Abstract: It is generally recognized that modernist literary works are comparat iv ely intricate in structure and abstruse in thematic meaning. It is mainly becaus e such masterpieces of modernist literature as James Joyce's Ulysses, T.S Eliot' s The Waste Land, and Ezra Pound's The Cantos, contain many allusions. This pape r, through a case study of James' novels, discusses the relationship between the development of modernist literature and western cultural and philosophical clas sics, and the significance of the linguistic allusions and frame borrowings.