Allegory (ἀλληγορία) is an artistic device that allows expressing an abstract idea through an image. Allegories in the narrative art appeared long before the literature in its modern sense. In all religions and beliefs, it was customary to personify the forces of nature. Each element had its own embodiment - a deity. The Iliad, the Odyssey, the epic about Keret, Gilgamesh, etc. are allegorical. Allegories gave expressiveness and clarity to the narrative.
What is the allegory in the literature at an early stage can be seen in the example of the Gospel. The disciples of Christ are uneducated people, fishermen and artisans, far from abstract ideas. In order to convey to them the essence of the doctrine, Christ uses the form of a parable, accessible intelligible images: the shepherd, the sheep, the sower.
In ancient Greece art in all its forms reached its heyday much earlier and was primarily the prerogative of educated people. Here the allegorical presentation of information acquires artistic quality. What is the allegory in the literature of the ancient period can be seen from the example of Aesop's fables. Using the comparison of people with animals, the fabulist generalizes the defect of a particular character to a whole category of similar ones and at the same time ridicules the prototype, belittles it to the level of an animal. And at the same time, he slightly disguises a personal attack, thus avoiding an open conflict.
Middle Ages. Europe lives under the intolerable oppression of the Inquisition, it is dangerous to openly express thoughts. Here the task is not to convey the idea in visual form, on the contrary - to disguise, to make it accessible only to the initiated. Aesopian language for writers becomes the only possible form of expression of ideas. Allegories of the Middle Ages are gloomy, filled with fear, a sense of desperation and hopelessness of existence. What is the allegory in the literature of the Middle Ages, can be traced to the example of Dante's poem "Divine Comedy."
The thaw begins in the Renaissance, closer to the new era. Her echoes are clearly visible on the example of the most famous in the world culture allegorical poem - "Faust" Goethe. From the darkness of scholasticism, from the throws of the hobbled spirit, from the feeling of own impotence, the hero comes to the realization of the necessity of light, freedom and happiness for all. The most illustrative is "Classical Walpurgis Night": this chapter reads longing for a free and natural existence in the most widespread symbolic incarnation - classical classicism.
What is the allegory in the literature of the East, is best seen in Chinese and Japanese samples: if the ancient Indian texts are closer to the Near Asiatic and Antiquity (imagery and visibility), then in the neighboring cultures poetic allegories are in the first place. Here it is customary to poeticize everything: everyday life, dullness - thanks to condensed images.
Soviet Union. The country is dominated by a tough nomenklatura pressure, one can openly glorify the system and muddle ideological enemies. Literators who do not fall into the ideological trend, switch to Aesopian language. That is, again an allegory. Examples from fiction - "Master and Margarita", the prose of Pasternak and Platonov. The strongest allegorical solution is the ending of the poem "Moscow-Petushki" by V. Erofeev: the four embodied symbols of the infernal regime are piercing the hero with an awl "in the throat".
There came the era of postmodernity. And again, in the honor of allegory. Examples from the literature are the works of Pelevin and Sorokin. For a while, the pendulum has pumped out: it is not the disguise of the idea that is important, but the expressiveness of the presentation.
The bridge between the Soviet era and the current were the works of A. and B. Strugatsky. Fantasists tend to foresee the future. Written long ago "It's hard to be a god" and "Inhabited Island" is the brightest allegory of today's Russia.