Allegory

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Image:Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time by the Florentine artist Agnolo Bronzino.jpg

Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, c.1545 by Agnolo Bronzino

The image breakers, c.1566 –1568 by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder The etching is also known as Allegory of Iconoclasm. Although not particularly sympathetic to the Calvinist image breakers, it is mainly critical of the Church. Thus the etching might have been the main reason why Gheeraerts had to flee to England in 1568. (British Museum, Dept. of Print and Drawings, 1933.1.1..3)

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Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

Allegory is a device in which characters or events represent or symbolize ideas and concepts. Allegory has been used widely throughout the history of art, and in all forms of artwork. A reason for this is that allegory has an immense power of illustrating complex ideas and concepts in a digestable, concrete way. In allegory a message is communicated by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation. Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric; a rhetorical allegory is a demonstrative form of representation conveying meaning other than the words that are spoken.

As a literary device, an allegory in its most general sense is an extended metaphor. One of the best known examples is Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave". In this allegory, there are a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to the allegory, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality.

1 Etymology
2 Types
3 The classical era
4 The medieval era
5 The modern era
6 Examples by genre
7 Television
8 Comics
9 See also

Etymology

First attested in English 1382, the word allegory comes from Latin allegoria, the latinisation of the Greek ἀλληγορία (allegoria), "veiled language, figurative", from ἄλλος (allos), "another, different" + ἀγορεύω (agoreuo), "to harangue, to speak in the assembly" and that from ἀγορά (agora), "assembly".

Types

Northrop Frye discussed what he termed a "continuum of allegory," ranging from what he termed the "naive allegory" of The Faerie Queene, to the more private allegories of modern paradox literature. In this perspective, the characters in a "naive" allegory are not fully three-dimensional, for each aspect of their individual personalities and the events that befall them embodies some moral quality or other abstraction; the allegory has been selected first, and the details merely flesh it out.

Many ancient religions are based on an astrologic allegories, that is, allegories of the movement of the Sun and the Moon as seen from the Earth. Examples include the cult of Horus/Isis.

The classical era

In classical literature two of the best-known allegories are the cave in Plato's Republic (Book VII) and the story of the stomach and its members in the speech of Menenius Agrippa (Livy ii. 32). In Late Antiquity Martianus Capella organized all the information a fifth-century upper-class male needed to know into an allegory of the wedding of Mercury and Philologia, with the seven liberal arts as guests; Capella's allegory was widely read through the Middle Ages.

Other early allegories are found in the Hebrew Bible, for instance in the extended metaphor in Psalm 80 of the Vine, which is Israel and Ezekiel 16 and 17.

The medieval era

[[File:Allegory of Arithmetic - detail.JPG|thumb|right|220px|Allegory of arithmetic, by Laurent de La Hyre, ca 1650]]

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Medieval thinking accepted allegory as having a reality underlying any rhetorical or fictional uses. The allegory was as true as the facts of surface appearances. Thus, the bull Unam Sanctam (1302) presents themes of the unity of Christendom with the pope as its head in which the allegorical details of the metaphors are adduced as facts on which is based a demonstration with the vocabulary of logic: "Therefore of this one and only Church there is one body and one head—not two heads as if it were a monster... If, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ" (complete text).

In the late 15th century, the enigmatic Hypnerotomachia, with its elaborate woodcut illustrations, shows the influence of themed pageants and masques on contemporary allegorical representation, as humanist dialectic conveyed them.

The denial of medieval allegory as found in the 11th-century works of Hugh of St Victor and Edward Topsell's Historie of Foure-footed Beastes (London, 1607, 1653) and its replacement in the study of nature with methods of categorization and mathematics by such figures as naturalist John Ray and the astronomer Galileo is thought to mark the beginnings of early modern science.

The modern era

Since meaningful stories are nearly always applicable to larger issues, allegories may be read into many stories, sometimes distorting their author's overt meaning. For instance, many people have suggested that The Lord of the Rings is an allegory for the World Wars, in spite of J. R. R. Tolkien's emphatic statement in the introduction to the second edition, "It is neither allegorical nor topical.... I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence." Where some requirements of "realism", in its flexible meanings, are set aside, allegory can come more strongly to the surface, as in the work of Bertold Brecht on one hand, or on the other in science fiction and fantasy, where an element of universal application and allegorical overtones are common, as with The Chronicles of Narnia.

