The Oxford Handbook of Allegory

Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-0-19-289435-9
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 688 Seiten, Format (B × H): 180 mm x 249 mm, Gewicht: 1397 g

Allegory has been variously defined as a literary genre, a mode of interpretation, and a symbolic dimension to all language. Although 'allegory' historically escapes easy definition, it can be broadly defined as a mode of communicating that says one thing and means another. Allegory arguably functions by means of a distinction between the surface level of communication and a further level or levels of significance beyond the surface.

The term 'allegory' has historically been used both of a mode of writing or representation and of a mode of reading and interpretation. Allegorical writing is found throughout history in a wide variety of literary forms and traditions. This Handbook reflects the diversity of literature in which allegory occurs, including genres such as medieval drama, Romantic poetry, and the postcolonial novel. It addresses both key texts typically thought of as allegories (such as Piers Plowman, The Pilgrim's Progress, and Animal Farm), and allegorical motifs and tendencies present in works not usually labelled as allegories, such as the novels of Dickens and the drama of Beckett. The Handbook also explores forms of allegorical representation beyond written texts, including visual art and film. In addition, the volume traces the history of allegorical reading and interpretation (often known as allegoresis), which has had immense cultural significance, especially in the case of sacred texts such as the Bible, but also, for instance, in the edifying readings of Greek myths and legends.

This Handbook tackles a topic that is by its nature global, transhistorical, and interdisciplinary, and its coverage reflects that breadth of appeal, starting with Plato's myth of the cave and finishing with the 2015 Disney/Pixar film Inside Out. It draws upon, and makes contributions to, fields including literary studies, film studies, art history, mathematics, classics, theology, and cognitive science. It features both traditional topics of discussion in relation to allegory (such as rhetoric, personification, and typology) and innovative new approaches (such as ecocritical and phenomenological readings), offering a kaleidoscope of perspectives to illuminate the ongoing resonance of allegory's 'other-speaking' to the present.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Parry, David

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction

- 1: Peter T. Struck: Plato as Allegorist and Anti-Allegorist

- 2: Philip Hardie: Allegorical Reading and Writing in the Epic Traditions of Classical Antiquity

- 3: Craig L. Blomberg: Allegory in Biblical Parable and Prophecy

- 4: Hauna Ondrey: Allegory and Typology in Early Christian Refigurations of the Hebrew Bible

- 5: Ronald L. Martinez: Dante: The Artifice of Allegory

- 6: Katharine Breen: Medieval Allegorical Poetry and Prose

- 7: Elisabeth Dutton: Allegory in Medieval and Early Tudor Drama

- 8: Jon Whitman: 'Allegory' and 'Literality' in Flux: From Medieval to Early Modern Interpretation

- 9: Richard A. McCabe: Spenser and Allegory

- 10: Judith H. Anderson: Shakespeare and Allegory

- 11: Vladimir Brljak: Allegory, 'Allegory', and Allegory: Ends and Beginnings, c.1500-1700

- 12: David Parry: The Paradoxes of Puritan Allegory in John Milton and John Bunyan

- 13: Jane K. Brown: Allegory in Continental Romanticism

- 14: Nicholas Halmi: Allegory in British Romanticism

- 15: Peter Otto: William Blake and 'Allegory addressd to the Intellectual powers': Swedenborgian correspondence, Romantic symbolism, and the metamorphoses of allegory

- 16: Jo Carruthers: Victorian Allegory

- 17: Deborah L. Madsen: Allegorical Typology, Typological Allegory in American Literature

- 18: Stephen Sicari: High Modernism and the 'Allegory of Theologians': Joyce, Eliot, Stevens, and Woolf

- 19: Malcolm Guite: Allegory Amongst the Inklings

- 20: Mark Taylor-Batty and Juliette Taylor-Batty: Allegory and the Absurd in Post-1950 Drama

- 21: Maria Cichosz: Allegory's Transformations in Postmodern Literature and Art

- 22: Kenneth Paradis: Allegory in Contemporary 'Christian Fiction'

- 23: James Ogude: Post-Colonial Allegory: The African and Caribbean Example

- 24: David Rosen and Aaron Santesso: Allegory and the Reader

- 25: Rita Copeland: Allegory and Rhetoric

- 26: Jason Crawford: Allegory and Personification

- 27: Vera J. Camden and Valentino Zullo: Allegory and Gender

- 28: Brenda Machosky: Allegory and Appearance: Phenomenological Approaches to Allegory

- 29: David Hawkes: Allegory and Alienation: Marxist Approaches

- 30: Jeremy Tambling: Allegory and the City: Vanity and the Phantasmagoria

- 31: Gabriella Blasi: Allegory and the Anthropocene: Ecocritical Perspectives

- 32: Onno Oerlemans: Animals in Allegory

- 33: Lisa Rosenthal: Visual Allegory and Materiality in Early Modern Europe

- 34: Mark Kozek: Flatland: A Mathematical Allegory in Many Dimensions

- 35: Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.: Allegory and the Embodied Mind: The Cognitive Science of Allegory

- 36: Craig A. Hamilton: Political Allegory: Symbol and Surveillance

- 37: Jason J. Gulya and Naya Tsentourou: Animation and Fantasy Film in the Allegorical Tradition

Über Autor(innen)

David Parry is Tutorial Fellow and Director of Studies in English at Regent's Park College, University of Oxford. His research interests cluster around the intersection of rhetoric, religion, and intellectual history in early modern English literature. His first book The Rhetoric of Conversion in English Puritan Writing from Perkins to Milton was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2022. He has published in journals including SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 and Milton Quarterly, and in edited essay collections from publishers including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Palgrave Macmillan. He is also the reviews editor for Bunyan Studies.