Boucquey Thierry (General Editor). Encyclopedia Of World Writers. 3 volumes
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xiii
W
RITERS, GENRES,
AND
WORKS COVERED, BY
G
EOGRAPHICAL A
REA
AFRICA
Abdallah, Sayyid (Ali Bin Nasir)
Ashanti tales
Bamana Segu, Epic of
Equiano, Olaudah (Gustavus Vassa)
Muyaka (Haji al-Ghassaniy)
Riebeeck, Jan van
Sonsan of Kaarta, Epic of
THE AMERICAS
Acosta, José de
Anchieta, José de
Andrada e Silva, José Bonifácio de
Axayacatl of Tenochtitlán
Balbuena, Bernardo de
Bartram, William
Beverly, Robert
Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, The
Bradford, William
Bradstreet, Anne
Brown, Charles Brockden
Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núñez
Cacamatzín of Texcoco
Carrío de la Vandera, Alonso
Carver, Jonathan
Castellanos, Juan de
Chilam Balam, The Books of
Columbus, Christopher
Cook, Ebenezer
Cortés, Hernán
Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John de
Cruz, Sor Juana Inés de la
De-Ka-Nah-Wi-Da and Hiawatha
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal
Dickinson, John
Dwight, Timothy
Edwards, Jonathan
Eliot, John
Fernández de Lizardi, José
Franklin, Benjamin
Freneau, Philip Morin
Gama, José Basílio da
Garcilaso de la Vega
Hammon, Jupiter
Hariot, Thomas
Jefferson, Thomas
Jesuit Relations
Jiménez de Quesada, Gonzalo
Knight, Sarah Kemble
Komam Q’Anil, Epic of
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
Léry, Jean de
Llorona, La
López de Gómara, Francisco
Mather, Cotton
Mather, Increase
xiv Encyclopedia of World Writers, 14th through 18th Centuries
Maya epics and fables
Mesoamerican mythology
Moore, Milcah Martha
Moquihuitzín
Motolinía, Toribio de
Munford, Robert
Murray, Judith Sargent
Nahuatl poetry
Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco
Nezahualpilli
Occom, Samson
Olivares, Miguel de
Olmedo, José Joaquín
Paine, Thomas
Peralta Barnuevo, Pedro de
Popol Vuh
Quetzalcoatl, myth of
Rabinal Achi
Rosales, Diego de
Rowlandson, Mary
Rowson, Susanna
Ruiz de Alarcón, Juan
Santa Cruz y Espejo, Francisco
Smith, John
Staden, Hans
Taylor, Edward
Vespucci, Amerigo
Warren, Mercy Otis
Wheatley, Phillis
Wigglesworth, Michael
Williams, Roger
Winthrop, John
Woolman, John
ASIA
China
Cao Xuequin (Ts’ao Hsüeh-ch’in)
Jin Ping Mei (Chin P’ing Mei)
Kong Shangren (Kung Shang-jen)
Li Yu
Luo Guanzhong (Luo Kuan-chung)
Shen Fu
Shi Naian (Shih Nai-an)
Tang Xianzu (T’ang Hsien-tsu)
Wu Chengen
Wu Jingzi (Wu Ching-tzu)
Yuan Hungdao (Yüan Hung-tao)
Japan
Bash¯o
Bunraku
Chikamatsu Monzaemon
haiku
Jippensha Ikku
Kabuki
Kobayashi Issa
Kyogen
Noh
Ryokan
Takeda Izumo
Zeami
Korea
Choon Hyang Jun
Huh Joon
Jung Mong Joo
Jung Yak Yong
Kim Jung Hee
Kim Shi-sup
Lee Yul Kok
Se-jong
Vietnam
Nguyen Trai
EUROPE
allegory
classicism
comedy of manners
cycle, miracle, mystery, and morality plays
fabliaux
farce
humanism
neoclassicism
novel, epistolary
pastoral
rationalism
romance
sonnet
tragedy
Britain/Ireland
Bacon, Francis
Boswell, James
Chaucer, Geoffrey
Cloud of Unknowing, The
Defoe, Daniel
Donne, John
English ballad
Gower, John
Henryson, Robert
Jonson, Ben
Julian of Norwich
Kempe, Margery
Langland, William (Piers Plowman)
Lydgate, John
Malory, Thomas
Marlowe, Christopher
Milton, John
More, Sir Thomas
Pearl poet
Pepys, Samuel
Pope, Alexander
Richardson, Samuel
Shakespeare, William
Sidney, Sir Philip
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Skelton, John
Swift, Jonathan
Wycliffe, John
