Ouachita Baptist University Scholarly Commons @ Ouachita Honors Theses Carl Goodson Honors Program 2004 Allusions and Historical Models in Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera Joy A. Mills Ouachita Baptist University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/honors_theses Part of the French and Francophone Literature Commons, Other Theatre and Performance Studies Commons, and the Translation Studies Commons Recommended Citation Mills, Joy A., "Allusions and Historical Models in Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera" (2004). Honors Theses. 83. https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/honors_theses/83 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Carl Goodson Honors Program at Scholarly Commons @ Ouachita. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons @ Ouachita. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Gaston Leroux's 1911 novel, The Phantom of the Opera, has a considerable number of allusions, some of which are accessible to modern American audiences, like references to Romeo and Juilet. Many of the references, however, are very specific to the operatic world or to other somewhat obscure fields. Knowledge of these allusions would greatly enhance the experience of readers of the novel, and would also contribute to their ability to interpret it. Thus my thesis aims to be helpful to those who read The Phantom of the Opera by providing a set of notes, as it were, to explain the allusions, with an emphasis on the extended allusion of the Palais Garnier and the historical models for the heroine, Christine Daae. Notes on Translations At the time of this writing, three English translations are commercially available of The Phantom of the Opera.