The Probert Encyclopaedia of General Information

ALLEGORY

Allegory is a figurative representation in which the signs (words or forms) signify something besides their literal or direct meaning. In rhetoric allegory is often but a continued simile. Parables and fables are a species of allegory. Sometimes long works are throughout allegorical, as Spenser's Faerie Queene and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. When an allegory is thus continued it is indispensable to its success that not only the allegorical meaning should be appropriate, but that the story should have an interest of its own in the direct meaning apart from the allegorical signification. Allegory is often made use of in painting and sculpture as well as in literature.
Research Allegory