In this classic work in patristic studies, R. P. C. Hanson elucidates the views of the third-century theologian Origen on the nature and interpretaion of Scripture. The introduction by a leading Origen scholar sets Hanson's work in its context and explores its significance to Origen scholarship.

Fredric Jameson takes on the allegorical form Works do not have meanings, they soak up meanings: a work is a machine for libidinal investments (including the political kind). It is a process that sorts incommensurabilities and registers contradictions (which is not the same as solving them!) The inevitable and welcome conflict of interpretations - a discursive, ideological struggle - therefore needs to be supplemented by an account of this simultaneous processing of multiple meanings, rather than an abandonment to liberal pluralisms and tolerant (or intolerant) relativisms. This is not a book about "method", but it does propose a dialectic capable of holding together in one breath the heterogeneities that reflect our biological individualities, our submersion in collective history and class struggle, and our alienation to a disembodied new world of information and abstraction. Eschewing the arid secularities of philosophy, Walter Benjamin once recommended the alternative of the rich figurality of an older theology; in that spirit we here return to the antiquated Ptolemaic systems of ancient allegory and its multiple levels (a proposal first sketched out in The Political Unconscious); it is tested against the epic complexities of the overtly allegorical works of Dante, Spenser and the Goethe of Faust II, as well as symphonic form in music, and the structure of the novel, postmodern as well as Third-World: about which a notorious essay on National Allegory is here reprinted with a theoretical commentary; and an allegorical history of emotion is meanwhile rehearsed from its contemporary, geopolitical context.

A biblical type is a person, place, or thing in salvation history that corresponds to a later person, place, or thing in the scriptural text. An allegory is a passage that says one thing in order to say something else. Both are common literary devices in the Bible that are vital for understanding truths about Jesus Christ found nowhere else. In 40 Questions About Typology and Allegory, Mitchell Chase provides a thorough introduction to both devices, showing where they appear throughout Scripture and the historical roles they have played in biblical interpretation. In a convenient question-and-answer format, Chase answers key questions such as: Why should interpreters care about typology and allegory? How do we identify types? What are the theological assumptions of typology? Do all types lead to Christ? What is allegorical interpretation? How was allegory practiced in the early church? How should we practice allegorical interpretation? Situating typology and allegory within salvation history, Chase shows how these devices reveal the interconnectedness of Scripture and commonly overlooked aspects of Christ's person and work. Scholars, Bible teachers, and preachers will find this an essential resource for interpreting Scripture more comprehensively. --

“Perhaps,” wrote Ralph Ellison more than seventy years ago, “the zoot suit contains profound political meaning; perhaps the symmetrical frenzy of the Lindy-hop conceals clues to great potential power.” As Ellison noted then, many of our most mundane cultural forms are larger and more important than they appear, taking on great significance and an unexpected depth of meaning. What he saw in the power of the Lindy Hop—the dance that Life magazine once billed as “America’s True National Folk Dance”—would spread from black America to make a lasting impression on white America and offer us a truly compelling means of understanding our culture. But with what hidden implications? In American Allegory, Black Hawk Hancock offers an embedded and embodied ethnography that situates dance within a larger Chicago landscape of segregated social practices. Delving into two Chicago dance worlds, the Lindy and Steppin’, Hancock uses a combination of participant-observation and interviews to bring to the surface the racial tension that surrounds white use of black cultural forms. Focusing on new forms of appropriation in an era of multiculturalism, Hancock underscores the institutionalization of racial disparities and offers wonderful insights into the intersection of race and culture in America.

The animals in the clearing were content until the Terrible Things came, capturing all creatures with feathers. Little Rabbit wondered what was wrong with feathers, but his fellow animals silenced him. "Just mind your own business, Little Rabbit. We don't want them to get mad at us." A recommended text in Holocaust education programs across the United States, this unique introduction to the Holocaust encourages young children to stand up for what they think is right, without waiting for others to join them. Ages 6 and up

This project has significant investments at two scales of cultural investigation. Its overarching concern is to provide a general account of the epistemological and narrative conditions under which socially transformative events take place, with the end of literary modernism serving as a model system. My emphasis is first on establishing a philosophical framework through which to understand the nature of events, an issue that has been the subject of intense recent debate. Among the most important results of this work is the conclusion that the marked allegorical bent observed in the texts of late modernism is an important and expected response to the disorientation that follows necessarily from any genuine event, literary, scientific, political, or otherwise.

Concentrating on interpretive allegory, this book's interdisciplinary approach simultaneously opens and organizes new perspectives on historic developments--from pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic commentaries to postmodern critiques. --From publisher's description.

"The Language of Allegory examines a body of literature not often treated as a unified genre. Reading a number of texts that are traditionally characterized as allegories and that cover a wide time span, Maureen Quilligan identifies the distinctive generic elements they share. Originally published in 1979, this highly regarded work by a well-known feminist critic and theorist is now available in paperback."--Back book cover

The only form of monumental artistic expression practiced from antiquity to the Enlightenment, allegory evolved to its fullest complexity in Dante's Commedia and Spenser's Faerie Queene. Drawing on a wide range of literary, visual, and critical works in the European tradition, Gordon Teskey provides both a literary history of allegory and a theoretical account of the genre which confronts fundamental questions about the violence inherent in cultural forms. Approaching allegory as the site of intense ideological struggle, Teskey argues that the desire to raise temporal experience to ever higher levels of abstraction cannot be realized fully but rather creates a "rift" that allegory attempts to conceal. After examining the emergence of allegorical violence from the gendered metaphors of classical idealism, Teskey describes its amplification when an essentially theological form of expression was politicized in the Renaissance by the introduction of the classical gods, a process leading to the replacement of allegory by political satire and cartoons. He explores the relationship between rhetorical voice and forms of indirect speech (such as irony) and investigates the corporeal emblematics of violence in authors as different as Machiavelli and Yeats. He considers the large organizing theories of culture, particularly those of Eliot and Frye, which take the place in the modern world of earlier allegorical visions. Concluding with a discussion of the Mutabilitie Cantos, Teskey describes Spenser's metaphysical allegory, which is deconstructed by its own invocation of genealogical struggle, as a prophetic vision and a form of warning.

By acknowledging interpretive theories of the past, Brittan provides a proper historical frame of reference in which today's student can better understand figurative language in poetry.