Maryann,
I've read many poems in my time that have left me thinking "Smart-arse" (sorry!) because they refer to something way out of my sphere of knowledge. It can come across as pretentiousness on the part of the poet.
I agree with Richard who said:
Quote:
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I'm irritated as a reader if a writer drops a line or passage from another language into his work and expects that I should be fluent in ancient Greek or medieval French or modern German.
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Mind you, it can go the other way and poets can also insult their readers' intelligence by assuming they
don't know stuff. I once went to hear a fairly well-known female British poet who began her reading of a poem by asking the audience if we'd heard of Corfu, and another poem was prefaced with, "Have any of you ever been to the east coast of America?" At the interval a number of us walked out, one man telling her that he had a subsequent engagement!
A balance is needed, as Catherine said, and footnotes etc. can always be ignored if 'Yes, I knew that' applies.