ABSTRACT
Political applications of religious typology exemplify an area of Victorian thought in which authors commonly extend or secularize this form of symbolism. Secularized figuralism generally characterizes Victorian use of types for political purposes; certain applications do take strictly orthodox forms. After examining a few instances of orthodox political types, people shall be better able to discern what occurs when authors transform them into secularized or extended versions. All of the political applications of types we have thus far observed in Casa Guidi Windows have been strictly orthodox ones. On the other hand, when she takes the oppressed people of a disunited, conquered Italy as equivalent to Christ, she introduces us to secularized or extended versions of this form of religious symbolism. Like Rossetti, who employs secularized types in a non-political context, Carlyle draws upon the complex structure of the typological relation as a means of finding a meaning and order to human history.
