading of Brothers Karamazov as goal for speed-reading course	Allen 1966: 59
A full literary meal with dessert	Husbands and Wives
Greater work than Flaubert	Björkman 1993: 211
Historically existential material for dramatists	Björkman 1993: 209
House of the Dead	Anything Else
Main character reads Crime and Punishment	Match Point
Murder in Crime and Punishment as a vehicle for the author’s
philosophical views	DeCurtis 1993: 46
Notes from Underground	Anything Else
Parodied by Allen’s stories	Lax 1975: 221
And prostitutes	Ciment and Garbarz 2006: 176
Raskolnikov as nice boy next door	Love and Death
Romantic mindset in philosophy	Lax 1975: 231
As urban writer	Björkman 1993: 71
And “Weight Watchers” on a plane	Allen 1966: 81
Wrote for gambling money	Allen 2007: 35
Eliot, T.S.
Allen’s favorite poet (among others)	Björkman 1993: 200
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Four Quartets as reflection of imminent reason in the world	Allen 1975: 126
Gabe Roth is crazy about	Husbands and Wives
As great city poet	Lax 2007: 84
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock	Love and Death
Murder in the Cathedral and becoming a Spanish dancer	Allen 1972: 121
“People measure out their lives in coke spoons”	Midnight in Paris
Euripides
Costumes from The Trojan Women	Allen 1972: 108
Medea and jealousy	Annie Hall
Plagued by the problems of life	Foundas 2009
Wants to buy Deus ex Machina	Allen 1972: 143
Existentialism
Allen’s preferred philosophical reading	Lax 1975: 37–38
Existential Alka-Seltzer removes queasy feeling about life	Allen 1975: 12
Existentialist literally kills God, viewed at the morgue	Allen 1966: 146
And fear of the void	Yabroff 2008
French existentialism as main theme of Love and Death	Björkman 1993: 74
Historically philosophical material for dramatists	Björkman 1993: 209
Faulkner, William
Boris compares Melody to Benjy Compson	Whatever Works
Earliest reading	Björkman 1993: 8 and Lax 2007: 83
“The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.”	Midnight in Paris
Wrote movie scripts	Allen 2007: 35
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
As character in film	Zelig
Driving off of a cliff and posing for American Gothic	Allen 1966: 92–93
Earliest reading	Björkman 1993: 8
Identification with twentieth-century history	Sleeper
Member of the academy of the overrated (Isaac disagrees)	Manhattan
Pseudonym for checking into a hotel	Anything Else
Wrote movie scripts	Allen 2007: 35
Fitzgerald, Zelda
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Emotional maturity award	Manhattan
Pseudonym for checking into a hotel	Anything Else
Reducing Scott Fitzgerald’s creative output	Allen 1966: 93 and Midnight in Paris
Flaubert, Gustave
Character described as Madame Bovary	Anything Else
College professor as character in Madame Bovary	Allen 1975: 45–49
College professor brings Emma Bovary to present time	Allen 1975: 49–55
Madame Bovary and the boredom of being a doctor’s wife	Melinda and Melinda
More skilled writer than Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy	Björkman 1993: 211
Sentimental Education makes life worth living	Manhattan
Freud, Sigmund
Allen read as part of his education	Björkman 1993: 36
In classic Freudian slip, Gabe leaves novel ms. in a cab	Husbands and Wives
Disciple who discovered sexuality in bacon	Allen 1972: 5
Felt concept of penis envy should be limited to women	Zelig
Fictitious analysis of Metterling	Allen 1966: 10–11
Freud and sex jokes in the fifth grade	Lax 1975: 25
As the great pessimist	Hannah
And Helmholtz	Allen 1966: 113–121
Melody’s problem was that she made up in ego what she
lacked in superego	Whatever Works
Penis envy	Annie Hall
On running people over	Manhattan
Sex in relationships	Annie Hall
Said the two most important things are work and sex	Deconstructing Harry and Anything Else
Sex is the royal road to the unconscious	Allen 1972: 199
Treats Mahler for composer’s block	Allen 2007: 103–104
Frost, Robert
Allen’s favorite poet (among others)	Lax 2007: 84
Gaudi, Antoni
Vicky studies his architecture	VCB
Gauguin, Paul
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Genet, Jean
The Balcony as brilliant play	Kelley 2006: 26
Hammett, Dashiell
Parodied by Allen’s stories	Lax 1975: 221
Heller, Joseph
Catch-22 as funny novel	Lax 1975: 228
Helmholtz, Hermann von
Parody of his influence on Freud and psychoanalysis	Allen 1966: 113–121
Hemingway, Ernest
In Africa	Allen 1966: 91–92
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
In Gertrude Stein and Jack Dempsey’s training camp	Allen 1966: 89
Making love and its relationship to death	Midnight in Paris
Paris is A Moveable Feast	Midnight in Paris
Parodied by Allen’s stories	Lax 1975: 221
Parodied by Allen’s stories	Lax 2007: 83
Is of the root canal set	Melinda and Melinda
Some of Allen’s earliest reading	Björkman 1993: 8
Hegel, G.W.F.
