Allegorical interpretation is "based upon the
supposition or fiction that the author who is interpreted intended
something 'other' [Greek: allo] than what is expressed"; it is the
method used to read thought into a text which its words do not
literally bear, by attaching to each phrase some deeper, usually some
philosophical meaning. It enables the interpreter to bring writings of
antiquity into touch with the culture of his or any age; "the gates of
allegory are never closed, and they open upon a path which stretches
without a break through the centuries." In the region of jurisprudence
there is an institution with a similar purpose, which is known as
"legal fiction," whereby old laws by subtle interpretation are made to
serve new conditions and new needs. Allegorical interpretation must be
carefully distinguished from the writing of allegory, of which
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is the best-known type. One is the
converse of the other; for in allegories moral ideas are represented
as persons and moral lessons enforced by what purports to be a story
of life. In allegorical interpretation persons are transformed into
ideas and their history into a system of philosophy. The Greek
philosophers had applied this method to Homer since the fourth century
B.C.E., in order to read into the epic poet, whose work they regarded
almost as a Divine revelation, their reflective theories of the
universe.
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