Reinventing Allegory [Paperback]

An 1997 examination of allegory in theory and literary practice over four hundred years, and its relationship to Romanticism.How and why has allegory survived, despite the influential Romantic critique of it as an outdated and artificial literary mode? In this wide-ranging study of allegory in theory and literary practice from the late Renaissance to the present day, Theresa M. Kelley argues that Romanticism represents the pivotal moment in allegory's survival. Once cut loose from its early theological basis, allegory has proved its strength against dominant modes of realism and empiricism, and is generating new interest in the context of contemporary literary culture and theory.How and why has allegory survived, despite the influential Romantic critique of it as an outdated and artificial literary mode? In this wide-ranging study of allegory in theory and literary practice from the late Renaissance to the present day, Theresa M. Kelley argues that Romanticism represents the pivotal moment in allegory's survival. Once cut loose from its early theological basis, allegory has proved its strength against dominant modes of realism and empiricism, and is generating new interest in the context of contemporary literary culture and theory.Reinventing Allegory asks how and why allegory has survived as a literary mode from the late Renaissance to the postmodern present. Three chapters on Romanticism, including one on the painter J.M.W. Turner, present this era as the pivotal moment in allegory's modern survival, while other chapters describe larger historical and philosophical contexts, from classical rhetoric to recent theory and metafiction. Using a series of key historical moments to define the special character of modern allegory, this study assesses allegory's role in comtemporary literary culture.1. Introduction; 2. Allegory, phantasia and Spenser; 3. 'Material phantasms' and 'allegorical fancies'; 4. Allegorical persons; 5. Romantic ambivalences I; 6. Romantic ambivalel#8