Examples by genre

Not every resonant work of modern fiction is an allegory. Arthur Miller's The Crucible, for instance, is character-driven historical drama with contemporary relevance, but is not an allegory in spite of its parallels with McCarthyism, linking the hunt for communists in the 1940s and 1950s to the hunt for witches in the late 17th century. L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is plot-driven fantasy narrative in an extended fable with talking animals and broadly-sketched characters. J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is another example of a work sometimes seen as allegorical yet, as the author explained, is not - rather it is an example of what he referred to as applicability.

Art

Some elaborate and successful specimens of allegory are to be found in the following works, arranged in approximate chronological order:

Ambrogio Lorenzetti – "Good Government in the City" and "Bad Government in the City"
Sandro Botticelli – La Primavera (Allegory of Spring)
Albrecht Dürer – Melencolia I
Bronzino – Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time
Artemisia Gentileschi – Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting; Allegory of Inclination
The English School's – "Allegory of Queen Elizabeth" painted circa 1610.
Jan Vermeer – The Allegory of Painting
Lady Justice. – Such visual representations have raised the question why so many allegories in the history of art, representing male gendered realities, are of female sex.
Graydon Parrish – The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy
Progress "Up on the Moon"

File:Titian - Allegorie der Zeit.jpg

File:Jan Vermeer van Delft 011.jpg

File:Elizabeth-I-Allegorical-Po.jpg

Literature

Classical literature

Aesop – Fables
Plato – The Republic ("Plato's allegory of the cave")
Plato – Phaedrus (Chariot Allegory)
Euripides – The Trojan Women
Qu Yuan – Encountering Trouble
Book of Revelation (for allegory in Christian theology, see typology (theology)
Martianus Capella – De nuptiis philologiæ et Mercurii
Various Authors (The Holy Bible)

Mediaeval literature

Prudentius – Psychomachia
Christine de Pizan – The Book of the City of Ladies
William Langland – Piers Plowman
Pearl
Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy
Everyman

Modern literature

No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... [In The Old Man and the Sea], I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things.|Ernest Hemingway in 1954

Edmund Spenser – The Faerie Queene
Edwin Abbott Abbott – Flatland
Joseph Addison – Vision of Mirza
Antoine De Saint-Exupery – The Little Prince
Jorge Luis Borges – "The Library of Babel" and "The Babylon Lottery"
Peter S. Beagle – The Last Unicorn
John Bunyan – Pilgrim's Progress
William M. Burwell – White Acre vs. Black Acre
Albert Camus – The Plague, The Stranger, and Myth of Sisyphus
Wu Cheng'en — The Journey to the West
J. M. Coetzee – Waiting for the Barbarians
Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol
William Faulkner – A Rose for Emily (Emily symbolizes the decline of the Old South)
William Golding – Lord of the Flies
Daniel Handler – A Series of Unfortunate Events
Roger Hargreaves - Mr.Happy
Nathaniel Hawthorne – "The Great Carbuncle", "Young Goodman Brown"
E. T. A. Hoffmann – Princess Brambilla
John Irving – A Prayer for Owen Meany
C. S. Lewis – The Chronicles of Narnia (most notably in the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)
David Lindsay – A Voyage to Arcturus
Jack London- "A Piece of Steak", short story about youth vs. old age
George MacDonald – Phantastes
Naguib Mahfouz – Children of Gebelawi
Bernard Malamud – The Natural
Cormac McCarthy – The Road
Herman Melville – The Confidence-Man
Hualing Nieh – Mulberry and Peach
George Orwell – Animal Farm
Edgar Allan Poe – "The Masque of the Red Death" (though Poe did not believe in allegory, this story is generally assumed to be one)
Theodore Francis Powys – Mr. Weston's Good Wine
Philip Pullman – His Dark Materials
Jose Saramago – Blindness
Anna Sewell – Black Beauty
John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck – The Pearl
Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub and Gulliver's Travels (political allegory)
Koushun Takami – Battle Royale
Rex Warner – The Aerodrome
Mohsin Hamid – The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Plays

August Wilson – Fences (play) (Troy's fence is "designed" to keep the grim reaper away)

Film

Television

The Twilight Zone (varied themes)
Star Trek all series, (varied themes, though frequently addressed the issues of prejudice and racism)
Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 2: "Darmok"
The Prisoner
Lost
Fringe
True Blood series is allegedly an allegory on LGBT rights
Battlestar Galactica (2004)

