Allegory - denten-courses/metaphor-media GitHub Wiki
Synthesis
Allegory: "a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one" (Oxford English Dictionary).
The Oxford English Dictionary is correct, in the broadest sense that an allegory is something that can be interpreted to have another meaning, but is not comprehensive. Allegory can be examined along two lines of analysis: through its usage as a literary/rhetorical trope (and relatedly, its composition), and through the effect on the reader/receiver. Almost all definitions by Greco-Roman writers were more concerned with allegory as a literary trope, defining allegory somehow in relation to other literary/rhetorical tropes such as metaphor and irony. Many of these early writers also separated allegory into allegory and enigma, which will be discussed later when describing the effect of allegory.
Allegory was borne from a storytelling tradition, and its origins as such are noted in Greco-Roman writings; one early definition is based on usage as a literary trope. For example, Cicero defines allegory specifically by its usage in dramatic/comedic oration as comedic "jest" (an insipid or witty response of one character to another). The example Cicero gives is quoted under "Examples" section, but in summary, the allegory in his example is simply an idiomatic rebuttal. In Cicero's definition, an allegory was not constrained to being a story/poem/picture, but could simply be a phrase from another source that revealed a hidden (comedic) meaning, almost the same as an allusion. One issue, however, with this definition is that, when used solely for comedic effect/surprise on the audience, allegory loses all power in the case where the source reference is lost or otherwise not understood by the audience.
Other Greco-Roman writers have tried to define allegory based on composition, but again these definitions rely on other literary tropes. For example, Erasmus thought of allegory as simply a broad metaphor extended over multiple words. The metaphor in this instance would not have to be a reference to another specific work, just simply a substitution of something else in general. An allegory is a story that is also a metaphor. This definition extends upon allegory all the analysis of Metaphor, but also suggests that there is little distinction between metaphor and allegory beyond composition.
Intuitively, we sense that any definition of allegory must also take into account its effect on the receiver, because it is a trope that requires some additional cognitive processing on the audience's end. At the very least, the analysis of allegory is much more interesting when the effect on the receiver is taken into account. Previously we have noted allegory's potential problem of confusion if the audience does not understand the reference/overarching meaning; when that obscurity is intentional, the allegory is then what other writers termed enigma. This categorization/definition of allegory based solely on effect on the receiver - allegory if understood, enigma if not understood - is also problematic because it is inherently subjective and has to be applied on a case-by-case basis. However, it is useful to examine enigma in order to understand how to characterize "allegory" as a whole.
Enigma is often discussed in a Christian context, where the subjectivity is almost treated as intentional (e.g. God's words have many meanings). The Christian theologian Augustine uses allegory and enigma interchangeably. He describes them based on their usage and characteristics (allegory/enigma is figurative, therefore obscure language), and then wrestles with the outcomes of obscurity. One warning he gives is to interpret Christian texts rationally, and the example he gives is that keeping a harlot is sinful, but when done in course of prophecy (prophet Hosea), it is an allegory for the people's unfaithfulness by practicing idolatry. Thus, the obscurity heightens the story itself by forcing readers to investigate further to understand the allegory. This is a sentiment that other writers have shared: Erasmus, when discussing enigma, said that texts as a whole should be "a little mysterious" so that readers would "learn some things themselves" (336). Or put another way, one could feasibly misunderstand a metaphor while still understanding a story, but misunderstanding an allegory fundamentally means misunderstanding the story.
Other later writers were less concerned with defining allegory and more with the understanding allegory as a part of another agenda. For example, Condillac discusses fable (as a subset of allegory) in relation to evolution of language: as writers moved from clarity to mystery, so to did fable transform into enigma. Similarly, Viktor Shklovsky thought the fable was an expansion of the poetic form, but only so much as to support his thesis on art as living. Yet in almost all later cases, allegory is regarded as a subset of figurative language, closely related to metaphor in composition and in usage, but more powerful than metaphor in effect. Metaphor enhances by providing another meaning to the preexisting (image, phrase, emotion), but allegory lectures - and its duality of surface meaning and hidden meaning is the takeaway.