Boring to read	Lax 2007: 85
Sober and uncharismatic philosophy	Lax 1975: 231
Herrick, Robert
“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”	Midsummer
Hobbes, Thomas
On reality	Allen 1966: 29
Homer
Odysseus awakens a roe	Allen 1972: 182
As symbol for T.S. Eliot	Allen 1972: 121
Hume, David
Part of fictitious, philosophical reading list	Allen 1966: 27
Hugo, Victor
Hunchback is Coriolanus with minor changes	Allen 1972: 187
Marriage to Quasimodo	Lax 1975: 36
Musical version of Hunchback	Bullets
Ibsen, Henrik
Hannah plays Nora in A Doll’s House	Hannah
As initial model for Allen’s drama	Lax 2007: 86
It is very difficult to behave like Torvold’s little chipmunk without
making an ass of yourself	Hannah
Oswald, Ghosts, and a headache	Annie Hall
Ionesco, Eugène
Amusing and imaginative	Kelley 2006: 26
Irving, Washington
Phil Gamisch looks like Ichabod Crane	Hannah
James, Henry
Confused as Harry James	Small Time Crooks
The Turn of the Screw	Annie Hall
Johnson, Samuel
And Boswell	Midsummer
Joyce, James
Anecdote about Joyce eating sauerkraut and frankfurters	Midnight in Paris
Compared to writing students	Husbands and Wives
First read with a Columbia tutor	Lax 1975: 38
Molly Bloom has affair with J.M. Synge	Allen 1972: 121
Read everything and knew more than his critics	Kakutani 1996: 212
And reading Finnegan’s Wake on a roller coaster	Allen 1966: 103
Cliff plagiarizes love letters to Nora	Crimes
Jung, Carl
Jungian therapist suggests a Ouija board	Allen 1972: 198
Member of the academy of the overrated (Isaac disagrees)	Manhattan
As veterinarian	Allen 1966: 35
Kafka, Franz
Best reading	Kelley 2006: 26
We both started out wanting to be Kafka	Deconstructing Harry
Depressing conclusions	Allen 1966: 76
Depression as reason for interest	Lax 1975: 45
Fictitiously emulated by Metterling	Allen 1966: 9
Inferiority complex	Allen 1975: 133
Master of despair	Stardust Memories
Part of fictitious, philosophical reading list	Allen 1966: 27
Self-esteem a step below Kafka’s	Manhattan
Sex as Kafkaesque experience	Annie Hall
And silence	Björkman 1993: 105
Kant, Immanuel
Existence of God proved on moral grounds	Allen 1966: 145
The mind imposes order	Allen 1972: 197
Parody of moralistic world	Allen 2007: 143–144
Keats, John
“truth is beauty”	DeCurtis 1993: 50
Kierkegaard, Søren
And breakfast cereal	Weinstein 1967
Fashionable pessimism	Manhattan
Historically existential material for dramatists	Björkman 1993: 209
Knowledge vs. Faith	Allen 1966: 145
Not always clear	Allen 1966: 27
Part of fictitious, philosophical reading list	Allen 1966: 27
Preferred reading	Kelley 2006: 26
Romantic mindset in philosophy	Lax 1975: 231
Krafft-Ebing, Richard von
Narrator jokes about	Allen 1966: 105
In relation to the Marquis de Sade	Lax 1975: 25
Larkin, Philip
Allen’s love for	Lax 2007: 84
Lautrec, Henri de Toulouse
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Leibniz, Gottfried
Component parts of the universe	Allen 1966: 30
Parody of monads discovery	Allen 2007: 142
Literature, General
Learned little about literature and theatre at school	Björkman 1993: 8
Women as motivation for learning literature	Lax 1975: 37
Literature, Russian
As main theme of Love and Death	Björkman 1993: 72–74
Russian novelists are greatest novelists	Björkman 1993: 211
Mailer, Norman
Affirmative/negative duality	EYEWTKAS
Allen’s preferred reading while filming in Paris	Itzkoff 2010
Donated ego to Harvard medical school	Sleeper
In film, not literature	Kakutani 1996: 206
Member of the academy of the overrated (Isaac disagrees)	Manhattan
Malraux, André