Comics

Alan Moore and David Lloyd – V for Vendetta identity, anarchism vs. fascism
Various X-Men comics (mutants as an allegory for various social and racial minorities)
The manga Hanako and the Teller of Allegory calls a story given form from peoples' belief in it an allegory

 {{Template}}
-# The [[representation]] of [[abstract]] [[principle]]s by [[character]]s or [[figure]]s.
+'''Allegory''' is a device in which characters or events represent or symbolize ideas and concepts. Allegory has been used widely throughout the history of art, and in all forms of artwork. A reason for this is that allegory has an immense power of illustrating complex ideas and concepts in a digestable, concrete way. In allegory a message is communicated by means of [[symbol]]ic figures, actions or symbolic representation. Allegory is generally treated as a figure of [[rhetoric]]; a rhetorical allegory is a demonstrative form of representation conveying meaning other than the words that are spoken.
-# A [[picture]], [[book]], or other [[form]] of [[communication]] using such representation.
-# A [[symbolic]] representation.
-An '''allegory''' (from [[Greek language|Greek]] αλλος, , "other", and αγορευειν, ''agoreuein,'' "to speak in public") is a figurative mode of [[representation (arts)|representation]] conveying a [[Meaning (linguistic)|meaning]] other than the [[literal meaning|literal]]. Allegory communicates its message by means of [[symbolic]] figures, actions or symbolic representation. Allegory is generally treated as a figure of [[rhetoric]], but an allegory does not have to be expressed in [[language]]: it may be addressed to the eye, and is often found in realistic [[painting]], [[sculpture]] or some other form of [[Mimesis|mimetic]], or representative art. Simply put, an allegory is a device that can be presented in literary form, such as a poem or novel, or in visual form, such as in painting or sculpture.  As a literary device, an allegory in its most general sense is an extended metaphor.  As an artistic device, an allegory is a visual symbolic representation. An example of a simple visual allegory is the image of the [[Death (personification)|grim reaper]].  Viewers understand that the image of the grim reaper is a symbolic representation of death. Nevertheless, images and fictions with several possible interpretations are not allegories in the true sense. Furthermore, not every fiction with general application is an allegory.
+As a [[literary device]], an allegory in its most general sense is an extended [[metaphor]]. One of the best known examples is Plato's "[[The Allegory of the Cave]]". In this allegory, there are a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to the allegory, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality.
-The [[etymology|etymological]] meaning of the word is broader than the common use of the word. Though it is similar to other rhetorical comparisons, an allegory is sustained longer and more fully in its details than a [[metaphor]], and appeals to [[imagination]], while an [[analogy]] appeals to [[reason]] or [[logic]]. The [[fable]] or [[parable]] is a short allegory with one definite moral.
+==Etymology==
+First attested in English 1382, the word ''allegory'' comes from [[Latin]] ''allegoria'', the [[latinisation (literature)|latinisation]] of the [[Greek language|Greek]] ἀλληγορία (''allegoria''), "veiled language, figurative", from ἄλλος (''allos''), "another, different" + ἀγορεύω (''agoreuo''), "to harangue, to  speak in the assembly" and that from ἀγορά (''agora''), "assembly".
-[[Northrop Frye]] discussed what he termed a "continuum of allegory", ranging from what he termed the "naive allegory" of ''[[The Faerie Queen]]'', to the more private allegories of modern [[paradox literature]]. In this perspective, the characters in a "naive" allegory are not [[rounded character|fully three-dimensional]], for each aspect of their individual personalities and the events that befall them embodies some moral quality or other abstraction; the allegory has been selected first, and the details merely flesh it out.
+==Types==