French-Speaking Europe
Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’
Aubigné, Agrippa d’
Beaumarchais (Pierre-Auqustin-Caron de)
Bellay, Joachim du
Bergerac, Cyrano de
Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas
Bossuet, Jacques-Benigne
Calvin, John
Corneille, Pierre
Descartes, René
Diderot, Denis
Encyclopedia
Fénélon, François de Salignac de la Mothe
Froissart, Jean
Graffigny, Madame Françoise de
Labé, Louise
La Bruyère, Jean de
Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de
Lafayette, Madame de
Lafontaine, Jean de
La Rochefoucauld, François, duc de
Marguerite de Navarre
Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de
Marot Clément
Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin)
Montaigne, Michel de
Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de
Orléans, Charles d’
Pascal, Blaise
Perrault, Charles
Pisan, Christine de
Pléiade
Prévost, Antoine-François
Rabelais, François
Racine, Jean
Ronsard, Pierre de
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
Sade, marquis de
Scudéry, Madeleine
Sévigné, Madame de
Villon, François
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
German-Speaking Europe, Scandinavia,
and the Netherlands
Brandt, Sebastian
Bredero, Gerbrand
Erasmus, Desiderius
Everyman (Elckerlijk)
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Herder, Johann Gottfried
Kant, Immanuel
Kempis, Thomas á
Kleist, Heinrich von
Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
Lessing, Gotthold
Luther, Martin
Marieke van Nimwegen
Melanchthon, Philip
Novalis (Frederick Leopold, baron von Hardenberg)
Ruusbroec, Jan van
Sachs, Hans
Writers, Genres, and Works Covered, by Geographical Area xv
xvi Encyclopedia of World Writers, 14th through 18th Centuries
Schiller, Friedrich von
Schlegel, Friedrich
Schopenhauer, Arthur
Spinoza, Benedictus de
Swedenborg, Emanual
Till Eulenspiegel
Vesalius, Andreas
Vondel, Joost van den
Waldseemüller, Martin (inc. Mundus Novus)
Italy
Alberti, Leon Battista
Alfieri, Vittorio
Aretino Pietro
Ariosto, Ludovico
Bembo Pietro
Boccaccio, Giovanni
Bruno, Giordano
Campanella, Tommaso
Castiglione, Baldessare
commedia dell’arte
Della Casa, Giovanni
Galilei, Galileo
Goldoni, Carlo
Guicciardini, Francesco
Leonardo da Vinci
Machiavelli, Niccolò
Medici, Lorenzo de’
Metastasio, Pietro
Michelangelo Buonarroti
Pico della Mirandola
Muratori, Ludovico Antonio
Parini, Giuseppe
Petrarch
Poliziano, Angelo Ambrogini (Politian)
Pulci, Luigi
Tasso, Torquato
Vico, Giambattista
Russia and Eastern Europe
Avvakum
Bunina, Anna
Cantemir, Dimitrie
Catherine the Great
Comenius, Johann Amos
Copernicus, Nicolaus
Derzhavin, Gavriil Romanovich
Dmitriev, Ivan Ivanovich
Golenishchev-Kutuzov, Pavel Ivanovich
Hus, Jan
Izmailov, Aleksandr
Kochanowski, Jan
Krylov, Ivan
Lomonosov, Mikhail
Marulic
´
,Marko
Nikitin, Afanasij
Nikolev, Nikolai Petrovich
Ozerov, Vladislav Aleksandrovich
Prokopovitch, Feofan
Pushkin, Vasilii L’vovich
Radishchev, Alexander Nikolayevich
Rej, Mikkolaj
Sumarokov, Alexander Petrovich
Spain and Portugal
Argensola, Lupercio Leonardo de &
Bartolomé Leonardo de
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro
Camões, Luíz Vaz de
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de
Ferreira, António
Góngora y Argote, Luis de
John of the Cross, St.
Ignatius of Loyola
Lope de Vega Carpio, Félix
March, Ausiàs
Tirso de Molina
Quevedo Francisco de
Teresa of Ávila, St.
