The Collaborative International Dictionary
Allegory \Al"le*go*ry\, n.; pl. Allegories. [L. allegoria, Gr. ?, description of one thing under the image of another; ? other + ? to speak in the assembly, harangue, ? place of assembly, fr. ? to assemble: cf. F. all['e]gorie.]
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.
Anything which represents by suggestive resemblance; an emblem.
-
(Paint. & Sculpt.) A figure representation which has a meaning beyond notion directly conveyed by the object painted or sculptured.
Syn: Metaphor; fable.
Usage: Allegory, Parable. ``An allegory differs both from fable and parable, in that the properties of persons are fictitiously represented as attached to things, to which they are as it were transferred. . . . A figure of Peace and Victory crowning some historical personage is an allegory. ``I am the Vine, ye are the branches'' [
--John xv. 1-6] is a spoken allegory. In the parable there is no transference of properties. The parable of the sower [
--Matt. xiii. 3-23] represents all things as according to their proper nature. In the allegory quoted above the properties of the vine and the relation of the branches are transferred to the person of Christ and His apostles and disciples.''
--C. J. Smith.Note: An allegory is a prolonged metaphor. Bunyan's ``Pilgrim's Progress'' and Spenser's ``Fa["e]rie Queene'' are celebrated examples of the allegory. [1913 Webster] ||
Wiktionary
n. (plural of allegory English)
Usage examples of "allegories".
The allegories, supposed in H/OMER\ and other mythologists, I allow, have often been so strained, that men of sense are apt entirely to reject them, and to consider them as the production merely of the fancy and conceit of critics and commentators.
Both describe fascistic societies in a not too distant future, both are in a sense allegories on events that already had taken place when they were written.
So, for example, we find religious allegories like John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia among the works of science fiction, something that undoubtedly would have surprised the authors.
Fairy tales and religious allegories have existed since time immemorial, but the particular literature or point of view that we call Fantasy is, despite all eager efforts to prove the opposite, a comparably new occurrence, that appeared during the nineteenth century with works like Lewis Carroll's (Charles L.
But then you always did refuse to see any of the allegories I pointed out to you.
People take the figurative language of the Bible and the allegories for literal, and the first thing they ask for when they get here is a halo and a harp, and so on.
Kafka, however unmistakable the ethnic source of his "liveliness" and alienation, avoided Jewish parochialism, and his allegories of pained awareness take upon themselves the entire European -- that is to say, predominantly Christian -- malaise.
Am I afraid to say, that holy writ, Which for its style and phrase puts down all wit, Is everywhere so full of all these things -- Dark figures, allegories?
It is beautiful in its rococco way, swept up to on its terrace by most noble staircases, and swaggered over by baroque allegories of all sorts: Everywhere the statues outnumbered the visitors, who may have been kept away by the rain.
In front of the long windows looking into the Square were statues, kneeling figures which turned their backs upon the company within-doors, and represented allegories of Faith and Prayer to people without.
Beyond obvious allegories to reproduction, creativity, and ecology, the game allowed discussion of talent, and the essential difference between individuals and averages.
Enduring legends like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, King Arthur, and Sleeping Beauty were Grail allegories.