Allegory of Music by Filippino Lippi. Tempera on panel, 61 × 51 cm, c. 1500.

The "Allegory of Music" is a popular theme in painting; in this example, Lippi uses symbols popular during the High Renaissance, many of which refer to Greek mythology.

An allegory (from Greek αλλος, , "other", and αγορευειν, agoreuein, "to speak in public") is a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than the literal. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2024x2446, 627 KB) Description: Title: de: Allegorie der Musik Technique: de: Holz Dimensions: de: 61 × 51 cm Country of origin: de: Italien Current location (city): de: Berlin Current location (gallery): de: Gemäldegalerie Other notes: Source: The Yorck Project: DVD-ROM... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2024x2446, 627 KB) Description: Title: de: Allegorie der Musik Technique: de: Holz Dimensions: de: 61 × 51 cm Country of origin: de: Italien Current location (city): de: Berlin Current location (gallery): de: Gemäldegalerie Other notes: Source: The Yorck Project: DVD-ROM... Filippino Lippi, self-portrait Biography Filippino Lippi (ca. ... The Creation of Adam, Michelangelos fresco from the . ... It is generally agreed that people know and understand the world and reality through the act of naming it; thus, through language and representations (Oxford English Dictionary, cited in Vukcevich 2002). ... In linguistics, meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged by people when communicating through language. ... Look up literal, literally in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory does not have to be expressed in language: it may be addressed to the eye, and is often found in realistic painting, sculpture or some other form of mimetic, or representative art. Rhetoric (from Greek , rhêtôr, orator, teacher) is generally understood to be the art or technique of persuasion through the use of oral or written language; however, this definition of rhetoric has expanded greatly since rhetoric emerged as a field of study in universities. ... Painter redirects here. ... “Sculptor” redirects here. ... Mimesis (μίμησις from μιμεîσθαι) in its simplest context means imitation or representation in Greek. ...

The etymological meaning of the word is broader than the common use of the word. Though it is similar to other rhetorical comparisons, an allegory is sustained longer and more fully in its details than a metaphor, and appeals to imagination, while an analogy appeals to reason or logic. The fable or parable is a short allegory with one definite moral. Not to be confused with Entomology, the scientific study of insects. ... This article is about metaphor in literature and rhetoric. ... Imagination is accepted as the innate ability and process to invent partial or complete personal realms within the mind from elements derived from sense perceptions of the shared world. ... Analogy is both the cognitive process of transferring information from a particular subject (the analogue or source) to another particular subject (the target), and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. ... For other uses, see Reason (disambiguation). ... Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ... For a comparison of fable with other kinds of stories, see Myth, legend, fairy tale, and fable. ... // For a comparison of parable with other kinds of stories, see Myth, legend, fairy tale, and fable. ...

Since meaningful stories are nearly always applicable to larger issues, allegories may be read into many stories, sometimes distorting their author's overt meaning. For instance, many people have suggested that The Lord of the Rings was an allegory for the World Wars, while in fact it was well under way before the outbreak of World War II and J.R.R. Tolkien's emphatic statement in the introduction to the American edition "It is neither allegorical nor topical....I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence." This article is about the novel. ... A world war is a war affecting the majority of the worlds major nations. ...

Northrop Frye discussed what he termed a "continuum of allegory", ranging from what he termed the "naive allegory" of The Faerie Queen, to the more private allegories of modern paradox literature. In this perspective, the characters in a "naive" allegory are not fully three-dimensional, for each aspect of their individual personalities and the events that befall them embodies some moral quality or other abstraction; the allegory has been selected first, and the details merely flesh it out. Herman Northrop Frye, CC, MA, D.Litt. ... Una and the Lion by Briton Rivière The Faerie Queene is a poem by Edmund Spenser, first published in 1590 (the first half) with the more or less complete version being published in 1596. ...