Art as the last defense against death	Lax 1975: 231
Mann, Thomas
Death in Venice	Annie Hall
Writing a fictitious play The Hosiery of Moses	Allen 1966: 9
Marlowe, Christopher
Parodied as author of Shakespeare’s works	Allen 1972: 186–187
Marquis de Sade
Customer in the Marquis de Sade room orders 12 loaves of bread and a boy scout uniform	Lax 1975: 25 and Pussycat
Marx, Groucho
Allen grew up loving Groucho as an actor	Lax 2007: 86
Alvy cites “I wouldn’t wanna be a member of a club that would
have someone like me for a member”	Annie Hall
Duck Soup scene convinces Mickey to rejoin existence	Hannah
Groucho was “built-in ‘funny’ ”	Björkman 1993: 4
Not fair that Groucho never won an Oscar	Lax 1975: 178
Verbal comedian with automatic physical humor	Lax 2007: 177
Marx, Karl
Quantity effects quality (in sex)	Bullets
Resistance reading materials	Sleeper
Matisse, Henri
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
McKuen, Rod
Picture during identification of twentieth-century history	Sleeper
Melville, Herman
Billy Budd as justification of ways of God to man	Allen 1972: 35
Character pays a girl to sit and talk about Moby Dick with him	Allen 1972: 34
Zelig never manages to finish reading Moby-Dick	Zelig
Millay, Edna St. Vincent
“My candle burns at both ends” poem	Anything Else
Miller, Arthur
Dramatic impact of Death of a Salesman	Lax 1975: 72
Good feel for drama	Lax 2007: 104
Groucho Marx vs. Death of a Salesman	Lax 1975: 179
As serious author	Ciment and Tobin 2006: 136
Milton, John
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven	Deconstructing Harry
Paradise Lost lacks substructure of pessimism	Allen 1972: 35
Molière
As vulgarian, Bourgeois Gentleman	Small Time Crooks
More, Thomas
First read with a Columbia tutor	Lax 1975: 38
Nietzsche, Friedrich
Discovery of fictional Friedrich Nietzsche’s Diet Book	Allen 2007: 141–146
First read with a Columbia tutor	Lax 1975: 37
Fun to read	Lax 2007: 85
“God is dead” statement as inventor of modern man	Allen 1975: 57
Insanity	Allen 1966: 144
In “The Metterling Lists”	Allen 1966: 7–8
“Eternal return” and Ice Capades	Hannah
O’Casey, Sean
Character played a part in Juno and the Paycock	Whatever Works
O’Neill, Eugene
As character in film	Zelig
Dramatic impact of Mourning Becomes Electra	Lax 1975: 72
As fan of morbid, depressing writing of young playwright	Bullets
And human crises	Kakutani 1996: 207
And nihilism/pessimism	Anything Else
One Thousand and One Arabian Nights
Short story “Death Knocks” as parody	Allen 1966: 41–54
Orpheus and Eurydice
As plot for new novel	Deconstructing Harry
Pascal, Blaise
On the existence of God	Allen 1966: 30
Perelman, S J
The World of S J Perelman as one of top five books	Gerber 2011
Picasso, Pablo
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Plath, Sylvia
Suicide	Annie Hall
Plato
First read with Columbia tutor	Lax 1975: 38
Exciting on first read	Lax 2007: 85
Parody of Plato’s Cave from The Republic	Allen 1975: 39–40
Poe, Edgar Allen
Not appreciated in his lifetime	Bullets
Plutarch
Analyst implies the Sabine women had it coming	Husbands and Wives
Pope, Alexander
English major, minor in foreplay	Sleeper
Porter, Cole
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Ray, Man
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
On Reading
Reading as an obligation, not for enjoyment	Itzkoff 2010
Voracious reader	Lax 1975: 38
Rilke, Rainer
As enjoyable poet	Björkman 1993: 200
“The Panther” poem	Another Woman
As philosophical poet	Björkman 1993: 200
Quotes “Archaic Torso of Apollo”	Another Woman
Writing student named after	Husbands and Wives
Robinson, E.A.
