Terms and Definitions Allegory derives from the Greek word allegoria which means speaking otherwise.

e. As a general rule, allegory is a story in verse or prose with a double meaning: a primary or surface meaning; and a secondary or under the surface meaning. Therefore, it represents a story that can be read, understood and interpreted on at least two levels (and in some cases, three or four levels). It is closely related to the fable and the parable and has no determinant length. An allegory can be one sentence or a whole book. Fable a short narrative in prose or verse which points out a moral. It usually has fantastical elements. For example, talking animals. Intertextuality involves a direct or indirect reference to another text. Intertextuality is the relationship between two or more texts which has an effect on the way in which the intertext (that is, the text within which other texts reside or echo their presence) is read. Shamela makes intertextual reference to Pamela. It refers to its linguistic codes, and its social, moral and cultural codes, largely through the device of parody (see above for definition). Irony is a mode of discourse for conveying meanings different from --- and usually opposite to --the professed or ostensible ones. There are several kinds of irony, though they fall into two major categories: situational and verbal Verbal irony usually operates by exploiting deviations from syntactic or semantic norms, and the ability to recognise such norms depends upon the appreciation of the particular linguistic or sometimes more general social or moral context. Irony relies on techniques such as understatement, paradox, puns and other forms of wit in the expression of incongruities. Myth originally from the Greek muthos, meaning anything uttered by word of mouth. Narrator Plato and Aristotle distinguish three basic kinds of narrator: a) the speaker or poet or any kind of writer who uses their own voice b) one who assumes the voice of another person or persons and speaks in a voice that is not his own c) one who uses a mixture of his own voice and that of others. These can all be combined. So anyone telling a story may begin, as narrator, by using his own voice, then introduce a narrator who tells the story in which there are characters who, in turn, have their own voices and who, in turn may narrate. Potentially, the progression is infinite. In the essay The Three Voices of Poetry (1953), T.S. Eliot makes this distinction: The first voice is the voice of the poet talking to himself or to nobody. The second is the voice of the poet addressing the audience, whether large or small. The third is the voice of the poet when he attempts to create a dramatic character speaking in verse; when he is saying, not what he would say in his own person, but only what he can say within the limits of one imaginary character addressing another imaginary character.

A self conscious narrator is one who employs techniques related to the theories of foregrounding and defamiliarisation. By exposing the device or devices of the narrative, the writer reveals to and reminds the reader that the narration is a work of fiction while at the same time pointing to the discrepancies between the fiction and the reality which it purports to represent. Tristram, in Sternes Tristram Shandy (1760 -1767) is an example of this. The self conscious narrator lends itself to what is known as a reflexive or involuted novel a narrative which draws attention to its status as a novel and a work of fiction. An often cited example of this is Andre Gides Les Faux-monnayeurs (1926). The book is the diary of a novelist who is writing a novel which is going to have the title Les Faux-monnayeurs (The Counterfeiters) about a novelist who is keeping a diary about the novel that he is actually writing. Gide further compounded his ingenuity by keeping a journal while he wrote the novel; this was The Journal of the Counterfeiters which he published the same year as the novel. A fallible or unreliable narrator is one whose perception, interpretation and recall of what they narrate does not correspond or coincide with the perception, interpretation and recall of the author who purports to be the controlling force in the narration. Thus there is a contrived discrepancy between the narrator (what Henry James calls the centre of consciousness) and the actual author. Parable A short, simple story which also points out a moral. A religious parable would be the prodigal son. Origins of allegory are very ancient. It is a mode of expression, a way of feeling or thinking about things or of seeing them so natural to the human mind as to be universal. Much Classical myth is form of allegory and is an attempt to explain universal facts and forces. As such, classical myth can also be said to be religious, an attempt to explain origins, much allegory is religious. Parody is one of the most calculated and analytic literary techniques; it searches out, by means of subversive mimicry, any weakness, pretension or lack of self awareness in the original. This original may be another work or the collective style of a group of writers, but although parody is often talked of as a very clever and inbred literary joke, any distinctive and artful use of language --by, for example, journalists, politicians or priests --- is susceptible of parodic impersonation. Although it is often deflationary and comic, its distinguishing characteristic is not deflation but analytic mimicry. Pilgrims Progress The best known allegory in the English language is John Bunyans The Pilgrims Progress (1678). It is an allegory of Christian Salvation. Christian, the hero, represents Everyman. He flees the terrible City of Destruction and sets off on his pilgrimage. In the course of it he passes through the Slough of Despond, the Interpreters House, the House Beautiful, the Valley of Humiliation, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle, the Delectable Mountains, and the country of Beulah before finally arriving at the Celestial city. On the way, he meets various characters, including Mr Worldly Wiseman, Faithful, Hopeful, Giant Despair, the fiend Apollyon In the second part of the book, Christians wife and children make their pilgrimage accompanied by Mercy. They are helped and escorted by Great-Heart who destroys Giant Despair and other monsters before they too arrive at the Celestial City. The whole work is a representation of the average mans journey through the trials and tribulations of life on his way to heaven. The figures and places have an arbitrary existence invented by the author, distinguishing them from symbols which have a real existence.

Symbol From the Greek verb symballein meaning to throw together and its noun symbolon, a mark, token or sign. It is an object, animate or inanimate, which represents or stands for something else. How do symbols differ from allegorical signs, then? Because they have a real existence. For example, Scales symbolise justice; the orb and sceptre, monarchy or rule; a white dove, peace; a lion, strength and courage; a bulldog; tenacity; a rose, beauty; a lily, purity; the cross, Christianity. Actions can also be symbolic: A clenched fist symbolises aggression; beating of the chest symbolises remorse; arms raised symbolises surrender. Literary symbols combine an image with a concept for example, Shakespeare: Macbeth the blood recurring symbolises guilt and violence. In Hamlet, weeds and disease symbolise decay and corruption; In King Lear, clothes symbolise appearances and authority Lear goes from regal finery to the rags of a wandering madman. Its not just confined to Shakespeare. In Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the shooting of the albatross is symbolic of all sin and the lack of respect for life at any level. Therefore, Literary Symbols can be said to be concrete images expressing emotions, emotional states or abstract ideas. T.S Eliot described this matching of symbol to emotion or abstract concept as the objective correlative finding a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events, which shall be the formula of that particular emotion.

Definitions adapted from: Cuddon, J. A., The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (London: Penguin Books, 1991) Fowler, Roger (ed.) A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms (London: Routledge 1987)

(Aaron Jackson and Jackie Roy)