Allegory, ‘Allegory’, and Allegory

Abstract

The chapter examines the place of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in wider perspectives in allegory studies. This period gave rise to a notion of allegory which informed most sustained reflection on the subject until the mid-twentieth century. Since then, however, this consensus has disintegrated, with a range of revisionist positions now present in the literature, while a new one has failed to emerge. The chapter argues that this impasse is ultimately terminological rather than conceptual: we are not dealing with competing approaches to the same subject, but with different subjects being subsumed under the same contested term. An improved understanding of the 1500–1700 period and its legacy is essential to addressing this problem, which has impeded progress toward long-standing desiderata in the field, including a sustained and conceptually coherent history of the subject.