Allegory

An allegory (from Greek αλλος, allos, "other," and αγορευειν, agoreuein, "to speak in public") is a symbolic, figurative mode of representation of abstract ideas and principles, conveying a meaning other than and in addition to the literal. Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but it may be addressed in visual forms such as painting, sculpture or some forms of mimetic art.

The etymological meaning of the word is wider than that which it bears in actual use. Though it is similar to other rhetorical comparisons, an allegory is sustained longer and more full in its details than a metaphor, and appeals to imagination where an analogy appeals to reason. The fable or parable is a short allegory with one definite moral.

Allegory is one of the most popular forms in the literature throughout centuries in almost all cultures in the world. In the Old Testament, for example, the comparison of the history of Israel to the growth of a vine is found in Psalm 80:19-17. In philosophy, Plato's allegory of cave and chariot allegory are the best known classic examples.

Allegories in Scriptures, literatures, and arts

Hebrew scriptures

The allegory has been a favorite form in the literature of nearly every nation. The Hebrew scriptures present frequent instances of it, one of the most beautiful being the comparison of the history of Israel to the growth of a vine in Psalm 80:19-17. In the Rabbinic tradition fully-developed allegorical readings were applied to every text, with every detail of the narrative given an emblematic reading, a tradition that was inherited by Christian writers, for whom allegorical similitudes are the basis of exegesis, the origin of the arts of hermeneutics. The late Jewish and Early Christian visionary Apocalyptic literature, with its base in the Book of Daniel, presents allegorical figures, of which the Whore of Babylon and the Beast of Revelation are simply the most familiar.

Classical literature

In classical literature two of the best known allegories are 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. In Late Antiquity Martianus Capella organized all the information a 5th-century upper-class male needed to know into an allegory of the wedding of Mercury and Philologia, with the seven liberal arts as guests, an allegory that was widely read through the Middle Ages. 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.

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

• Aesop – Fables
• Plato – The Republic (Allegory of the Cave) (see below)
• Plato – Phaedrus (Chariot Allegory) (see below)
• Book of Revelation
• Martianus Capella – De nuptiis philologiæ et Mercurii
• The Romance of the Rose
• Piers Plowman
• The Pearl
• Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy
• Edmund Spenser – The Faerie Queene
• John Bunyan – Pilgrim's Progress
• Jean de La Fontaine – Fables
• Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub
• Joseph Addison – Vision of Mirza

Modern literatures, films, and arts

Modern allegories in fiction tend to operate under constraints of modern requirements for verisimilitude within conventional expectations of realism. Works of fiction with strong allegorical overtones include:

• William Golding – Lord of the Flies
• George Orwell – Animal Farm
• Arthur Miller – The Crucible
• Philip Pullman – His Dark Materials

Hualing Nieh: Mulberry and Peach Allegorical films include:

• Fritz Lang's Metropolis
• Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal
• El Topo etc.

Allegorical artworks include:

• Sandro Botticelli – La Primavera (Allegory of Spring)
• Albrecht Dürer – Melancholia I
• Artemisia Gentileschi – Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting; Allegory of Inclination
• Jan Vermeer – The Allegory of Painting

Plato's Allegory of the cave

The Allegory of the Cave is an allegory used by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic. The allegory of the cave is told and then interpreted by the character Socrates at the beginning of Book 7 (514a–520a). It is related to Plato's metaphor of the sun (507b–509c) and the analogy of the divided line (509d–513e) which immediately precede it at the end of Book 6. Allegories are summarized in the viewpoint of dialectic at the end of book VII and VIII (531d-534e). The allegory of the cave is also commonly known as Myth of the Cave, Metaphor of the Cave or the Parable of the Cave.

Plot

This drawing is highly simplified and should only be used as an aid for grasping the picture the allegory creates; it does not represent the entire allegory.

Imagine prisoners who have been chained since their childhood deep inside a cave: not only are their arms and legs unmovable because of chains; their heads are chained in one direction as well so that their gaze is fixed on a wall.

Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which puppets of various animals, plants, and other things are moved along. The puppets cast shadows on the wall, and the prisoners watch these shadows. When one of the puppet-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows.

The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game: naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of objects. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the shapes and dislike those who play poorly.

Suppose a prisoner is released and compelled to stand up and turn around. At that moment his eyes will be blinded by the sunlight coming into the cave from its entrance, and the shapes passing by will appear less real than their shadows.

The last object he would be able to see is the sun, which, in time, he would learn to see as the object that provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen.

(This part of the allegory, incidentally, closely relates to Plato's metaphor of the sun which occurs near the end of The Republic, Book VI.)

Once enlightened, so to speak, the freed prisoner would not want to return to the cave to free "his fellow bondsmen," but would be compelled to do so. Another problem lies in the other prisoners not wanting to be freed: descending back into the cave would require that the freed prisoner's eyes adjust again, and for a time, he would be one of the ones identifying shapes on the wall. His eyes would be swamped by the darkness, and would take time to become acclimated. Therefore, he would not be able to identify the shapes on the wall as well as the other prisoners, making it seem as if his being taken to the surface completely ruined his eyesight. (The Republic bk. VII, 516b-c; trans. Paul Shorey).

Interpretation

Plato believed that truth was gained from looking at universals in order to gain understanding of experience Humans had to travel from the visible realm of image-making and objects of sense, to the intelligible, or invisible, realm of reasoning and understanding. "The Allegory of the Cave" symbolizes this trek and how it would look to those still in a lower realm. Plato is saying that humans are all prisoners and that the tangible world is our cave. The things which we perceive as real are actually just shadows on a wall. Just as the escaped prisoner ascends into the light of the sun, we amass knowledge and ascend into the light of true reality: where ideas in our minds can help us understand the form of 'The Good'.

Plato's Chariot Allegory

Plato, in his dialogue, Phaedrus (sections 246a - 254e), uses the Chariot Allegory to explain his view of the human soul. He does this in the dialogue through the character of Socrates, who uses it in a discussion of the merit of Love as "divine madness".

The chariot

Plato paints the picture of a Charioteer driving a chariot pulled by two horses. One horse is white and long necked, well bred, well behaved, and runs without a whip. The other is black and short-necked, badly bred, troublesome.

The Charioteer represents intellect, reason, or the part of the soul that must guide the soul to truth; the white horse represents rational or moral impulse or the positive part of passionate nature (e.g., righteous indignation); the black horse represents the soul's irrational passions, appetites, or concupiscent nature. The Charioteer directs the entire chariot/soul, trying to stop the horses from going different ways, and to proceed towards enlightenment..

The journey

Plato describes a "great circuit" which souls make as they follow the gods in the path of enlightenment. Those few souls which are fully enlightened are able to see the world of the forms in all its glory. Some souls have difficulty controlling the black horse, even with the help of the white horse. They may bob up into the world of the forms, but at other times enlightenment is hidden from them. If overcome by the black horse or forgetfulness, the soul loses its wings and is pulled down to earth.

Should that happen, the soul is incarnated into one of nine kinds of person, according to how much truth it beheld. In order of decreasing levels of truth seen, the categories are: (1) philosophers, lovers of beauty, men of culture, or those dedicated to love; (2) law-abiding kings or civic leaders; (3) politicians, estate-managers or buisinessmen; (4) ones who specialize in bodily health; (5) prophets or mystery cult participants; (6) poets or imitative artists; (7) craftsmen or farmers; (8) sophists or demagogues; and (9) tyrants.

One need not suppose, of course, that Plato intended this as a literal discussion of metempsychosis or reincarnation; it seems more likely he meant it as figurative.

See also

• Allegory in the Middle Ages
• Allegorical sculpture

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Frye, Northrop. 1957. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

External links

• Good brief definition of Allegory. Retrieved December 13, 2007.
• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Allegory in Literary history. Retrieved December 13, 2007.

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