Allegory

a story or visual image with a second distinct meaning
partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. The principal
technique of allegory is * PERSONIFICATION, whereby abstract qualities
are given human shape—as in public statues of Liberty or Justice. An
allegory may be conceived as a *METAPHOR that is extended into a
structured system. In written narrative, allegory involves a continuous
parallel between two (or more) levels of meaning in a story, so that its
persons and events correspond to their equivalents in a system of ideas
or a chain of events external to the tale: each character and episode in
John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), for example, embodies an idea
within a pre-existing Puritan doctrine of salvation. Allegorical thinking
permeated the Christian literature of the Middle Ages, flourishing in the
*MORALITY PLAYS and in the *DREAM VISIONS of Dante and Langland.
Some later allegorists like Dryden and Orwell used allegory as a method
of * SATIRE; their hidden meanings are political rather than religious. In
the medieval discipline of biblical *EXEGESIS, allegory became an
important method of interpretation, a habit of seeking correspondences
between different realms of meaning (e.g. physical and spiritual) or
between the Old Testament and the New (see typology). It can be argued
that modern critical interpretation continues this allegorizing tradition.
See also anagogical, emblem, exemplum, fable, parable, psychomachy,
symbol. For a fuller account, consult Angus Fletcher, Allegory (1964).
[Chris_Baldick]_The_Concise_Oxford_Dictionary_of_L(BookFi.org)