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allegory

(Encyclopedia)allegory, in literature, symbolic story that serves as a disguised representation for meanings other than those indicated on the surface. The characters in an allegory often have no individual persona...

personification

(Encyclopedia)personification, figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstract ideas are endowed with human qualities, e.g., allegorical morality plays where characters include Good Deeds, Beauty, and Death...

Hawes, Stephen

(Encyclopedia)Hawes, Stephen, c.1475–1530, English poet. His best-known works, the two allegories Example of Virtue (1504?) and Pastime of Pleasure (1505?), use typically medieval conventions, but they differ fro...

Aholah and Aholibah

(Encyclopedia)Aholah əhōˈlə [key], in the Bible, the sisters in an allegory on Israel's idolatry. ...

Andreyev, Leonid Nikolayevich

(Encyclopedia)Andreyev, Leonid Nikolayevich lyāənyētˈ nyĭkəlīˈəvĭch əndrāˈyəf [key], 1871–1919, Russian writer. Andreyev's early stories were realistic studies of everyday life. Gorky was attracted ...

Roman de la Rose, Le

(Encyclopedia)Roman de la Rose, Le lə rōmäNˈ də lä rōz [key], French poem of 22,000 lines in eight-syllable couplets. It is in two parts. The first (4,058 lines) was written (c.1237) by Guillaume de Lorris a...

Montgomerie, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Montgomerie, Alexander məntgŭmˈərē [key], c.1556–c.1610, Scottish poet. His principal poem, The Cherry and the Sloe (1597), is a pedestrian and ambiguous allegory that enjoyed considerable popu...

Mena, Juan de

(Encyclopedia)Mena, Juan de hwän dā māˈnä [key], 1411–56, Spanish poet and scholar. Influenced by the Italian school, he modeled his chief work Laberinto de Fortuna (1444) upon Dante. This 300-stanza allegor...

Everyman

(Encyclopedia)Everyman, late-15th-century English morality play. It is the counterpart of the Dutch play Elckerlijk; which of these anonymous plays is the original has been the subject of controversy. When Everyman...

Usk, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Usk, Thomas ŭsk [key], d. 1388, English politician and author. He was under-sheriff of London. While in Newgate Prison he wrote Testament of Love, an allegory in prose describing and justifying the p...

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