Is This a Good Definition for Allegory?

Question

Allegory is a figurative device symbolically used to explain something that can’t otherwise be easily be explained.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi Meagannn,

The definition you found doesn't really give the reader too much more information than the word itself--what is a figurative device?  What did the the definition mean by "explaining something that can't otherwise be easily explained."  A lot of math concepts would fit that, but that is not the essence of an allegory.

Here is a good definition from lingual links (a good resource for future reference):

1. An allegory is an extended metaphor, especially a story in which fictional characters and actions are used to understand and express aspects of concepts relating to human existence.

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryO...

_The Chronicles of Narnia_ is an example of an allegory, also Dante's -Divine Comedy_.

Here is one more source that might give you a little more information, but of the two, the first is probably more along the lines of the definition you need.

2.  Derived from the Greek for "other reading," the term allegory refers to a systematic symbolism which is a form of extended metaphor, a figurative narrative or description which conveys a veiled moral meaning. Objects, persons, and actions within the narrative represent abstract meanings which lie outside it: the events of the narrative, that is, continuously refer to another simultaneous structure of events or ideas. Successful allegories manage to evoke interest both in the narrative and in the ideas or meanings —mdash; religious, moral, political, personal, satiric — which lie behind it. Famous allegories (all of which were widely read throughout the nineteenth century) include Dante's Divine Comedy, Spenser's Faerie Queene and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

http://victorianweb.org/genre/Allegory.h...

Answer 2

not really... an allegory is a cover story with an underlying meaning which is not directly the same as the cover but still contains the same thought