What are the elements of allegory?

An allegory, in poetry or prose, is a narrative in which the characters, events, and setting represent deeper truths or generalizations than those suggested by the surface story. Allegory can thus be understood on more than one level. The more profound meaning, however; religious, moral, political, or personal, is usually of greater importance than the fiction itself. The meaning conveyed may be obvious, subtle, or virtually concealed by the writer.

John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678) is probably the best example of allegory in all literature. In the surface story a hero named Christian travels toward the Celestial City through a landscape marked by the Slough of Despond, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and Vanity Fair, and he meets characters such as Faithful and Mr. Worldly Wisdom. The deeper story deals with individual salvation.

Like other symbolic literary forms, such as the bestiary, fable, and parable, allegory is an extended metaphor. It is distinguished from those simpler types chiefly by its greater length and complexity.

Many classical myths may be considered allegorical, and Plato's myth of the cave in The Republic is explicitly so. The form became more common in the Hellenistic period, especially as a means of explaining psychological phenomena. The great age of allegory, however, was the medieval period, when it not only characterized much of the didactic literature of the church but also played a fundamental role in the era's whole intellectual approach. Interpretation of Scripture in terms of its allegorical content flourished, inviting explanation of the literally sensuous Song of Solomon as representative of the love of God for his people. Allegory was also central to the popular form of entertainment known as the morality play (see medieval drama), which typically featured personages representing abstract concepts such as Everyman, Good Deeds, and Beauty.

Among the more famous allegories are the 13th-century Roman de la Rose, parts of Dante's Divine Comedy (1310--14), Langland's Piers Plowman (1377), Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590, 1596), Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel (1681), Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), Samuel Butler's Erewhon (1872), and George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945).

"Allegory." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 24 Sept. 2012.