ALLEGORY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Allegory

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/ˈæləgˌɔri/ Listen

Allegory

noun

(pl. allegories)

A short moral story (often with animal characters). Synonyms: apologue, fable, parable.

A visible symbol representing an abstract idea. Synonym: emblem.

An expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances; an extended metaphor.

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Etymology of 'Allegory'

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"Allegory" Quotes from Famous Books

... old man, "how the Saviour was tempted in the wilderness by the Evil One, is not in your opinion a parable, or an allegory, or mythical legend, without any substance? but you believe that this event actually befell Jesus Christ, the Son of God, along with the various circumstances and questions ...

— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... explain. It appears in the most unexpected places. An obscure Corsican lieutenant becomes Emperor of France, arbiter of Europe, and one of the three or four really great commanders of history; a tinker in Bedford County jail writes the greatest allegory in literature; and the son of two mediocre players develops into the first figure in American letters. Conversely, genius seldom appears where one would naturally look for it. Seldom indeed does genius beget genius. It expends itself ...

— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... something moral so to speak, in monuments, and they derive their poesy from the thought connected with them. For a cathedral, it is the idea of God. For Versailles, it is the idea of the King. Its mythology is but a magnificent allegory of which Louis XIV is the reality. It is he always and everywhere. Fabulous heroes and divinities impart their attributes to him or mingle with his courtiers. In honor of him, Neptune sheds broadcast the waters that cross in air in sparkling arches. Apollo, ...

— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne

... 1874. Starts a Bible-reading in Dorset. Begins to take Lessons in Painting. A Letter from her Teacher. Publication of Urbane and His Friends. Design of the Work. Her Views of the Christian Life. The Mystics. The Indwelling Christ. An Allegory. ...

— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... Mrs. Beecher Stowe's epoch-making novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, certainly contributed towards the abolition of slavery in the United States. Dickens gave a powerful impetus to the reform of our law-courts and our Poor Law. Moreover, even in free England, political writers have at times resorted to allegory in order to promulgate their ideas. Swift's Brobdingnagians and Lilliputians furnish a case in point. In France, Voltaire called fictitious Chinamen, Bulgarians, and Avars into existence in order to satirise the proceedings of his own countrymen. But the ...

— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

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