Allegory and the Embodied Mind

Abstract

Allegory is a form of artistic expression that is often used to convey broad symbolic meanings about major themes in human experience, such as those related to religion, politics, love, and the quest for meaning on earth and immortality in death. We often celebrate allegorical works (e.g. literature, paintings) as the products of special individuals with wonderful creative minds. My aim in this chapter is to argue that allegorical thinking emerges from, and continues to be energized within, ordinary bodily actions in everyday life. Although allegory is often viewed as a historical and cultural construct, most people from ancient times to the present readily understand allegory precisely because it refers to common symbolic, metaphorical ideas and events that are fundamentally grounded in pervasive patterns of bodily experience. I describe empirical evidence from cognitive science on how allegory emerges from embodied metaphorical thinking in diverse ordinary and artistic forms of expression.