Allegory of the cave
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| - | An '''allegory''' (from [[Greek language|Greek]] αλλος, , "other", and αγορευειν, ''agoreuein,'' "to speak in public") is a figurative mode of [[representation (arts)|representation]] conveying a [[Meaning (linguistic)|meaning]] other than the [[literal meaning|literal]]. | + | The '''Allegory of the Cave''', also commonly known as '''Myth of the Cave''', '''Metaphor of the Cave''', or the '''Parable of the Cave''', is an [[allegory]] used by the [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] [[philosopher]] [[Plato]] in his work ''[[The Republic (Plato)|The Republic]]'' to illustrate "our nature in its education and want of education." (514a) The allegory of the cave is written as a fictional dialog between Plato's teacher [[Socrates]] and Plato's brother [[Glaucon]], at the beginning of Book VII (514a–520a). |
| - | Allegory is generally treated as a figure of [[rhetoric]], but an allegory does not have to be expressed in [[language]]: it may be addressed to the eye, and is often found in realistic [[painting]], [[sculpture]] or some other form of [[Mimesis|mimetic]], or representative art. | + | Plato imagines a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of the cave entrance, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to seeing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners. |
| - | The [[etymology|etymological]] meaning of the word is broader than the common use of the word. Though it is similar to other rhetorical comparisons, an allegory is sustained longer and more fully in its details than a [[metaphor]], and appeals to [[imagination]], while an [[analogy]] appeals to [[reason]] or [[logic]]. The [[fable]] or [[parable]] is a short allegory with one definite moral. | + | The Allegory is related to Plato's [[Theory of Forms]], wherein Plato asserts that "Forms" (or "[[Idea]]s"), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality.<ref>{{Citation | first=Stephen | last=Watt | contribution=Introduction: The Theory of Forms (Books 5-7) | title=Plato: Republic | year=1997 | pages=pages xiv-xvi | place=London | publisher=Wordsworth Editions | id=ISBN 1853264830}}</ref> In addition, the allegory of the cave is an attempt to explain the philosopher's place in society. |
| - | [[Northrop Frye]] discussed what he termed a "continuum of allegory", ranging from what he termed the "naive allegory" of ''[[The Faerie Queen]]'', to the more private allegories of modern [[paradox literature]]. In this perspective, the characters in a "naive" allegory are not [[rounded character|fully three-dimensional]], for each aspect of their individual personalities and the events that befall them embodies some moral quality or other abstraction; the allegory has been selected first, and the details merely flesh it out. | + | The Allegory of the Cave is related to Plato's [[metaphor of the sun]] (507b–509c) and the [[analogy of the divided line]] (509d–513e), which immediately precede it at the end of Book VI. Allegories are summarized in the viewpoint of dialectic at the end of Book VII and VIII (531d-534e). |
| - | ==Examples== | ||
| - | Allegory has been a favourite form in the [[literature]] of nearly every nation. It represents many tales. | ||
| - | In classical literature two of the best-known allegories are [[Allegory of the cave|the cave of shadowy representations]] in [[Plato]]'s ''[[Republic]]'' (Book VII) and the story of the stomach and its members in the speech of Menenius Agrippa ([[Livy]] ii. 32); and several occur in [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Metamorphoses (poem)|Metamorphoses]].'' In Late Antiquity [[Martianus Capella]] organized all the information a fifth-century upper-class male needed to know into an allegory of the wedding of Mercury and ''Philologia,'' with the seven [[liberal arts]] as guests; Matianmus Capella's allegory was widely read through the Middle Ages. | ||
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| - | Medieval thinking accepted allegory as having a ''reality'' underlying any rhetorical or fictional uses. The allegory was as true as superficial facts of surface appearances. Thus, the bull ''[[Unam Sanctam]]'' (1302) presents themes of the unity of [[Christendom]] with the pope as its head in which the allegorical details of the metaphors are adduced as ''actual facts'' which take the place of a logical demonstration, yet employing the vocabulary of logic: "''Therefore'' of this one and only Church there is one body and one head—not two heads as if it were a monster... If, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they ''necessarily'' confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ" [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Unam_sanctam (complete text)]. | ||
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| - | In the late fifteenth century, the enigmatic ''[[Hypnerotomachia]]'', with its elaborate woodcut illustrations, shows the influence of themed pageants and [[masque]]s on contemporary allegorical representation, as [[Renaissance humanism|humanist dialectic]] conveyed them. | ||
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| - | Some elaborate and successful specimens of allegory are to be found in the following works, arranged in approximately chronological order: | ||
| - | * [[Aesop]] – ''[[Aesop's Fables|Fables]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Plato]] – ''[[Plato's Republic|The Republic]]'' (''[[Plato's allegory of the cave]]'') | ||
