Allegory

what is Allegory?

'Allegory' implies a figurative way of making a comparison between two different subjects. But the comparison is not short. It is made prolonged, through numerous details, common to the subjects compared. It is a figure by which a comparison between two unallied subjects is protracted and sustained by means of a length and detailed discussion. Finally, there is a significance or inner idea which forms its moral, instruction, or teaching. It is not, like the metaphor or similar, simply figurative, but has a didactic role.

In an allegory, the comparison implied generally forms a narrative. This, in most cases, has a moral which had an allegorical signification. The narrative, apart from the allegorical significance, however, has an interest of its own. In a good allegory, the original moral is not pushed up openly but rather artistically concealed and indirectly suggested. This moral may be related to religion, ethics, social and political matters, and so on. 

In short, an allegory is an instructive narrative, in verse or prose, in which the agents, the main action and even the setting occasionally are so contrived that they have not merely an independent existence and a clear sense in themselves, but bear, too, a secondary or co-related order of persons, events and situations.

The predominance of allegorical literature in Middle English literature was, however, natural because of the influence of French literature. Allegories were predominant in the French literature of the time. Consequently, the growth of allegorical literature in the Middle English period was spontaneous. 

The best known medieval allegories include Romance of the Rose, very popular both in France and in England, Purity and Pearl, alliterative poems, The Owl and the Nightingale and Piers Plowman. Moreover, there are several Chaucerian allegories, such as the Boke of Blanche, The Duchess, The Parlement of Foules, The Hous of Fame, and so on. These allegories treat both spiritual and secular themes and are found intimately connected with love, lamentation for the dead, human infirmity, and so on.