+[[Northrop Frye]] discussed what he termed a "continuum of allegory," ranging from what he termed the "naive allegory" of ''[[The Faerie Queene]],'' to the more private allegories of modern [[Paradox (literature)|paradox literature]]. In this perspective, the characters in a "naive" allegory are not fully three-dimensional, for each aspect of their individual personalities and the events that befall them embodies some moral quality or other abstraction; the allegory has been selected first, and the details merely flesh it out.
-==Examples==
+Many ancient religions are based on an [[astrologic allegory|astrologic allegories]], that is, allegories of the movement of the Sun and the Moon as seen from the Earth. Examples include the cult of [[Horus]]/[[Isis]].
-Allegory has been a favourite form in the [[literature]] of nearly every nation. It represents many tales.
-In classical literature two of the best-known allegories are [[Allegory of the cave|the cave of shadowy representations]] in [[Plato]]'s ''[[Republic]]'' (Book VII) and the story of the stomach and its members in the speech of Menenius Agrippa ([[Livy]] ii. 32); and several occur in [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Metamorphoses (poem)|Metamorphoses]].'' In Late Antiquity [[Martianus Capella]] organized all the information a fifth-century upper-class male needed to know into an allegory of the wedding of Mercury and ''Philologia,'' with the seven [[liberal arts]] as guests; Matianmus Capella's allegory was widely read through the Middle Ages.
-Medieval thinking accepted allegory as having a ''reality'' underlying any rhetorical or fictional uses. The allegory was as true as superficial facts of surface appearances. Thus, the bull ''[[Unam Sanctam]]'' (1302) presents themes of the unity of [[Christendom]] with the pope as its head in which the allegorical details of the metaphors are adduced as ''actual facts'' which take the place of a logical demonstration, yet employing the vocabulary of logic: "''Therefore'' of this one and only Church there is one body and one head—not two heads as if it were a monster... If, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they ''necessarily'' confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ" [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Unam_sanctam (complete text)].
+==The classical era==
-In the late fifteenth century, the enigmatic ''[[Hypnerotomachia]]'', with its elaborate woodcut illustrations, shows the influence of themed pageants and [[masque]]s on contemporary allegorical representation, as [[Renaissance humanism|humanist dialectic]] conveyed them.
+In classical literature two of the best-known allegories are [[Allegory of the cave|the cave]] in [[Plato]]'s ''[[Republic]]'' (Book VII) and the story of the stomach and its members in the speech of Menenius Agrippa ([[Livy]] ii. 32). In Late Antiquity [[Martianus Capella]] organized all the information a fifth-century upper-class male needed to know into an allegory of the wedding of Mercury and ''Philologia,'' with the seven [[liberal arts]] as guests; Capella's allegory was widely read through the Middle Ages.
-Some elaborate and successful specimens of allegory are to be found in the following works, arranged in approximately chronological order:
+Other early allegories are found in the [[Hebrew Bible]], for instance in the extended metaphor in [[Psalm 80]] of the [[Grapevine|Vine]], which is Israel and [[Ezekiel]] 16 and 17.
-* [[Aesop]] &ndash; ''[[Aesop's Fables|Fables]]''
-* [[Plato]] &ndash; ''[[Plato's Republic|The Republic]]'' (''[[Plato's allegory of the cave]]'')
+==The medieval era==
+[[File:Allegory of Arithmetic - detail.JPG|thumb|right|220px|''Allegory of [[arithmetic]]'', by [[Laurent de La Hyre]], ca 1650]]
+{{Main|Allegory in the Middle Ages}}
+Medieval thinking accepted allegory as having a ''reality'' underlying any rhetorical or fictional uses. The allegory was as true as the facts of surface appearances. Thus, the bull ''[[Unam Sanctam]]'' (1302) presents themes of the unity of [[Christendom]] with the pope as its head in which the allegorical details of the metaphors are adduced as facts on which is based a demonstration with the vocabulary of logic: "''Therefore'' of this one and only Church there is one body and one head—not two heads as if it were a monster... If, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they ''necessarily'' confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ" [[s:Unam sanctam|(complete text)]].
