ALLEGORY (Gk. allc'goria, speak ing otherwise, allegory, from (iXAoe, altos, other ayapet)em, agoreuein, to speak). The allegory as a literary manner is a narrative in which the incidents and the characters really refer to a complete and logical scheme of underlying thought. To be successful, the narrative must be not only interesting for itself, but also in perfect harmony with the veiled course of abstract reasoning. Such is Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, where, under the guise of a journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, are portrayed the spiritual conflicts and the ultimate victory of the faithful Christian. Allegory, like other kindred figurative ways of speech, such as metaphor and personification, appears in all literatures. The Eastern people from the earliest times have been fond of it. Witness the beast fables which pass under the name of Pilpay. where moral observations are enforced by tales about animals: also the com parison of Israel to a vine in the eightieth Psalm. Though the Greeks had the allegorical habit earlier, the first definite mention of an allegory among them occurs in Plato's Ptot-druR. In this dialogue, Socrates remarks on the ten dency toward the rationalistic explanation of myths. This and other dialogues of Plato con tain very beautiful allegories, among which may be cited the comparison of the soul to a char ioteer drawn by two horses, one white and the other black. For Latin literature may he men tioned the story of Cupid and Psyche, which, though Greek in origin. survives only in the Golden Ass of Apuleius, Vergil's well-known description of Fame in the fourth book of the ,Encid, and ovid's splendid picture of the abode of that goddess in the twelfth book of the Meta morphoses. To a later time belongs Boethius's
De ('onsolatione Philosophiw (sixth century A.D.). which was one of the widest read books in the Middle Ages. The most flourishing period for the allegory in Western Europe was from 1300 to 1600. In the long list of works are Dante's Divine Comedy, The Romance of thc Rose. Lang land's Piers Plowman, Chaucer's House of Fame, the writings of a whole school of Scotch poets, Hawes's Pastime of Pleasure, Barclay's ship of Fools, and Spenser's Faerie Queenc. het allegory has now gone out of fashion, but we have in its place a vaguer symbolism, as in Tennyson's /dyits of the King.
The form of allegory thus defined and illus trated is often called moral or spiritual, to dis tinguish it from the historical allegory: i.e.. the representation of historical characters under fictitious names. Thus Lueifera in the Fuerie Queen( stands not only for pride. but also for Mary, Queen of Scots. The historical allegory became in the seventeenth century a favorite device of romancers, who described contemporary events in the terms of recent history. Of this style, an admirable example is Madame de Lafa yette's Princess( de Cle•res. Moreover, allegory is not confined to literature; it appears equally in painting, and sometimes in sculpture.