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Examples Of Allegory In The Aeneid

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The term “allegory” originates from the Greek word allegoreo, which is formed from allos (different, another) and agoreuo (to speak in the assembly) (Tambling 6). The “otherness” of allegory derives from its ability to conceal a hidden meaning, but it may also enrich thematics that have already been revealed or emphasize a discrepancy between a surface meaning and what lies beneath (Tambling 6). Perhaps the most well-known allegory is Plato’s Cave, expounded upon in The Republic. Here, Plato describes a group of people who have been imprisoned in a cave for the entirety of their lives. They face a blank wall on which they see shadows of passing figures. According to Plato, these shadows form the basis of the spectators’ reality, until one of …show more content…

For him, allegories could be classified as either poetic (“the allegory of the poets”) or theological (“the allegory of theologians”) (Tambling 25). The former aimed to present the truth “hidden under a beautiful fiction” although the literal story held no necessary truth, while the latter allegory featured truth at both the level of the literal story and its hidden meaning (Dante 43). According to Dante, these two forms of allegory may be further categorized into four different classes, an explanation of which appears in a letter entitled Epistle X that dates from approximately 1320. The text defines the allegory of theologians by adhering to the four levels of meaning established by such commentators as Thomas Aquinas, and Dante later extends these four levels of interpretation to his own allegorical poem, the Commedia, claiming that the work is thus “polysemous,” containing multiple meanings (Tambling 25). These four levels include: the literal, the allegorical, the moral or tropological, and the anagogical (Tambling 26). Having distinguished between the literal and allegorical, Dante then expounds upon the tropological interpretation, stating that, in terms of a moral response, it is the desired effect the text should have upon the reader (Tambling 27). The anagogical level of meaning, derived from the word anagogy or “ascend,” detects allusions to the Christian afterlife (Tambling

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