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
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.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Chesterton, Philip k.dick , Cortazar, Orwell, Graciliano Ramos,Melville, Conrad...
Thank you both.
Any particular books i should have a look at? (apart from the ones mentioned by Kiki)
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.
The Divine Comedy
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...
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".Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Ecce quam bonum et jocundum, habitares libros in unum!
~Robert Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
Poe would haunt you for this, he despised allegories...
Life of Pi is an allegory.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
Gilbert K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday is one big beautiful, profound and funny allegory.
All aboard. All souls at half-mast. Aye-Aye. -Samuel Beckett, More Pricks Than Kicks
More contemporary? Waiting for the Barbarians - J.M. Coetzee.
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