Allegory

Literary/ Cultural Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

Domains

Poetic/ rhetorical term

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Mode

A pattern of reference in the work which evokes a parallel action of abstract ideas. Usually allegory uses recognisable types, symbols and narrative patterns to indicate that the meaning of the text is to be found not in the represented world but in a body of traditional thought. Thus in Animal Farm by George Orwell, the pigs are seen to stand for communists because having led the revolution against the farmer they invent the phrase “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Pilgrim stands as the general type of the good Christian seeking the way of the Lord. Allegory can be simple, offering a one-to-one correspondence between the representation and its …

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297 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Allegory". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 November 2001 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=24, accessed 23 April 2024.]

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