Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.
- noun A story, picture, or play employing such representation. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick are allegories.
- noun A symbolic representation.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A figurative treatment of a subject not expressly mentioned, under the guise of another having analogous properties or circumstances; usually, a sentence, discourse, or narrative ostensibly relating to material things or circumstances, but intended as an exposition of others of a more spiritual or recondite nature having some perceptible analogy or figurative resemblance to the former.
- noun A method of speaking or writing characterized by this kind of figurative treatment.
- noun In painting and sculpture, a figurative representation in which the meaning is conveyed symbolically. Synonyms Simile, Metaphor, Comparison, etc. See simile.
- To employ allegory; allegorize.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances. The real subject is thus kept out of view, and we are left to collect the intentions of the writer or speaker by the resemblance of the secondary to the primary subject.
- noun Anything which represents by suggestive resemblance; an emblem.
- noun (Paint. & Sculpt.) A figure representation which has a meaning beyond notion directly conveyed by the object painted or sculptured.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
representation ofabstract principles bycharacters orfigures . - noun A
picture ,book , or otherform ofcommunication using such representation. - noun A
symbolic representation.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances; an extended metaphor
- noun a visible symbol representing an abstract idea
- noun a short moral story (often with animal characters)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I use the term allegory reluctantly because allegorical figures, like those found in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress or Spenser's Faerie Queene tend to be one-dimensional, lacking interiority and nuance.
Michael Gilmour: Anne Bronte's Religious Imagination Michael Gilmour 2012
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I use the term allegory reluctantly because allegorical figures, like those found in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress or Spenser's Faerie Queene tend to be one-dimensional, lacking interiority and nuance.
Michael Gilmour: Anne Bronte's Religious Imagination Michael Gilmour 2012
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To become figurable-that is to say, visible in the first place, accessible to our imaginations - the classes have to be able to become in some sense characters in their own right: this is the sense in which the term allegory in our title is to be taken as a working hypothesis.
Recently Uploaded Slideshows guest8ac7bfc 2009
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But the allegory is a continued metaphor, in which the circumstances are palpably often purely imagery, while the thing signified is altogether real.
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The ketchup allegory is brilliant, but I wish Summers knew how to use “comprise.”
Matthew Yglesias » Efficient Markets Hypothesis Rhetoric 2010
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The allegory is so interchangeable over the decades and speaks to that inner paranoia of whatever society is watching it.
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But to tie the book down to this allegory is to do it a reductive injustice.
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Most of all, the show's universe was flimsy and under-developed, the result of too much attention paid to thin allegory and facile real-world parallels, and not enough energy diverted to making Galactica's universe its own living creation.
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It sounds like it is rich in allegory, which should be part of a balanced diet.
Friday Blogaround 2009
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The second allegory is the religious one, and it is more complex.
Book Review: The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie 2007
tankexmortis commented on the word allegory
A tool for those with little imagination.
December 4, 2006