ETYM Latin allegoria, Greek, description of one thing under the image of another; allos another + legein to speak in the assembly, harangue: cf. French allégorie.
1. A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances.
2. Anything which represents by suggestive resemblance; an emblem.
3. A figure representation which has a meaning beyond notion directly conveyed by the object painted or sculptured. SYN. Metaphor; fable.
Story or other representation in which the subject is expressed metaphorically or personified; parable.
In literature, the description or illustration of one thing in terms of another; a work of poetry or prose in the form of an extended metaphor or parable that makes use of symbolic fictional characters.
An example of the use of symbolic fictional character in allegory is the romantic epic The Faerie Queene 1590–96 by Edmund Spenser in homage to Queen Elizabeth I. Allegory is often used for moral purposes, as in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress 1678. Medieval allegory often used animals as characters; this tradition survives in such works as Animal Farm 1945 by George Orwell.