They allow the poet to display his knowledge of literary tradition and to create the desired archaic mood.
He could quote from Homer, taught himself Chinese and was in the habit of frequenting Soho's Chinatown, where he could display his knowledge - although, typically, he chose Chinese above Japanese because the textbooks were cheaper.
But if this plethora of danced quotations and dense narrative was all too much for the suggestive art of ballet, his production of Byron's Manfred two years later was even more overloaded with ideas - the testimony of an autodidact unable to resist displaying his knowledge.
Candie is humiliated at being fooled by a black man, but contains his anger long enough to theatrically display his knowledge of phrenology, which he uses to justify white superiority.
Its author used the opportunity to display his knowledge of the names of Irish heroes in general, in which he does not confine himself to characters of the story.
What he now significantly defines as "depicting the human figure as an anatomical event, which houses the spirit of the human condition," Buchanan has devoted his adult life to learning, teaching and exquisitely displaying his knowledge and passion for anatomy through works of art.
He also displayed his deep knowledge of classical music, his fluency in Latin and Italian and his love for and intimacy with Rome, a city where he lived for many years.
Frayn, one of England's most popular and entertaining "literary" writers, displayed his interest in and knowledge of the arcana of 20th-century physics in his play Copenhagen, but who would have expected him to launch out on the vast journey of speculation which is The Human Touch?
As a former barrister and minister of Parliament, Rawlinson displays his intimate knowledge of court procedures, along with scathing contempt for the combatants who manipulate them so ruthlessly.
