Allegorical Typology, Typological Allegory in American Literature

Abstract

This chapter traces the prominence of allegorical and typological motifs in American literature from the early days of European colonization. Typology was used by Tudor writers and New England Puritans to justify colonial expansion in the New World and, via the figure of Jonathan Edwards, exerted a fundamental influence on American Romanticism, especially the Transcendentalist thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Typology features as a powerful Abolitionist strategy in nineteenth-century slave narratives and later inflects Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. As a decolonizing rhetorical tool, typology is used in historic Indigenous writings such as Samson Occom’s autobiography (1768) and William Apess’ works of the 1830s as well as the work of contemporary writers like Louise Erdrich.