View Full Version : Looking for writers who use allegories heavily
Kyriakos
09-07-2010, 08:38 AM
Apart from Kafka, and to an extent Borges, are there any other significant writers who employ allegorical passages extensively?
The pieces don't have to be full allegories, such as Kafka's shorter works, it would be enough for me if there is a notable focus on the allegory, and a juxtaposition to the literal passages in the stories :)
kiki1982
09-07-2010, 08:50 AM
Try (the late :() Saramago. He has written a number of allegories on the modern world and modern society. His trilogy The city of the Blind (or wqas it Blindness, All names and The City of the Seeing (I don't know the exact English title) and The Cave.
I am not sure about the rest of his books.
JCamilo
09-07-2010, 10:13 AM
Chesterton, Philip k.dick , Cortazar, Orwell, Graciliano Ramos,Melville, Conrad...
Kyriakos
09-07-2010, 11:54 AM
Thank you both.
Any particular books i should have a look at? (apart from the ones mentioned by Kiki)
OrphanPip
09-07-2010, 12:07 PM
Are you interested in romans à clé? Those are allegorical stories where the story and characters have directly intended allegorical correspondences to real people and events. Woolf's Orlando is said to be one, you can read the fictional story as representative of actual people. (edit: In the same sense Animal Farm can be read as a roman à clé of the rise of the Soviet Union.)
Spenser's Fairy Queene, one of the longest poems in the English language, is an allegorical romance. A lot of Medieval poetry relies heavily on allegory.
mayneverhave
09-07-2010, 05:26 PM
The Divine Comedy
JCamilo
09-07-2010, 09:37 PM
I supposed he was looking for modern allegorical writers, because after all, medieval and pre-medieval literature is heavily allegorical.
Man who was thursday (CHesterton), any book of short stories of Cortazar (All Fires, Book of Chronopes and Fames, etc), The Man in the high Castle and other collections of Philikp K.Dick, both 1984 and Animal Farm of Orwell, VIdas Secas (Dry Life) by Graciliano Ramos and well, Melville and Conrad are well know writers, their best books are well know, so you just go behind the usually more famous (Heart of Darkness and Moby Dick) to find very good books...
Wilde woman
09-07-2010, 10:51 PM
Spenser's Fairy Queene, one of the longest poems in the English language, is an allegorical romance. A lot of Medieval poetry relies heavily on allegory.
Agreed. Medieval writers and artists were almost overbearingly allegorical in their work. But if the early modern stuff isn't your cup of tea, I immediately think of Poe's Masque of the Red Death when I hear the word "allegory".
JCamilo
09-08-2010, 01:00 AM
Poe would haunt you for this, he despised allegories...
kelby_lake
09-08-2010, 07:38 AM
Apart from Kafka, and to an extent Borges, are there any other significant writers who employ allegorical passages extensively?
The pieces don't have to be full allegories, such as Kafka's shorter works, it would be enough for me if there is a notable focus on the allegory, and a juxtaposition to the literal passages in the stories :)
Life of Pi is an allegory.
King Mob
09-08-2010, 05:23 PM
Gilbert K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday is one big beautiful, profound and funny allegory.
mayneverhave
09-08-2010, 05:33 PM
More contemporary? Waiting for the Barbarians - J.M. Coetzee.
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