Personification and Allegory: Selves and Signs
archived
What has allegory to do with personification, and personification with allegory? Are we justified in speaking, as we often do, of “allegorical personifications” and “personification allegory,” or does such usage, however widespread, obscure fundamental differences between the two?
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Curator
Book Chapter
Silk discusses the earliest connections between personification and allegory, which he pinpoints to the seventeenth century.
Book Chapter
Talking about personification means talking about allegory. One reason for this is that texts and images which are considered allegories very often contain personifications. Where personification is used, allegories come into being.
Book Chapter
The disenchanting poetics of allegorical narrative are especially clear in the context of allegory’s most important trope: personification.
Essay
In this essay excerpt, Zeeman argues that personification always yokes together discourses or elements that are potentially at odds with each other—a feature that it shares with allegorical narrative more generally.