+In the late 15th century, the enigmatic ''[[Hypnerotomachia]]'', with its elaborate woodcut illustrations, shows the influence of themed pageants and [[masque]]s on contemporary allegorical representation, as [[Renaissance humanism|humanist dialectic]] conveyed them.
+The denial of medieval allegory as found in the 11th-century works of [[Hugh of St Victor]] and [[Edward Topsell]]'s ''Historie of Foure-footed Beastes'' (London, 1607, 1653) and its replacement in the study of nature with methods of categorization and mathematics by such figures as naturalist [[John Ray]] and the astronomer [[Galileo]] is thought to mark the beginnings of early modern science.
+==The modern era==
+Since meaningful stories are nearly always applicable to larger issues, allegories may be read into many stories, sometimes distorting their author's overt meaning. For instance, many people have suggested that ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' is an allegory for the [[world war|World Wars]], in spite of [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s emphatic statement in the introduction to the second edition, "It is neither allegorical nor topical.... I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence."
+Where some requirements of "realism", in its flexible meanings, are set aside, allegory can come more strongly to the surface, as in the work of [[Bertold Brecht]] on one hand, or on the other in science fiction and fantasy, where an element of universal application and allegorical overtones are common, as with ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]''.
+==Examples by genre==
+Not every resonant work of modern fiction is an allegory. [[Arthur Miller]]'s ''[[The Crucible]]'', for instance, is character-driven historical drama with contemporary relevance, but is not an allegory in spite of its parallels with McCarthyism, linking the hunt for communists in the 1940s and 1950s to the hunt for witches in the late 17th century. [[L. Frank Baum]]'s ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]]'' is plot-driven fantasy narrative in an extended fable with talking animals and broadly-sketched characters.<!--by whom? It has been read after the fact as an allegory for the political problems of the time.--> [[J.R.R. Tolkien]]'s [[The Lord of the Rings]] is another example of a work sometimes seen as allegorical yet, as the author explained, is not - rather it is an example of what he referred to as applicability.
+===Art===
+Some elaborate and successful specimens of allegory are to be found in the following works, arranged in approximate chronological order:
+* [[Ambrogio Lorenzetti]] &ndash; "Good Government in the City" and "Bad Government in the City"
+* [[Sandro Botticelli]] &ndash; ''La Primavera (Allegory of Spring)''
+* [[Albrecht Dürer]] &ndash; ''[[Melencolia I]]''
+* [[Bronzino]] &ndash; ''[[Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time]]''
+* [[Artemisia Gentileschi]] &ndash; ''Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting''; ''Allegory of Inclination''
+* [[The English School|The English School's]] &ndash; ''"Allegory of Queen Elizabeth"'' painted circa 1610.
+* [[Jan Vermeer]] &ndash; ''The Allegory of Painting''
+* [[Lady Justice]]. &ndash; ''Such visual representations have raised the question why so many allegories in the history of art, representing male [[gender]]ed realities, are of female sex.''
+* [[Graydon Parrish]] &ndash; ''[[The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy]]''
+* Progress "Up on the Moon"
+<gallery perrow="3">
+File:Titian - Allegorie der Zeit.jpg|[[Titian]]'s ''Allegory of Age Governed by Prudence'', with three human heads symbolising age and the triple-headed beast (dog, lion, wolf) standing for prudence.
+File:Jan Vermeer van Delft 011.jpg|Jan Vermeer's work, [[The Art of Painting|''The Allegory of Painting'']].
+File:Elizabeth-I-Allegorical-Po.jpg|The English School's ''Allegory of Queen Elizabeth'' with [[Father Time]] at her right and [[The Grim Reaper|Death]] looking over her left shoulder.  Two cherubs are removing the weighty crown from her tired head.
+</gallery>
+===Literature===
+;Classical literature
