1. A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances. The principal 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. allegory is in words that hieroglyphics are in painting. We have a fine example of an allegory in the eightiethPsalm, in which God's chosen people are represented by a vineyard. The distinction in scripture between a parable and an allegory is said to be that a parable is a supposed history, and an allegory a figurative description of real facts. An allegory is called a continued metaphor. The following line in Virgil is an example of an allegory
1. 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.
2. Anything which represents by suggestive resemblance; an emblem.
3. A figure representation which has a meaning beyond notion directly conveyed by the object painted or sculptured.
ALLEGORY (άλλος, other, and αγορεύω, to speak), a figurative representation conveying a meaning other than and in addition to the literal. It is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but the medium of representation is not necessarily language. An allegory may be addressed to the eye, and is often embodied in painting, sculpture, or some form of mimetic art. The etymological meaning of the word is wider than that which it bears in actual use. An allegory is distinguished from a metaphor by being longer sustained and more fully carried out in its details, and from an analogy by the fact that the one appeals to the imagination and the other to the reason. The fable or parable is a short allegory with one definite moral. The allegory has been a favourite 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 the 80th psalm. In classical literature one of the best known allegories is the story of the stomach and its members in the speech of Menenius Agrippa (Livy, ii. 32); and several occur in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Perhaps the most elaborate and the most successful specimens of allegory are to be found in the works of English authors. Spencer’s Faerie Queene, Swift’s Tale of a Tub, Addison’s Vision of Mirza, and, above all, Bunyan’s Pilgrim' s Progress, are examples that it would be impossible to match in elaboration, beauty, and fitness, from the literature of any other nation.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 1, p. 581 [269 words — estimated reading time: 2 minutes]
a figure in rhetoric, whereby we make use of terms which, in their proper signification, mean something else than what they are brought to denote; or it is a figure whereby we say one thing, expecting it shall be understood of another, to which it alludes; or which, under the literal sense of the words, conceals a foreign or distant meaning. An allegory is, properly, a continued metaphor, or a series of several metaphors in one or more sentences. Such is that beautiful allegory in Horace, lib. i, Od. 14.
“_O navis, referent in mare te novi Fluctus_,” _&c._
[O ship, shall new billows drive thee again to sea, &c.]
Where the ship is usually held to stand for the republic; waves, for civil war; port, for peace and concord; oars, for soldiers; and mariners for magistrates. Thus, also, in Prior’s Henry and Emma, Emma describes her constancy to Henry in the following allegorical manner:--
“Did I but purpose to embark with thee On the smooth surface of a summer’s sea, While gentle zephyrs play with prosperous gales, And fortune’s favour fills the swelling sails; But would forsake the ship, and make the shore, When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar?”
Cicero, likewise, speaking of himself, in Pison. c. 9, tom. vi, p. 187, uses this allegorical language: “Nor was I so timorous, that, after I had steered the ship of the state through the greatest storms and waves, and brought her safe into port, I should fear the cloud of your forehead, or your colleague’s pestilential breath. I saw other winds, I perceived other storms, I did not withdraw from other impending tempests; but I exposed myself singly to them for the common safety.” Here the state is compared to a ship, and all the things said of it under that image, are expressed in metaphors made use of to ...denote the dangers with which it had been threatened. We have also a very fine example of an allegory in Psalm lxxx; in which the people of Israel are represented under the image of a vine, and the figure is supported throughout with great correctness and beauty. Whereas, if, instead of describing the vine as wasted by the boar from the wood, and devoured by the wild beasts of the field, the Psalmist had said, it was afflicted by Heathens, or overcome by enemies, which is the real meaning, the figurative and the literal meaning would have been blended, and the allegory ruined. The learned Bishop Lowth, _De Sacrâ Poesi Hebræorum, Præl._ 10, 11, has specified three forms of allegory that occur in sacred poetry. The first is that which rhetoricians call a continued metaphor. When several metaphors succeed each other, they alter the form of the composition; and this succession has very properly, in reference to the etymology of the word, been denominated by the Greeks αλληγορια, an allegory; although Aristotle, instead of considering it as a new species of figure, has referred it to the class of metaphors. The principle of allegory in this sense of the term, and of the simple metaphor, is the same; nor is it an easy matter to restrict each to its proper limit, and to mark the precise termination of the one, and the commencement of the other. This eminently judicious critic observes, that when the Hebrew poets use the congenial figures of metaphor, allegory, and comparison, particularly in the prophetic poetry, they adopt a peculiar mode of doing it, and seldom regulate the imagery which they introduce by any fixed principle or standard. Not satisfied with a simple metaphor, they often run it into an allegory, or blend with it a direct comparison. The allegory sometimes follows, and sometimes precedes the simile: to this is added a frequent change of imagery, as well as of persons and tenses; and thus are displayed an energy and boldness, both of expression and meaning, which are unconfined by any stated rules, and which mark the discriminating genius of the Hebrew poetry. Thus, in Gen. xlix, 9, “Judah is a lion’s whelp;” this metaphor is immediately drawn out into an allegory, with a change of person: “From the prey, my son, thou art gone up,” that is, to the mountains, which is understood; and in the succeeding sentences the person is again changed, the image is gradually advanced, and the metaphor is joined with a comparison that is repeated.
“He stoopeth down, he coucheth as a lion; And as a lioness; who shall rouse him?”
V. compare to, compare with, collate, confront, place side by side, juxtapose, set against one another, pit against one another, contrast, balance, identify, draw a parallel, parallel, compare notes, institute a comparison, parva componere magnis
Adj. comparative, metaphorical, compared with, comparable, judged by comparison
Adv. relatively, as compared with
Phr. comparisons are odious, "comparisons are odorous"
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
These things serve as illustrations, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery: This is Hagar.
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