| - | * [[Plato]] – ''[[Phaedrus (dialogue)|Phaedrus]]'' (''[[Chariot Allegory]]'') | ||
| - | *[[Euripides]] – ''[[The Trojan Women]]'' | ||
| - | * ''[[Book of Revelation]]'' (for allegory in Christian theology, see [[typology (theology)]]) | ||
| - | * [[Martianus Capella]] – ''De nuptiis philologiæ et Mercurii'' | ||
| - | * ''[[The Romance of the Rose]]'' | ||
| - | * [[William Langland]] – ''[[Piers Plowman]]'' | ||
| - | * ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Dante Alighieri]] – ''[[The Divine Comedy]]'' | ||
| - | * ''[[Everyman (play)|Everyman]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Edmund Spenser]] – ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' | ||
| - | * [[John Bunyan]] – ''[[Pilgrim's Progress]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Jonathan Swift]] – ''[[A Tale of a Tub]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Joseph Addison]] – ''Vision of Mirza'' | ||
| - | * [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]] – ''Princess Brambilla'' | ||
| - | * [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] – "[[The Great Carbuncle]]" | ||
| - | * [[Herman Melville]] – ''[[The Confidence-Man]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Edgar Allan Poe]] – "[[The Masque of the Red Death]]" | ||
| - | Modern allegories in fiction tend to operate under constraints of modern requirements for [[verisimilitude]] within conventional expectations of [[realism (arts)|realism]]. Works of fiction with strong allegorical overtones include: | ||
| - | * [[Jorge Luis Borges]] – ''[[The Library of Babel]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Peter S. Beagle]] – ''[[The Last Unicorn]]'' | ||
| - | * [[William Golding]] – ''[[Lord of the Flies (novel)|Lord of the Flies]]'' | ||
| - | * [[John Irving]] – ''[[A Prayer for Owen Meany]]'' | ||
| - | * [[David Lindsay (novelist)|David Lindsay]] – ''A Voyage to Arcturus'' | ||
| - | * [[Arthur Miller]] – ''[[The Crucible]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Hualing Nieh]] – ''[[Mulberry and Peach]]'' | ||
| - | * [[George Orwell]] – ''[[Animal Farm]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Philip Pullman]] – ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Rex Warner]] – ''The Aerodrome'' | ||
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| - | Where some requirements of "realism", in its flexible meanings, are set aside, allegory can come more strongly to the surface, as in the work of [[Bertold Brecht]] or [[Franz Kafka]] on one hand, or on the other in science fiction and fantasy, where an element of universal application and allegorical overtones are common, as with ''[[Dune (novel)|Dune]]''. | ||
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| - | Allegorical films include: | ||
| - | * [[Fritz Lang]]'s ''[[Metropolis (film)|Metropolis]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Ingmar Bergman]]'s ''[[The Seventh Seal]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)]]'' | ||
| - | * ''[[El Topo]]'' | ||
| - | * ''[[Star Wars]]'' | ||
| - | * ''[[The Matrix]]'' | ||
| - | * ''[[The Virgin Suicides]]'' | ||
| - | * ''[[The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)|''The Wizard of Oz'']]'' | ||
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| - | Allegorical artworks include: | ||
| - | * [[Sandro Botticelli]] – ''La Primavera (Allegory of Spring)'' | ||
| - | * [[Albrecht Dürer]] – ''[[Melencolia I]]'' | ||
| - | * [[Artemisia Gentileschi]] – ''Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting''; ''Allegory of Inclination'' | ||
| - | * [[Jan Vermeer]] – ''The Allegory of Painting'' | ||
| - | * [[Ambrogio Lorenzetti]]; "Good Government in the City" and "Bad Government in the City" | ||
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| - | ==See also== | ||
| - | *[[Allegory in the Middle Ages]] | ||
| - | *[[Allegory in Renaissance literature]] | ||
| - | *[[Allegorical sculpture]] | ||
| - | *[[Roman à clef]] | ||
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Revision as of 13:57, 20 December 2008
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The Allegory of the Cave, also commonly known as Myth of the Cave, Metaphor of the Cave, or the Parable of the Cave, is an allegory used by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic to illustrate "our nature in its education and want of education." (514a) The allegory of the cave is written as a fictional dialog between Plato's teacher Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon, at the beginning of Book VII (514a–520a).
Plato imagines a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of the cave entrance, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to seeing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.
The Allegory is related to Plato's Theory of Forms, wherein Plato asserts that "Forms" (or "Ideas"), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> In addition, the allegory of the cave is an attempt to explain the philosopher's place in society.
The Allegory of the Cave is related to Plato's metaphor of the sun (507b–509c) and the analogy of the divided line (509d–513e), which immediately precede it at the end of Book VI. Allegories are summarized in the viewpoint of dialectic at the end of Book VII and VIII (531d-534e).
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Allegory of the Cave" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