MIDDLE EAST
Book of Dede Korkut, The
Çelebi, Evliya
H¯afiz
Ibn al-Khat¯ıb
Ibn Khald¯un
OCEANIA & PACIFIC
Banks, Joseph
Prado, Diego de
Tench, Watkin
Watling, Thomas
1
Abdallah, Sayyid (Ali bin Nasir)
(ca. 1720–1820) poet
Little is known of the life of Sayyid Abdallah bin
Ali bin Nasir, a poet and Muslim theologian of East
African descent who wrote in Swahili. He is the au-
thor of two seminal poems of Swahili classical lit-
erature, Al-Inkishafi, or The Soul’s Awakening, and
the Takhmisa, or Songs of Liongo. Though these
two are his only known poems, it is likely that he
wrote several other Swahili poems, as yet not at-
tributed to him.
The Soul’s Awakening is a religious song that de-
scribes the horrors of hell for those who forsake
the counsel of Islam. According to Professor Cora
Agatucci, the song tells the story of the fall of Pate,
a city-state in Africa, as an example of the “vanity
of earthly life” (African Timeline). Nasir wrote the
song after 1749, which makes it one of the earliest
examples of written Swahili poetry. It remains un-
finished but is an excellent early example of
Swahili ritual songs by a pioneer in the language.
A Work by Sayyid Abdallah
Al-Inkishafi: The Soul’s Awakening. Translated by
William Hichens. Nairobi: Oxford University
Press, 1972.
Académie française (1635–present)
movement/school
The Académie française was founded in 1635 by
Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of King Louis
XIII, as a means of regulating the French language
and influencing the direction of French literature.
The Académie française has acted ever since as
France’s supreme court of letters, passing judg-
ment on questions of language and literature.
France was experiencing a surge in cultural ac-
tivity in 1633, when Richelieu learned of a group
of men with literary interests who were meeting in-
formally in Paris and who were interested in the
purity of the French language. He granted them his
protection, and they became the charter members
of the Académie française. According to its statutes,
its purpose was “to work with possible care and
diligence to give certain rules to our language and
to render it pure, eloquent and capable of treating
the arts and sciences.” The members were given the
task of compiling grammatical rules and creating
an official dictionary of the French language.
The parliament of Paris initially refused to rec-
ognize the Académie’s role in cultural and literary
matters. Richelieu saw his opportunity to prove the
Académie’s usefulness in 1637, when controversy
A
broke out over Pierre CORNEILLE’s immensely popu-
lar play Le Cid, which several prominent critics con-
demned for immorality and ignoring the rules of
classical drama. Richelieu ordered Corneille to sub-
mit his play to the Académie for judgment, and the
members agreed with Corneille’s critics. Because of
its important role in settling the controversy, the
Académie was accepted and its authority assured.
The 40 members of the Académie were known
as the Forty Immortals. Men were elected to vacant
posts by the members with the king’s approval.
Seventeenth-century members included Jean
RACINE, Nicolas BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX, and Jean de LA
FONTAINE, among others. One famous exception
was MOLIÈRE, who was not admitted because he
was also an actor, which then was regarded as a dis-
reputable profession.
In 1672 Louis XIV took the Académie under his
protection, moved it to the Louvre, and gave the
members their own library. In addition to publish-
ing the first edition of the French dictionary
(1694), the Académie held public readings of new
literary works and awarded prizes for prose
speeches and poetry.
Members tended to be conservative in ques-
tions of language and literature, looking to classi-
cal Greece and Rome for models of proper writing.
But not all members agreed. In 1687, Perrault read
to the Académie his poem, “The Century of Louis
the Great,” which praised authors of his own day as
equals or superiors of classical authors. This gave
rise to a dispute among the members, known as
the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns.
Secret balloting on new members was instituted
in 1671, but many members owed their election to
court influence or favoritism by women of the lit-
erary salons. As a result, many members of the
18th century had little literary expertise. One of
the most prominent
ENLIGHTENMENT thinkers,
VOLTAIRE, ridiculed the Académie. While he was
elected as a member in 1746, his efforts to interest
other members in new literary projects failed.