+* [[Aesop]] &ndash; ''[[Aesop's Fables|Fables]]''
+* [[Plato]] &ndash; ''[[Plato's Republic|The Republic]]'' ("[[Plato's allegory of the cave]]")
 * [[Plato]] &ndash; ''[[Phaedrus (dialogue)|Phaedrus]]'' (''[[Chariot Allegory]]'')
-*[[Euripides]] &ndash; ''[[The Trojan Women]]''
+* [[Euripides]] &ndash; ''[[The Trojan Women]]''
-* ''[[Book of Revelation]]'' (for allegory in Christian theology, see [[typology (theology)]])
+* [[Qu Yuan]] &ndash; ''[[Encountering Trouble]]''
+* ''[[Book of Revelation]]'' (for allegory in Christian theology, see [[typology (theology)]]
 * [[Martianus Capella]] &ndash; ''De nuptiis philologiæ et Mercurii''
-* ''[[The Romance of the Rose]]''
+* [[Various Authors]]'' (The Holy Bible)
+;Mediaeval literature
+* [[Prudentius]] &ndash; ''[[Psychomachia]]''
+* [[Christine de Pizan]] &ndash; ''[[The Book of the City of Ladies]]''
 * [[William Langland]] &ndash;  ''[[Piers Plowman]]''
 * ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]''
 * [[Dante Alighieri]] &ndash; ''[[The Divine Comedy]]''
 * ''[[Everyman (play)|Everyman]]''
+;Modern literature
+:No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... [In ''[[The Old Man and the Sea]]''], I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things.|Ernest Hemingway in 1954
 * [[Edmund Spenser]] &ndash; ''[[The Faerie Queene]]''
-* [[John Bunyan]] &ndash; ''[[Pilgrim's Progress]]''
+* [[Edwin Abbott Abbott]] &ndash; ''[[Flatland]]''
-* [[Jonathan Swift]] &ndash; ''[[A Tale of a Tub]]''
 * [[Joseph Addison]] &ndash; ''Vision of Mirza''
-* [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]] &ndash; ''Princess Brambilla''
+* [[Antoine De Saint-Exupery]] &ndash; ''[[The Little Prince]]''
-* [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] &ndash; "[[The Great Carbuncle]]"
+* [[Jorge Luis Borges]] &ndash; "[[The Library of Babel]]" and "[[The Babylon Lottery]]"
-* [[Herman Melville]] &ndash; ''[[The Confidence-Man]]''
-* [[Edgar Allan Poe]] &ndash; "[[The Masque of the Red Death]]"
-Modern allegories in fiction tend to operate under constraints of modern requirements for [[verisimilitude]] within conventional expectations of [[realism (arts)|realism]]. Works of fiction with strong allegorical overtones include:
-* [[Jorge Luis Borges]] &ndash; ''[[The Library of Babel]]''
 * [[Peter S. Beagle]] &ndash; ''[[The Last Unicorn]]''
-* [[William Golding]] &ndash; ''[[Lord of the Flies (novel)|Lord of the Flies]]''
+* [[John Bunyan]] &ndash; ''[[Pilgrim's Progress]]''
+* William M. Burwell &ndash; ''[[White Acre vs. Black Acre]]''
+* [[Albert Camus]] &ndash; ''[[The Plague]]'', ''[[The Stranger (novel)|The Stranger]]'', and [[Myth of Sisyphus]]
+* [[Wu Cheng'en]] &mdash; ''[[The Journey to the West]]''
+* [[J. M. Coetzee]] &ndash; ''[[Waiting for the Barbarians]]''
+* [[Charles Dickens]] &ndash; ''[[A Christmas Carol]]''
+* [[William Faulkner]] &ndash; ''[[A Rose for Emily]]'' (Emily symbolizes the decline of the Old South)
+* [[William Golding]] &ndash; ''[[Lord of the Flies]]''
+* [[Daniel Handler]] &ndash; ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]''
+* [[Roger Hargreaves]] - ''Mr.Happy''
+* [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] &ndash; "[[The Great Carbuncle]]", "[[Young Goodman Brown]]"
+* [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]] &ndash; ''Princess Brambilla''
 * [[John Irving]] &ndash; ''[[A Prayer for Owen Meany]]''
+* [[C. S. Lewis]] &ndash; ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'' (most notably in the book ''[[The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe]]'')
 * [[David Lindsay (novelist)|David Lindsay]] &ndash; ''A Voyage to Arcturus''
-* [[Arthur Miller]] &ndash; ''[[The Crucible]]''
+* [[Jack London]]- "[[A Piece of Steak]]", short story about youth vs. old age
+* [[George MacDonald]] &ndash; ''[[Phantastes]]''
+* [[Naguib Mahfouz]] &ndash; ''[[Children of Gebelawi]]''
+* [[Bernard Malamud]] &ndash; ''[[The Natural]]''
+* [[Cormac McCarthy]] &ndash; ''[[The Road]]''
+* [[Herman Melville]] &ndash; ''[[The Confidence-Man]]''
 * [[Hualing Nieh]] &ndash; ''[[Mulberry and Peach]]''
 * [[George Orwell]] &ndash; ''[[Animal Farm]]''
+* [[Edgar Allan Poe]] &ndash; "[[The Masque of the Red Death]]" (though Poe did not believe in allegory, this story is generally assumed to be one)
