ABSTRACT
We have traced historical moments where allegory in its different forms becomes particularly strong, and have given a tentative history of allegory in its classical, medieval and Renaissance forms. We have also discussed the reaction away from allegory in favour of symbolism and realism in Romanticism and beyond, while noting the continuation of allegory, sometimes in disguised forms, in the nineteenth century. This chapter changes direction, in beginning a theoretical consideration of allegory which will question some of the assumptions of the literary history which assumes there can be a ‘history of allegory’. Specifically, it discusses the work of Walter Benjamin, the Jewish, Marxist writer, born in Berlin in 1892. Much of the chapter will be concerned with a reading of his work on allegory, but towards the end I will illustrate its use with a specific example from Milton and Milton criticism. Benjamin was expected to become a university teacher in philo-
sophy, and on completion of his doctorate on criticism in German Romanticism, worked on the Habilitation which he needed to pass
to secure a university post. The attempt, in 1925, failed, but the dissertation was published in 1928 with the title Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (1928), translated into English in 1977 as The Origin of German Tragic Drama. It is not an easy text, and it may be useful to summarize some of its propositions before starting. It argues:
1. That allegory corresponds to a perception of the world in ruins, and is therefore the art of the fragment, and the opposite of the symbol, which presupposes the value of ‘Nature’ preserving unchanging, complete, identities and values.