“Which era would you prefer to live in, Miniver Cheevey?”	Midnight in Paris
Rodin, Auguste
The Thinker and Rodin’s mistress	Midnight in Paris
Roth, Philip
Allen can’t relate to Roth’s characters	Kelley 2006: 24
College professor attempts to enter world of Portnoy’s Complaint	Allen 1975: 54–55
Portnoy’s Complaint as funny novel	Lax 1975: 228
Runyon, Damon
Guys and Dolls	Hollywood Ending
Russell, Bertrand
Hard to argue with	Kelley 2006: 26
Resonates deeply with Allen	Lax 2007: 85
Sober and uncharismatic philosophy	Lax 1975: 231
Salinger, J.D.
The Catcher in the Rye	Annie Hall
The Catcher in the Rye as funny novel	Lax 1975: 228
The Catcher in the Rye as one of Allen’s top five favorite books	Gerber 2011
Sartre, Jean-Paul
Allen’s preferred reading	Kelley 2006: 26
Exciting to read	Lax 2007: 85
No Exit and The Flies as anniversary gift	Anything Else
And nothingness in communication	Allen 1966: 77
Part of fictitious, philosophical reading list	Allen 1966: 27
Schopenhauer, Arthur
Parody of arguments concerning the human will	Allen 2007: 143
Speed-reading	Stardust Memories
And will	Allen 1966: 30
Shakespeare, William
Actress misquoting “to be or not to be” speech	Bullets
As beautiful writer	Lax 2007: 85
At end of universe, doesn’t lament the loss of Titus Andronicus	Allen 1975: 15
Gabe is crazy about	Husbands and Wives
Hamlet and Oedipus	Husbands and Wives
Desdemona scene from Othello	Melinda and Melinda
Influence on Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex	Björkman 1993: 58
King Lear mistaken as King Leo	Husbands and Wives
King Lear played with a limp	Melinda and Melinda
Macbeth and murder as philosophical issue	Lax 2007: 24 and DeCurtis 1993: 46
Mistaken as classical composer	Scoop
Narrator’s parents fight like the Montagues and Capulets	Allen 1975: 145
Not much humor in Macbeth	Lax 2007: 183
Not much humor in Othello	Kakutani 1996: 218
Parody of authorship conspiracy theorists	Allen 1972: 185–187
Plays are dumb and bumpkin-oriented	Lax 2007: 85
Has the only real ghosts	Midsummer
Richard II and stealing leotards	Annie Hall
Wine “provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance”	Midnight in Paris
Zelig plays Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream	Zelig
Shaw, George Bernard
Character comedy in Shaw and Play it Again, Sam	Lax 1975: 175
Character played Henry Higgins with a limp	Melinda and Melinda
Chorus makes wrong reference to Higgins in Greek play	Allen 1972: 157
Comedy compared to drama in Pygmalion	Lax 1975: 72
Henry Higgins would jump out the window if he tried to convert Melody	Whatever Works
Pygmalion given as a gift	Small Time Crooks
Pygmalion, Henry Higgins to Eliza Doolittle	Deconstructing Harry
Pygmalion and seriousness	Lax 2007: 41–42
Relationship between Born Yesterday and Pygmalion	Lax 2007: 11
Shelley, Percy B.
