Religious Allegory

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Religious Allegory

• And Allegory Throughout History

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What Is Allegory?

• 1. Description of a subject under the guise of
  some other subject of aptly suggestive
  resemblance. 
• 2. An instance of such description a figurative
  sentence, discourse, or narrative, in which
  properties and circumstances attributed to the
  apparent subject really refer to the subject they
  are meant to suggest an extended or continued
  metaphor.

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Uses of Allegory

• To allow a message to reach a broader audience
  (such as commoners outside of the clergy)
• To make otherwise complex concepts palatable

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Dante

• The Divine Comedy details the three levels of the
  afterlife in an allegorical manner.

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Dante

• Well, if the subject of the whole work, taken
  literally, is this subject The status of souls
  after death, taken simply and not limited, it is
  obvious that in this part such a status is the
  subject, but restricted, that is, the status of
  the blessed souls after death. And if the subject
  of the whole work, taken allegorically, is man,
  as he gains or loses merit by the exercise of his
  freedom of will, being subject to the justice of
  punishment or reward, it is obvious that in this
  part the subject is restricted, namely, man, to
  the extent that he is subject by merits to the
  justice of punishment.

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Pearl

• I never found her precious equal
• Fusing substantive allegory with a stylistic
  metaphor the poem in its formatting is itself an
  allegory.

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Book of the City of Ladies

• Using allegory to make a case for women.

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Plato

• Allegory of the Cave

The prisoners are chained to a wall in a cave and
can only see the shadows of things outside. The
philosopher is the one who can see that the
shadows are more than just shadows.
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Ship of Fools

• Fools on a ship without a captain.

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Aristotle

• Words spoken are symbols or signs (symbola) of
  affections or impressions (pathemata) of the soul
  (psyche) written words are the signs of words
  spoken.
• As writing, so also is speech not the same for
  all races of men.
• But the mental affections themselves, of which
  these words are primarily signs (semeia), are the
  same for the whole of mankind, as are also the
  objects (pragmata) of which those affections are
  representations or likenesses, images, copies
  (homoiomata).

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The Modern Allegory

• C.S. Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia
  (1950-1956)
• George Orwells Animal Farm (1945)
• Cormac McCarthys The Road (2006)
• J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter (1997-2007)

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In Film

• Metropolis (1927)
• Casablanca (1942)
• 2001 A Space odyssey (1968)
• The Matrix (1999)

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