What is the source of the allusion in the sentence below?
Ben says that he would not be the person he is today were it not for his childhood, which he describes as Dickensian.

 - a song
 - literature
The source of the allusion Dickensian is literature.
The works of British author Charles Dickens often featured characters struggling to survive in settings such as debtors' prisons and orphanages.
The allusion Dickensian means harsh or poverty-stricken.