Allégorie (female name) comes from the Greek αλλος (ales) , “other”, and αγορευειν (agoreuein) , “speech in public”. It is about a form of indirect representation which employs a thing (a person, a being animated or inanimate, an action) like signs of another thing, the latter being often an abstract idea difficult to represent directly. In literature, the allegory is a figure Rhétorique which consists in expressing an idea by using a history or a representation which must be used as comparative support. The etymological significance is: another manner of saying , by means of a figurative or illustrated image.

Various forms of the allegory

One can distinguish between the allegory stylistic device, or, more precisely, figure of elocution and the allegory like process of invention .

The first seldom overflows the framework of the sentence. It is acted in fact of a Métaphore which is presented point by point. For example, when in love exclaims: “It is a tiger-cat! ”, he resorts to a metaphor. But if he says: “This tiger-cat watches for me, then leaps on me and devours me the heart”, it is an allegory. When such an allegory is prolonged a little, one in general speaks about long-drawn-out metaphor .

The allegory-invention holds a more important place and extends in a whole paragraph, a chapter or even a book. This type of allegory constitutes a history then where the characters and the events have a second direction Symbolique. For example, the Lion of Jean of the Fountain is in fact an allegory of monarchy.

Literature

In French, the Apologue, the Fable, the parabola, often implements allegories in the form of personifications, thus the two first towards fable of the Fountain, announce the allegorical range of the account which will oppose two protagonists:

Might makes right; //let us suit we it to show presently.

The allegory can also invest a longer work, as shows it the Romance of the Rose of Guillaume de Lorris. Thus one can say that an allegory can arise in several forms, in image, word or in texts.

As a figure of continuity, consisted the conjugation of figures of Métaphore S which return all to the meant contents, the allegory is the Topos par excellence of the psychological analysis.

In the medieval Literature, the allegorical writing was a very developed kind. This kind finds its origin in the work of Prudence ().

Famous allegories

The ancient poets often had recourse to the allegories. In song VI (268-281) of the Énéide , Virgile evokes the infernal shades in the form of wandering allegories, Sorrow, the Remorses, the Fear, the Hunger, to finish by the Discord:

Discordia contradict vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis .
One finds the Discorde overcome by the Joy in the Ode with the Joy of Schiller, put in music by Beethoven in his 9 {{E}} symphony and chosen like European anthem. Victor Hugo
the Rout appeared to the soldier who émeut
Et, twisting the arms, shouted: Save which can!
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  • Allegory of the cave: an allegory is a table made up of images or symbols having each one a given direction which it is possible to decipher starting from precise keys of interpretation

  • Allégorie of justice: a woman, in a hand a sword, the other a balance, a stringcourse covering the eyes to him (though it always does not have the bandaged eyes).
  • Allegory of the frog: to let itself take by practices…
  • Allegory of the king: In the Fables of the Fountain, the king Louis XIV was represented by a lion and his subjects by the fox (crafty one, cheating) and the other animals. The Tiers state was symbolically drawn under the features of a sheep or a lamb.

Visual arts

As of the Antiquity, the sculptors represented abstract ideas in the forms of human or animal figures, or symbolic systems objects. With the the Middle Ages, the Romanesque art then the Gothic art uses the allegory in the representation of the defects and the virtue S, for example the Justice with its sword and its balance, representations which will know a long popularity. The vogue of the allegory in the beautiful arts develops with that of the books of emblems, and knows its apogee in the Baroque art often inspired by the encyclopedic work of Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (1593).

National allegorical figures

See too

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