Quotes
Such jests are insipid, or witty only when another answer is expected; for our surprise (as I observed before) naturally amuses us; and thus when we are deceived, as it were, in our expectation, we laugh. Those jests also lie in words, which spring from some allegorical phraseology, or from a metaphorical use of some one word, or from using words ironically. (159)
Cicero. On Oratory and Orators. Translated and edited by J. S. Watson. (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1860); 159.
"While a temperate and timely use of metaphor is a real adornment to style, on the other hand, its frequent use serves merely to obscure our language and weary our audience, while if we introduce them in one continuous series, our language will become allegorical and enigmatic" (307, 309)
Quintillan, John Watson, Institutes of Oratory, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1903) 307-309.
"'They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts.' Only that, even in these instances, some words are used figuratively, as for example, 'the wrath of God' and 'crucified.' But those are not so numerous, nor placed in such a way as to obscure the sense, and make it allegorical or enigmatical, which is the kind of expression properly called figurative." (92)
"And everything of this nature is there narrated we are to take not only its historical and literal, but also in its figurative and prophetical sense, and to interpret as bearing ultimately upon the end of love towards God or our neighbour, or both." (93)
Augustine, Marcus Dods, J. F. Shaw, and S. D. F. Salmond. On Christian doctrine: the Enchiridion. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1873): p 92-93.
"Allegory has the same effect as metaphor. In fact, allegory is nothing more than a metaphor carried on beyond the bounds of a single word." (336)
In proverbs of this sort allegory often results in enigma. This is no bad thing if you are speaking of writing for an educated audience, and not even if you are writing for the general public, for one should not write so that everyone can understand everything, but so that people should be compelled to investigate and learn some things themselves." (336)
Erasmus, Craig Thompson, Collected Works of Erasmus, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978) 336.
Although he does not specifically use the word "allegory" here, this quote discusses the evolution of the fable into enigma. Enigma and fables, to other writers, have seemed to be a subset of allegory.
"This is the origin of the apologue or fable. Its first aim was evidently instruction, and consequently the subjects were chosen from the most familiar things, closely related to the sense. At first the subjects were human beings, then animals, and soon also plants, until the spirit of refinement, which in all ages has its partisans, induced them to draw from the most distant sources. They studied the oddest properties of beings in order to draw intricate and delicate allusions, with the effect that the fable was gradually changed into parable, and finally made so mysterious that a mere enigma was all that remained. These enigmas became increasingly fashionable because sages, or those who wished to pass for sages, believed they were obliged to conceal part of their knowledge from ordinary people, with the result that the language which had been created to ensure clarity was changed into a mystery" (182)
Etienne De Condillac, Hans Aarsleff, Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 182.
And so this thing we call art exists in order to restore the sensation of life, in order to make us feel things, in order to make a stone stony. The goal of art is to create the sensation of seeing, and not merely recognizing, things; the device of art is the “enstrangement” of things and the complication of the form, which increases the duration and complexity of perception, as the process of perception is, in art, an end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is the means to live through the making of a thing; what has been made does not matter in art.
The life of a poetic (artistic) text proceeds from seeing to recognizing, from poetry to prose, from the concrete to the general, from Don Quixote—a scholar and poor aristocrat, half-consciously suffering humiliation at a duke’s court—to Turgenev’s generalized and hollow Don Quixote, from Charles the Great to the mere name of “king.” Art and its works expand when dying: a fable is more symbolic than a poem, a saying more symbolic than a fable. This is why Potebnya’s theory is least self-contradictory when discussing the fable, a genre which he was, in his own view, able to analyze in full. His theory did not fit “thingish” artistic texts, and thus Potebnya’s book could not be finished. As we know, Notes on Literary Theory [Iz zapisok po teorii slovesnosti ] was published in 1905, 13 years after the death of the author. Potebnya himself could only complete the chapter on the fable. (162 - 163)
Viktor Shklovsky. The Resurrection of a Word. Edited and translated by Richard Sherwood. (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1914); 162-163.