“Ode to the West Wind”	Husbands and Wives
Ozymandias Melancholia	Stardust Memories
“Ozymandias” and Stardust Memories	Björkman 1993: 103
Sheridan, Richard
Comedy compared to drama in School for Scandal	Lax 1975: 72
Simmias
Visits narrator in a dream to discuss death	Allen 1975: 34–40
Socrates
And courage in the face of death	Allen 1975: 33
And the good life	Allen 1972: 121
Evil as ignorance of truth	Allen 1972: 164
Suicide	Allen 1966: 144
Used to knock off little Greek boys	Hannah
Sophocles
Hamlet and Oedipus	Husbands and Wives
Never being born is the greatest boon of all	Match Point and Deconstructing Harry
Oedipus and his mother appear in Greek play	Allen 1972: 158
Oedipus plot told by a Greek chorus	Mighty Aphrodite
Play with Jesus loving Mary as an Oedipal complex	Bullets
Wants to buy Deus ex Machina	Allen 1972: 142
Spinoza, Baruch
Parody of First Cause argument	Allen 2007: 142–143
Part of fictitious, philosophical reading list	Allen 1966: 27
Stein, Gertrude
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
With the narrator, Picasso, and Hemingway	Allen 1966: 89–94
Steinbeck, John
Earliest reading	Björkman 1993: 8
Earliest reading	Lax 2007: 83
Stevens, Wallace
Call girls paid to discuss literature	Allen 1972: 37
Stevenson, Robert Louis
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde	Small Time Crooks
Stoker, Bram
Dracula and the baker	Allen 1966: 95–101
Strindberg, August
Award for marriage	Manhattan
Allen has no compunction stealing from	Kakutani 1996: 213
Brutalized by critics	Kakutani 1996: 220
Directed a series of his plays	Melinda and Melinda
Sumer Is Icumen In
Sung by character	Midsummer
Swift, Jonathan
Allen’s plays not like Swift’s	Lax 1975: 207
Synge, John Millington
As podiatrist who has affair with Molly Bloom	Allen 1972: 121
Thoreau, Henry David
Parody of Civil Disobedience	Allen 1972: 106–109
Toklas, Alice B.
The narrator, and Picasso in a villa in South France	Allen 1966: 89
As character in film	Midnight in Paris
Tolstoy, Leo
Allen’s preferred reading while in Paris	Itzkoff 2010
Allen’s preoccupation with death	Lax 1975: 227
A full, literary meal	Husbands and Wives
Great entertainment	Kakutani 1996: 207
Greater work than Dostoevsky	Björkman 1993: 211
Narrative structure of Anna Karenina and Hannah and Her Sisters	Björkman 1993: 154 and Walker 2006: 95
“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.”	Hannah
As opposite of cerebral Manhattan	Björkman 1993: 79
Reviewing the letters	Manhattan
As rural writer	Björkman 1993: 71
And suicide	Lax 2007: 90
Turgenev, Ivan
Literary dessert	Husbands and Wives
As rural writer	Björkman 1993: 71
Trollope, Anthony
English country estate brings to mind	Scoop
Unamuno, Miguel de
Eternal persistence of consciousness	Allen 1975: 58
Wilde, Oscar
Dorian Gray and an aging portrait in a closet	Small Time Crooks
Williams, Tennessee
Blanche DuBois escapes her play because Williams “dropped me in the center of a nightmare”	Allen 1972: 149
Dramatic impact of Streetcar	Lax 1975: 72
Groucho Marx vs. Streetcar	Lax 1975: 179
Music in his writing process	Moss 2006: 50
Narrator’s wife always dependent upon the kindness of strangers	Allen 2007: 115
Parochial	Moss 2006: 56
Parody of Blanche Dubois	Sleeper
Producing plays is annoying	Kakutani 1996: 206
Said the opposite of death is desire	Anything Else
As serious author	Ciment and Tobin 2006: 136
Stanley Kowolski enters a Greek play shouting “Stella!”	Allen 1972: 178
Streetcar and pregnancy	Björkman 1993: 175
On transcending writing	Björkman 1993: 50
Wonderful feel for drama	Lax 2007: 104
Williams, William Carlos
Allen’s favorite poet (among others)	Björkman 1993: 200 and Lax 2007: 84
Yeats, William Butler
Allen’s favorite poet (overall)	Björkman 1993: 200 and Lax 2007: 84
As greatest poet since Shakespeare	Björkman 1993: 200
Michael Gates quotes poems while drunk	Husbands and Wives
Poetry analyzed through dental care	Allen 1966: 61

Census of Woody Allen’s Allusions1

Census of Woody Allen’s Allusions¹