+* [[Theodore Francis Powys]] &ndash; ''Mr. Weston's Good Wine''
 * [[Philip Pullman]] &ndash; ''[[His Dark Materials]]''
-* [[Rex Warner]] &ndash; ''The Aerodrome''
+* [[Jose Saramago]] &ndash; ''[[Blindness (novel)|Blindness]]''
+* [[Anna Sewell]] &ndash; ''[[Black Beauty]]''
+* [[John Steinbeck]] &ndash; ''[[Of Mice and Men]]''
+* [[John Steinbeck]] &ndash; '' [[The Pearl (novel)|The Pearl]]''
+* [[Jonathan Swift]] &ndash; ''[[A Tale of a Tub]]'' and ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' (political allegory)
+* [[Koushun Takami]] &ndash; ''[[Battle Royale]]''
+* [[Rex Warner]] &ndash; ''The Aerodrome''
+* [[Mohsin Hamid]] &ndash; ''The Reluctant Fundamentalist''
+;Plays
-Where some requirements of "realism", in its flexible meanings, are set aside, allegory can come more strongly to the surface, as in the work of [[Bertold Brecht]] or [[Franz Kafka]] on one hand, or on the other in science fiction and fantasy, where an element of universal application and allegorical overtones are common, as with ''[[Dune (novel)|Dune]]''.
+*  [[August Wilson]] &ndash; ''[[Fences (play)]]'' (Troy's fence is "designed" to keep the grim reaper away)
-Allegorical films include:
+===Film===
+* [[James Cameron]]'s ''[[Avatar (2009 film)|Avatar]]''
 * [[Fritz Lang]]'s ''[[Metropolis (film)|Metropolis]]''
 * [[Ingmar Bergman]]'s ''[[The Seventh Seal]]''
-* [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)]]''
 * ''[[El Topo]]''
-* ''[[Star Wars]]''
+* ''[[Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country]]''
 * ''[[The Matrix]]''
-* ''[[The Virgin Suicides]]''
+* ''[[Dawn of the Dead]]''
-* ''[[The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)|''The Wizard of Oz'']]''
+* ''[[The Virgin Suicides (film)|The Virgin Suicides]]''
+* ''[[District 9]]'', [[Apartheid]]
+* ''[[Godzilla (1954 film)|Gojira]]''
+* ''[[Cannibal Holocaust]]''
+* ''[[Foodland (film)]]''
+* ''[[Ana's Playground]]''
+* ''[[Pink Floyd—The Wall]]''
+* ''[[Planet of the Apes (1968 film)]]''
+* ''[[Beneath the Planet of the Apes]]''
+* ''[[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1]]''
+*''[[Pandorum]]''
+* ''[[The Descendants (film)|The Descendants]]''
-Allegorical artworks include:
+== Television ==
-* [[Sandro Botticelli]] &ndash; ''La Primavera (Allegory of Spring)''
-* [[Albrecht Dürer]] &ndash; ''[[Melencolia I]]''
-* [[Artemisia Gentileschi]] &ndash; ''Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting''; ''Allegory of Inclination''
-* [[Jan Vermeer]] &ndash; ''The Allegory of Painting''
-* [[Ambrogio Lorenzetti]]; "Good Government in the City" and "Bad Government in the City"
-==See also==
+* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' (varied themes)
-*''[[The symbolical language of ancient art and mythology; an inquiry]]''
+* ''[[Star Trek]]'' all series, (varied themes, though frequently addressed the issues of prejudice and racism)
-*[[Allegory in the Middle Ages]]
+* ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' Season 5, Episode 2: "[[Darmok]]"
-*[[Allegory in Renaissance literature]]
+* ''[[The Prisoner]]''
-*[[Allegorical sculpture]]
+* ''[[Lost (TV series)|Lost]]''
+* ''[[Fringe (TV series)|Fringe]]''
+* ''[[True Blood]]'' series is allegedly an allegory on ''[[LGBT]]'' rights
+* ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' (2004)
+== Comics ==
+* [[Alan Moore]] and David Lloyd &ndash; ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' identity, anarchism vs. fascism
+* Various ''[[X-Men]]'' comics (mutants as an allegory for various social and racial minorities)
+* The manga Hanako and the Teller of Allegory calls a story given form from peoples' belief in it an allegory
+== See also ==
+* [[Allegory in the Middle Ages]]
+* [[Allegory in Renaissance literature]]
+* [[Allegorical sculpture]]
+* [[Cultural depictions of Philip II of Spain]]
+* [[Literary technique]]
 *[[Mythological painting]]
-*[[Roman à clef]]
+* [[Plot device]]
+* [[Roman à clef]]
+* [[Semiotics]]
+*''[[The symbolical language of ancient art and mythology; an inquiry]]''
+* [[Theagenes of Rhegium]]
 {{GFDL}}

Allegory

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 10:59, 9 September 2012

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