Examples
"From allegorical phraseology: as when Rusca, in old times, proposed the law to fix the ages of candidates for offices, and Marcus Servilius, who opposed the law, said to him: _Tell me, _ _Marcus Pinarius Rusca, if I speak against you, will you speak _ ill of me as you have spoken of others? As you shall sow, replied he, so you shall reap" (159-160)
Cicero. On Oratory and Orators. Translated and edited by J. S. Watson. (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1860); 159-160.
"Keeping company with a harlot, for example, is one thing when it is the result of abandoned manners, another thing when it is done in the course of his prophecy by the prophet Hosea." (92)
"But in the saying addressed to Jeremiah, 'See, I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdom, to root out, to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, there is no doubt that the whole of the language is figurative, and to be referred to the end I have spoken of." (93)
Augustine, Marcus Dods, J. F. Shaw, and S. D. F. Salmond. On Christian doctrine: the Enchiridion. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1873): p 93.
"fables...are specially attractive to rude and uneducated minds, which are less suspicious than others in their reception of fictions and, when pleased, readily agree with the arguments from which their pleasure is derived [..] Similar to these is that class of proverb which may be regarded as an abridged fable and is understood allegorically: 'The burden is not mine to carry,' he said, 'the ox is carrying panniers.'" (283)
Quintillan, John Watson, Institutes of Oratory, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1903) 283.
"[F]or example, 'fight hand to hand,' equivalent to 'get down to arguing'; 'strike at the throat,' equivalent to 'attack the central issue'; and 'shoot a dart,' equivalent to 'try to catch out.'
Likewise, 'so as to scuttle the ship he is sailing in,' that is, 'to overthrow the state whose destruction must necessarily involve his own ruin.' This usage is quite frequent in proverbs and proverbial sayings; for example, 'smoke is not far from flame,' meaning 'one should start taking precautions against danger in good time'; 'good wine needs no bush,' that is, 'a good thing does not need any other recommendation'; 'treat a Cretan like a Cretan,' that is, 'a treacherous and shifty person must be countered with lies and cunning.'
Erasmus, Craig Thompson, Collected Works of Erasmus, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978) 336.
Another example: “This joke is old hat. I heard it ages ago.” This image is a poetic trope. (In one case, the word hat was used metonymically, in the other, metaphorically. But this is not what I want to point out here.) The poetic image is a way to create the strongest impression. It is a device that has the same task as other poetic devices, such as ordinary or negative parallelism, comparison, repetition, symmetry, hyperbole; equal to that which is commonly designated as rhetorical figures, equal to all these methods of increasing the impact of a thing (words and even sounds of the text itself are things, too). But the poetic image bears only superficial resemblance to images-as- fables, to patterns of thought, such as a girl calling a sphere “a little watermelon.” The poetic image is a device of poetic language. The prosaic image is a device of abstraction: a watermelon instead of a round lamp shade or a watermelon instead of a head merely abstracts a particular quality of an object. It’s like saying: head = sphere, watermelon = sphere. This is thinking, but it has nothing in common with poetry. (160)
Viktor Shklovsky. The Resurrection of a Word. Edited and translated by Richard Sherwood. (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1914); 160.
Works Cited
1. Cicero. On Oratory. Book LXV.
2. Quintilian, Harold Edgeworth. Butler, and James Loeb. The institutio oratoria of Quintilian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press., 1953.
3. Augustine, Marcus Dods, J. F. Shaw, and S. D. F. Salmond. On Christian doctrine: the Enchiridion. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1873.
4. Erasmus, Desiderius, Desiderius Erasmus, and Craig R. Thompson. Collected works of Erasmus. Literary and educational writings ; 2. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Pr., 1978.
5. Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de, and Hans Aarsleff. Essay on the origin of human knowledge. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
6. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1904.
7. Shklovsky, Viktor. "Art, As Device" (1917)