The election of another free-thinker, Jean
d’ALEMBERT, led to the formation of a strong group
of radical Enlightenment thinkers within the
Académie. They urged the consideration of works
on more modern subjects in literary competitions,
but they, too, had little influence on traditionalist
members.
The Académie was abolished along with other
royal academies in 1793, during the French Revo-
lution. It became part of the Institut National in
1795. It regained its former name and statutes in
1816, however, and its current members are still re-
sponsible for editing the official French dictionary.
The Académie française remains largely conser-
vative, but it provides a forum for literary ideas,
stands as a cultural tradition, and influences stan-
dard French spelling.
Works about the Académie Française
Levi, Anthony. Richelieu and the Making of France.
New York: Carroll and Graf, 2000.
Racevskis, Karlis. Voltaire and the French Academy.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Depart-
ment of Romance Languages, 1975.
Acosta, José de (1539–1600) theologian,
philosopher, naturalist
José de Acosta was born in Medina del Campo and
entered the Society of Jesus when he was 12. Spain
sent him as a Jesuit missionary to Peru and Mex-
ico, where he lived from 1570 to 1587. Although he
authored various minor works, three notable titles
brought him fame.
In 1589 Acosta published De natura novi orbis,
a valuable historical and scientific sourcebook that
is considered to be his most important work. It
joins the author’s missionary concerns with his sci-
entific interests by placing Mexico and Peru in har-
mony with the popular scientific view of reality of
the time. Acosta translated De natura into Spanish
and published it along with Historia natural y
moral de las Indias into a single work. In Historia
natural he studies the problems he found in Mex-
ico and Peru and speculates on their origins. He
presents a view of the New World as part of the
2 Acosta, José de
natural order assigned by God to nature and the
course of history.
Another of Acosta’s important works is De
procuranda indorum salute, also published in 1588.
In this work, he examines the fundamental prob-
lems of evangelization in America in the 16th cen-
tury. Significantly, the work is the first systematic
and complete presentation of early missionary
problems with the balancing of rights, obligations,
and parochial functions in the New World.
Acosta’s works are important because they rep-
resent the ideological culmination of the religious,
philosophical, and scientific conquest of the New
World in terms of the historical and ontological
process of incorporating the New World into exist-
ing culture.
English Versions of Works by
José de Acosta
Natural and Moral History of the East and West In-
dies. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger Publishing, 2003.
Natural and Moral History of the Indies. Translated
by Frances M. Lopez-Morillas. Raleigh, N.C.:
Duke University Press, 2002.
Works about José de Acosta
Burgaleta, Claudio M. José De Acosta, S.J.
(1540–1600): His Life and Thought. Chicago: Loy-
ola Press, 1999.
Shepherd, Gregory J. An Exposition of José De Acosta’s
“Historia Y Moral de Las Indias,” 1590. New York:
Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.
Alberti, Leon Battista (1404–1472)
architect, writer
During the 15th and 16th centuries, Europe expe-
rienced an explosive growth of culture, philosophy,
and science, which has come to be known as the
RENAISSANCE. Although the Renaissance affected
many countries, it had the greatest impact in Italy,
where brilliant artists, writers, and thinkers lived
and worked. Among these people was Leon Bat-
tista Alberti.
Alberti was born in the Italian port city of
Genoa, the illegitimate son of Lorenzo Alberti, a
merchant from Florence who had been exiled from
his native city. Lorenzo conducted a prosperous
business that had interests throughout the
Mediterranean world, and he ensured that Leon
received an excellent education in the Latin classics
and the law.
After his father’s death, Alberti took a position
with the administration of the Vatican, while at the
same time he began to explore writing. He became
fascinated with language, history, music, art, and
architecture, and his writings on these subjects
began to attract an increasingly large number of
readers. He wrote in both Latin and the vernacu-
lar Italian, so that both the well-educated and the
layman could read his works. Soon, many power-
ful figures in various Italian city-states sought out
Alberti for advice on artistic and literary subjects.
He also began designing architectural projects of
his own, though he had never received an educa-
tion in architecture and was entirely self-taught in
the field.
For the remainder of his life, Alberti continued
writing, working on his architecture, and assisting
the powerful men of Italy. He moved constantly
from court to court and eventually died in Rome.
Alberti was a good architect, although his work
would be surpassed by other Renaissance masters.