Examples

Allegory has been a favourite form in the literature of nearly every nation. It represents many tales. In classical literature two of the best-known allegories are the cave of shadowy representations in Plato's Republic (Book VII) and the story of the stomach and its members in the speech of Menenius Agrippa (Livy ii. 32); and several occur in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Late Antiquity Martianus Capella organized all the information a fifth-century upper-class male needed to know into an allegory of the wedding of Mercury and Philologia, with the seven liberal arts as guests; Matianmus Capella's allegory was widely read through the Middle Ages. Old book bindings at the Merton College library. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois (U of I) and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ... Look up republic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A portrait of Titus Livius made long after his death. ... For other uses, see Ovid (disambiguation) Publius Ovidius Naso (March 20, 43 BC – 17 AD) was a Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid who wrote on topics of love, abandoned women and mythological transformations. ... // Cover of George Sandyss 1632 edition of Ovids Metamorphosis Englished The Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid is a poem in fifteen books that describes the creation and history of the world in terms according to Greek and Roman points of view. ... Martianus Minneus Felix Capella was a writer of the late Latin period, whose career flourished some time during the 5th century, before the year 439. ... In the history of education, the seven liberal arts comprise two groups of studies, the trivium and the quadrivium. ...

Medieval thinking accepted allegory as having a reality underlying any rhetorical or fictional uses. The allegory was as true as superficial facts of surface appearances. Thus, the bull Unam Sanctam (1302) presents themes of the unity of Christendom with the pope as its head in which the allegorical details of the metaphors are adduced as actual facts which take the place of a logical demonstration, yet employing the vocabulary of logic: "Therefore of this one and only Church there is one body and one head—not two heads as if it were a monster... If, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ" (complete text). On November 18, 1302, Pope Boniface VIII issued the Papal bull Unam sanctam (The One Holy), which historians consider one of the most extreme statements of Papal spiritual supremacy ever made. ... This T-and-O map, which abstracts the known world to a cross inscribed within an orb, remakes geography in the service of Christian iconography. ...

In the late fifteenth century, the enigmatic Hypnerotomachia, with its elaborate wood illustrations (Computer Pron hehe) , shows the influence of themed pageants and masques on contemporary allegorical representation, as humanist dialectic conveyed them. Poliphilo kneels before Queen Eleuterylida The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (or The Strife of Love in a Dream) is one of the most curious books ever published. ... Costume for a Knight, by Inigo Jones: the plumed helmet, the heroic torso in armour and other conventions were still employed for opera seria in the 18th century. ... Renaissance humanism (often designated simply as humanism) was a European intellectual movement beginning in Florence in the last decades of the 14th century. ...

Titian's Allegory of Age Governed by Prudence, with three human heads symbolising age and the triple-headed beast (dog, lion, wolf) standing for prudence.

Some elaborate and successful specimens of allegory are to be found in the following works, arranged in approximately chronological order: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (510x630, 90 KB) Beschreibung Titian, Allegorie der Zeit (Allegorie der Lebensalter) Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Allegory Titian ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (510x630, 90 KB) Beschreibung Titian, Allegorie der Zeit (Allegorie der Lebensalter) Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Allegory Titian ... Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. ...

• Aesop – Fables
• Plato – The Republic (Plato's allegory of the cave)
• Plato – Phaedrus (Chariot Allegory)
• Euripides – The Trojan Women
• Book of Revelation (for allegory in Christian theology, see typology (theology))
• Martianus Capella – De nuptiis philologiæ et Mercurii
• The Romance of the Rose
• William Langland – Piers Plowman
• Pearl
• Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy
• Everyman
• Edmund Spenser – The Faerie Queene
• John Bunyan – Pilgrim's Progress
• Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub
• Joseph Addison – Vision of Mirza
• E. T. A. Hoffmann – Princess Brambilla
• Nathaniel Hawthorne – "The Great Carbuncle"
• Herman Melville – The Confidence-Man
• Edgar Allan Poe – "The Masque of the Red Death"
• Shirley Jackson – "The Lottery"

