THE CONCEPT OF ALLEGORY<br />By<br />Ghufran Salah-aldeen Mahdi & Ahmed Jalil Kadhim<br />Al Mustaqbal University College, Iraq<br />English Department<br />Key words: allegory, metaphor and personification.<br />Allegory is one of the figurative tropes that is widely used in literature, "it lies in the exchange of the intended thought with another thought which is in a similarity relation . . . to the intended thought" (Lausberg, 1984: 139). As such, writers of allegory usually employ figurative devices in which things should not be taken literally. Consequently, certain figurative devices are used to achieve allegory such as personification, metaphor symbolism, irony, and simile. The word "allegory" is an ancient term used to refer to a work that makes extensive use of symbolism in order to communicate a broader moral of meaning (Pendergast, 2006: 138-145). Although this term is an example of rhetoric, an allegory does not necessarily be a story in language in that it may be a painting or sculpture with hidden meaning (Webster, 1984: 35). In a story, for instance, every aspect (such as characters, objects, dialogue, setting and major plot events) can be interpreted as having a secondary, symbolic meaning that fits into the allegory’s meaning. For instance, the story of "The Tortoise and the Hare" is a well-known allegory in which the characters, setting, events … etc. symbolically fit a larger moral or lesson that a slow and steady approach (symbolized by the Tortoise) is better than a hasty and overconfident approach (symbolized by the Hair). Allegory, therefore, seems to be a type of work or story that represents some idea, concept or historical events contained within this work.<br />The term allegory derives for Greek allēgoria which means "speaking otherwise" Cudden, 1998: 20). This word comes from the combination of the Greek words allos (meaning "other") and agoria ("speaking"). Julia (2016: 16) shows that speaking otherwise entails putting a great deal of confidence in the reader’s ability to interpret the narrative according to the context surrounding the text. It asks them to look for something that is, simultaneously, absent. Fletcher (2010: 2) writes that<br />"allegory says one thing and means another. It destroys the normal expectation we have about language that our words 'mean what they say'. When we predicate quality X of person Y, Y really is what our predication says he is (or we assume so); but allegory would turn Y into something other (allos) than what the open and direct statement tells the reader."<br />In most dictionaries of literary terms, allegory is defined as a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures and<br />events. It can be employed in prose and poetry to tell a story with a purpose of teaching an idea and a principle or explaining an idea of a principle. The objective of its use is to preach some kind of a moral lesson {(Baldick (1990: 7), Bussmann (1996: 41); Mikics (2007: 8); Cuddon (2013: 21), Buzzard and LePan (2014: 10)}. It is also described by Ross and Ray (2009: 10) as a concrete presentation of an abstract idea, typically in a narrative- whether prose, verse, or drama –with at least two levels of meaning. The first level is the surface story line, which can be summed up by stating who did what to whom when. The second level is typically moral, political, philosophical, or religious. Allegory is, therefore, a story or a fictional structure with several layers of meaning in which a hidden meaning lies behind the literal meaning that appears on the surface for giving moral, political or religious lessons.<br />The proper meaning of words is twisted to refer to ideas that are not presented literally in the text; the reader is not after the meaning of words but what appears behind the text (Fletcher, 2013: I). Allegories can be understood to be a type of extended metaphor. An extended metaphor develops a certain analogy to a greater extent than a simple comparison (Wong, 2017: 15). An allegory, meanwhile, uses a particular metaphor throughout an entire plot.<br />Personification is the principle device of allegory which is employed frequently; the abstract ideas transpose to living characters by means of personification making these abstract ideas speak, walk, and do many humanistic behaviors (Al-Tufaili and Al-Jubori, 2018: 23).<br />Quilligan (1979: 15) on his part, views that all literary texts are allegorical since all literary works have readers and those readers are not interested in the literal meaning of the words in fiction. It is not important what the words really mean so readers seek allegorical interpretation. He also describes allegory as a genre. Similarly, Brittan (2003: 126) claims allegory could cause misunderstanding. And at other times it is difficult to reach the react meaning since it depends on the human understanding and people differ in their ability to interpret speech.<br />For the purpose of clarification, Balla (2012: 33) presents the most famous example of allegory in English literature, which is "John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) in which the hero Everyman flees the City of Destruction and travels through the valley of the shadow of death, Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle, and finally arrives at the Celestial City" the implied story reveals the average man’s soul’s long travel through seduction and doubt to attain salvation in Heaven.<br />References:<br />Wong, S. K. (2017). Allegorical Spectrum of the Parables of Jesus. USA: Wipf and Stock.<br />Pendergast,