What is an allegory?

Allegory is a way of expressing an abstract concept or phenomenon through specific images and objects.

For a better understanding of what an allegory is,just give some examples. With what does a person associate the concept of "death", how to portray it visually? Most often we represent a skeleton in a black cloak with a scythe. We also associate justice with the image of the goddess Themis. This is the method of allegory.

To describe in more detail what isallegory in literature, it must be said that its development began on the basis of mythology, and only later the allegory found a place in both art and literature. In literary works, allegory is used to represent abstract concepts such as conscience, honesty, truth, truth.

Sometimes to interpret the meaning of allegory is necessarya number of examples, it is required to state the whole work. And sometimes the allegory is explained quite straightforwardly. For example, it is easy to understand what an allegory is, examples of good and evil are very often used in literature, and in the visual arts and even in musical works.

In history there have been cases when famous writersand philosophers tried to eradicate the allegory, considering it only as a way of expressing symbols. Nevertheless, they did not succeed, and in the Middle Ages the allegory acquired a rather wide popularity in various art directions, for example, in the Baroque and Classicist styles. Until now, the allegory is quite common, especially in works of a philosophical nature.