Modern allegories in fiction tend to operate under constraints of modern requirements for verisimilitude within conventional expectations of realism. Works of fiction with strong allegorical overtones include: Aesop, as depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel in 1493. ... Aesop, as depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel. ... PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois (U of I) and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ... The Republic is an influential dialogue by Plato, written in the first half of the 4th century BC. This Socratic dialogue mainly is about political philosophy and ethics. ... Illustration of Platos cave Platos allegory of the cave is perhaps the best-known of his many metaphors, allegories, and myths. ... PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois (U of I) and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ... The Phaedrus, written by Plato, is a dialogue between Platos main protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. ... Plato, in Phaedrus, uses the Chariot Allegory to explain his view of the human soul. ... A statue of Euripides. ... The Trojan Women (in Greek, Troiades) is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides. ... Visions of John of Patmos, as depicted in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. ... Typology is a theological doctrine or theory of types and their antitypes found in scripture. ... Martianus Minneus Felix Capella was a writer of the late Latin period, whose career flourished some time during the 5th century, before the year 439. ... The Roman de la Rose is a late medieval French work of fiction in allegorical dream form. ... Langlands Dreamer: from an illuminated initial in a Piers Plowman manuscript held at Corpus Christi College, Oxford William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman. ... Page from a 14th century Psalter, showing drolleries on the right margin and a plowman at the bottom. ... Pearl is a Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century. ... Dante in a fresco series of famous men by Andrea del Castagno, ca. ... Detail of a manuscript in Milans Biblioteca Trivulziana (MS 1080), written in 1337 by Francesco di ser Nardo da Barberino, showing the beginning of Dantes Comedy. ... Everyman is a 16th century English morality play, with possible origins in a late 15th century Flemish morality play called Elckerlijc. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Una and the Lion by Briton Rivière The Faerie Queene is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser, published first in three books in 1590, and later in six books in 1596. ... John Bunyan. ... The Pilgrims Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come by John Bunyan (published 1678) is an allegorical novel. ... Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 – October 19, 1745) was an Irish cleric, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for Whigs then for Tories), and poet, famous for works like Gullivers Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, The Drapiers Letters, The Battle of the Books, and... A Tale of a Tub (play). ... Joseph Addison, the Kit-cat portrait, circa 1703–1712, by Godfrey Kneller. ... ETA Hoffman Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (January 24, 1776 - June 25, 1822), was a German romantic and fantasy author and composer. ... Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was a 19th century American novelist and short story writer. ... The Great Carbuncle is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. ... Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. ... The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade was the last major novel by Herman Melville, the American writer and author of Moby-Dick. ... Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, literary critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. ... The Masque of the Red Death is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in the May 1842 edition of Grahams Ladys and Gentlemans Magazine as The Mask of the Red Death. The story was adapted in 1964 by Roger Corman into a... This article is about the author. ... The Lottery is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published in the June 28, 1948 issue of The New Yorker. ... For other uses, see Verisimilitude (disambiguation). ... Realism in the visual arts and literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation. ...

• Jorge Luis Borges – The Library of Babel
• Peter S. Beagle – The Last Unicorn
• William Golding – Lord of the Flies
• John Irving – A Prayer for Owen Meany
• David Lindsay – A Voyage to Arcturus
• Arthur Miller – The Crucible
• Hualing Nieh – Mulberry and Peach
• George Orwell – Animal Farm
• Philip Pullman – His Dark Materials
• Rex Warner – The Aerodrome
  

  

  Jan Vermeer's work, The Allegory of Painting.

Where some requirements of "realism", in its flexible meanings, are set aside, allegory can come more strongly to the surface, as in the work of Bertold Brecht or Franz Kafka on one hand, or on the other in science fiction and fantasy, where an element of universal application and allegorical overtones are common, as with Dune. And the great Liz said, "Let there be light!" Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986) was an Argentine writer. ... The Library of Babel (Spanish: ) is a short story by Argentine author (and librarian) Jorge Luis Borges, conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books that can be composed in a certain character set. ... Peter Soyer Beagle (born in 1939) is an American fantasist and author of novels, nonfiction, and screenplays. ... For the 1982 feature film, see The Last Unicorn (film). ... Sir William Gerald Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was a British novelist, poet and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1983), best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. ... A Lord of the Flies cover Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author William G. Golding. ... John Winslow Irving (born March 2, 1942 as John Wallace Blunt, Jr. ... A Prayer for Owen Meany is a novel by American writer John Irving, first published in 1989. ... David Lindsay (1876-1945) was a British author now most famous for the philosophical novel A Voyage to Arcturus (1920). ... Arthur Bob Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright and essayist. ... For other uses, see Crucible (disambiguation). ... Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 [1] [2] – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... For other uses, see Animal Farm (disambiguation). ... Philip Pullman CBE (born October 19, 1946) is an English writer. ... The trilogy (U.K versions), in order of succession from left to right. ... Rex Warner (March 9, 1905 - June 24, 1986) was an English classicist, writer and translator. ... Download high resolution version (2024x2365, 434 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (2024x2365, 434 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The Art of Painting, also known as The Allegory of Painting, Die Allegorie der Malerei or Painter in his Studio, is a famous 17th century oil on canvas painting by Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer. ... Bertolt Brecht (February 10, 1898 - August 14, 1956) was an influential German dramatist, stage director, and poet of the 20th century. ... “Kafka” redirects here. ... Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert and published in 1965. ...

