Little Women Allusions & Cultural References

When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.

Friedrich Heinrich Karl la Motte-Fouqué, Undine and Sintram (1.7, 22.6)
William Shakespeare (1.58, 10.26, 14.60, 33.61-63, 34.36)
William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1.59)
John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress (1.80-90, 5.130-131, 22.36, 40.9)
The Bible (2.1-6, 33.61)
Charlotte M. Yonge, The Heir of Redclyffe (3.2)
Thomas Belsham (4.39)
Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (4.41)
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (4.65)
Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (5.5)
Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (10.2)
John Milton (10.26, 33.61)
Susan Warner, The Wide, Wide World (11.17)
Plato (12.9, 33.61, 34.86-87)
Friedrich Schiller, Mary Stuart (12.132)
William Shakespeare, Hamlet (14.21, 14.23)
Frances Burney, Evelina (14.124)
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (21.86)
Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (21.87)
Samuel Johnson, The Rambler (21.92-93)
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (26.2)
John Keats (27.41)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (31.30, 41.3)
Friedrich Schiller (31.30)
Hans Christian Andersen (33.57)
Homer (33.61)
Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (34.4)
Samuel Johnson (34.42, 43.2)
Immanuel Kant (34.43)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (34.43)
Friedrich Schiller, The Death of Wallenstein (34.49-50)
Mary Martha Sherwood (34.71)
Maria Edgeworth (34.71)
Hannah More (34.71)
Charles Dickens (37.1)
Honoré de Balzac (37.65)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie (La Nouvelle Héloise) (41.44)
Socrates (45.18, 47.14)

Christopher Columbus (3.16, 12.36, 17.19)
Raphael (4.34)
Sir Francis Bacon (10.26)
Napoleon (12.86)
Rembrandt (26.3)
Rubens (26.3)
J. M. W. Turner (26.3)
Michelangelo (26.6)
the Pharaohs (27.4)
Cheops (27.15)
Johann Heinrich von Dannecker (31.30)
Madame de Stael (34.42)
Demosthenes (35.1)
Mozart (41.6, 41.11)
Mendelssohn (41.6)
Beethoven (41.6)
Bach (41.6)
François Bonnivard (41.44)
George Washington (45.47)