ABSTRACT
The origins of allegory are philosophic and theological rather than literary. Most of all perhaps they are religious. From the beginning, however, allegory has been closely associated with narrative. From the time of Alexander the Great the importance of abstract divinities, and so of allegory, in Greek religious beliefs steadily increased. In Greek likewise the word Demeter is used to mean bread. At this level, Dis or Pluto, the god of the underworld who rapes Proserpine, is the earth in which the seed is buried and germinates. At a different level, however, Dis is death, and Proserpine is the human soul, subject to death, but redeemed by the toils of the mother goddess, Ceres. Theological myths suit philosophers, physical and psychic suit poets, mixed suit religious initiations, since every initiation aims at uniting us with the World and the Gods.
