Allegory

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Jameson Kısmet Bell (Bogaziçi University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.
Vol. editors: Atasoy Emrah (University of Warwick)

Domains

Poetic/ rhetorical term

Dates

Date of occurrence c.-500-

Places

Europe (Location)

Resources

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Allegory is a rhetorical device which we find in written and verbal representations where a group of signs stand for abstract ideas, usually religious, moral, philosophical or political. A widely known example is George Orwell’s novel

Animal Farm

(1945), a satire on totalitarian governments in which specific types of farm animals stand for types of contemporary politicians: the pigs resemble communist autocrats, the horses resemble the conscious working class, whilst the sheep and cows resemble the docile masses.

Animal Farm

is a “beast fable”, a genre of allegory that will be discussed later in this essay. Though here we will discuss allegory as a primarily verbal art, it is not limited to words and also appears in images such as are found in stained-glass windows and Renaissance…

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4536 words

Citation: Kısmet Bell, Jameson. "Allegory". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 July 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19735, accessed 17 May 2024.]

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