Allegory and Alienation

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ID: 318133
2026
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Abstract
Abstract Allegory has always been a fitting vehicle for depicting the psychological experience of alienation. It conveys the commodification of labour-power, whereby human activity is represented as an autonomous, self-reproducing symbol. Aristophanes and John Bunyan use personification to illustrate the reification of subjectivity produced by wage-labour, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser and John Milton employ allegory to depict the postlapsarian condition, while Baudelaire and Goethe revive ancient allegorical techniques to reflect on modernity. The commentaries of Aristotle, Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, and Frederic Jameson provide a theoretical tradition that interprets allegory as the aesthetic expression of exchange-value’s autonomous agency. Today’s economic and ideological hegemony of finance capital means that the twenty-first century can accurately be called the ‘Age of Allegory’.
Reference Key
openalex_W7165517034 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors David Hawkes
Journal Oxford University Press eBooks
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192894359.013.0029
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192894359.013.0029
Keywords Keywords not found

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