Allegorical films include:

• Fritz Lang's Metropolis
• Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal
• Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
• El Topo
• Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country
• Star Wars
• The Matrix
• The Virgin Suicides
• The Wizard of Oz

The English School's Allegory of Queen Elizabeth with Father Time at her right and Death looking over her left shoulder. Two cherubs are removing the weighty crown from her tired head.

Allegorical artworks include: Friedrich Christian Anton Fritz Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was an Austrian-German-American film director, screenwriter and occasional film producer, one of the best known émigrés from Germanys school of expressionism. ... Metropolis Metropolis is a science fiction film produced in Germany set in a futuristic urban dystopia. ...   (IPA: in Swedish, but usually IPA: in English) (July 14, 1918 – July 30, 2007) was a Swedish film, stage, and opera director. ... The Seventh Seal (Swedish: Det sjunde inseglet) is an existential 1957 Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman about the journey of a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) across a plague-ridden landscape. ... “Kubrick” redirects here. ... El Topo (The Mole) is a 1970 Mexican allegorical, cult western movie and underground film, directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. ... Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Paramount Pictures, 1991; see also 1991 in film) is the sixth feature film based on the popular Star Trek science fiction television series. ... Star Wars is an epic space opera saga and a fictional universe initially developed by George Lucas during the 1970s and expanded since that time. ... This article is about the 1999 film. ... The Virgin Suicides is the 1993 debut novel by American writer Jeffrey Eugenides. ... The Wizard of Oz (film) redirects here. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... This article is about the personification of time. ... Death, as a skeleton carrying a scythe, visiting a dying man. ...

• Sandro Botticelli – La Primavera (Allegory of Spring)
• Albrecht Dürer – Melencolia I
• Artemisia Gentileschi – Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting; Allegory of Inclination
• Jan Vermeer – The Allegory of Painting
• Ambrogio Lorenzetti; "Good Government in the City" and "Bad Government in the City"
• The English School's "Allegory of Queen Elizabeth" painted circa 1610.

Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli (little barrel) (March 1, 1445 – May 17, 1510) was an Italian painter of the Florentine school during the Early Renaissance (Quattrocento). ... Albrecht Dürer (pronounced /al. ... Albrecht Dürers engraving Melancholia I (originally known by Dürer as Melencolia I) is notable for being an allegorical depiction of the main symptoms of Melancholy, now better known as depression. ... Self-portrait (1630s) Artemisia Gentileschi (July 8, 1593 - 1653) was an Italian Early Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation influenced by Caravaggio (Caravaggisti). ... View of Delft, 1660-1661 Johannes Vermeer (1632 - December 15, 1675) was a Dutch painter. ... Ambrogio Lorenzetti (or Ambruogio Laurati) (c. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Allegory

• Allegory in the Middle Ages
• Allegory in Renaissance literature
• Allegorical sculpture
• Roman à clef

Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... Noah and the baptismal flood of the Old Testament (top panel) is typographically linked (prefigured) by the baptism of Jesus in the New Testament (bottom panel). ... By the 16th century allegory was firmly linked to what is known as the Elizabethan world picture, taken from Ptolemy and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. ... Sacrifice by Walter Hancock, Soldiers Memorial, St. ... A roman à clef or roman à clé (French for novel with a key) is a novel describing real-life events behind a façade of fiction. ...

External links

• Brief definition of Allegory
• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Allegory in Literary history
• Electronic Antiquity, Richard Levis, "Allegory and the Eclogues" Roman definitions of allegoria and interpreting Vergil's Eclogues.

An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. ...

Further reading

• Frye, Northrop, 1957. Anatomy of Criticism
• Michel Foucault, The Order of Things