He is better known for his literary work than for
his architecture, and his writings had a tremen-
dous influence on art and architecture long after
his death.
Alberti’s writings are brilliant descriptions of
the artistic and cultural world in which he lived,
and they provide valuable insight into Renaissance
Italy. He composed love poetry, biographies, Ci-
ceronian dialogues, a satirical comedy about court
life and philosophy titled Momus (ca. 1450), fables,
and a 10-book survey of architecture. He also pro-
duced writings on family customs in Florence. One
such work is his Della famiglia, a prose dialogue in
four books in which he reveals discussions among
three generations of his family regarding their social
Alberti, Leon Battista 3
values and business ethics. Alberti wrote the piece
to defend his family against its critics. His discus-
sions of children’s education and marriage in
books one and two of Della famiglia clearly show
that Alberti was influenced by Aristotle and
Xenophon. Book three concerns the Alberti fam-
ily’s responsibility to earn, save, invest, and spend
money, while book four concerns friendship.
Another classical influence on Alberti was Lu-
cian, whose penchant for satire Alberti adopts in a
collection of short dialogues titled Intercenales.
This work is noteworthy for its having introduced
a playful tone into serious Renaissance literature in
Italy.
One of Alberti’s most crucial works was On
Painting (1430s), in which he analyzes and explains
the technical aspects of painting, paying particular
attention to an artist’s perspective in creating real-
istic, three-dimensional images.
The most famous of Alberti’s treatises is On the
Art of Building (1440s), in which he presents his
thoughts and ideas concerning architecture. Al-
berti discusses everything from the architecture of
ancient Rome to techniques for contemporary
urban planning. Centuries after it was written, On
the Art of Building remained the single most im-
portant reference work in the field of architecture.
Alberti had a tremendous influence on the
artists and architects who came after him, includ-
ing his friend Filippo Brunelleschi, perhaps the
most influential architect of the Renaissance, and
LEONARDO da Vinci, who apparently studied Al-
berti’s works. His exploration of so many different
interests and subjects marked him as a true Re-
naissance man.
English Versions of Works by Leon
Battista Alberti
Momus. Translated by Sarah Knight and edited by
Virginia Brown. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 2003.
On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Translated by
Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavenor.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991.
The Family in Renaissance Florence. Translated by
Renee N. Watkins. Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland
Press, 1994.
Works about Leon Battista Alberti
Grafton, Anthony. Leon Battista Alberti: Master
Builder of the Italian Renaissance. New York: Hill
and Wang, 2000.
Tave rn or, R ob er t. On Alberti and the Art of Building.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999.
Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’ (1717–1783)
mathematician, philosopher
Jean d’Alembert was one of the leading minds of
the French
ENLIGHTENMENT, along with such
thinkers as
MONTESQUIEU, ROUSSEAU, and VOLTAIRE,
and he contributed to the monumental ENCYCLOPE-
DIA, a 28-volume work masterminded by Denis
DIDEROT. The illegitimate son of the famed hostess
Madame de Tencin, d’Alembert was abandoned as
a baby on the steps of the church of St. Jean-Le-
Rond and remained loyal to his adopted mother
throughout his life. A diligent student of mathe-
matics and physics, d’Alembert became a member
of the Academy of Sciences at age 24. After mak-
ing the acquaintance of Denis Diderot and other
French philosophers, d’Alembert found himself
agreeing to contribute to the Encyclopedia.
D’Alembert wrote the memorable preface, the Pre-
liminary Discourse, in which he proposes a theory
of knowledge based on John Locke’s ideas.
D’Alembert also authored several tracts on his
mathematical discoveries, the arts, and sciences.
Both Russia and Prussia tried to lure him into their
service, but d’Alembert chose to remain in Paris,
where he died at age 66.
In 1743 d’Alembert published his new interpre-
tation of Newton’s Third Law, in which he main-
tains that forces that resist acceleration must be
equal and opposite to the forces that produce the
acceleration. This came to be known as “d’Alem-
bert’s principle.” Until 1754 he continued publish-
ing his work on algebra, calculus, and also physical
4 Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’
astronomy, in which he solved the precession of
the equinoxes.
Biographers characterize d’Alembert as a man
who had little use for wealth or sycophants and in-
stead adored truth and reason. His preface to the
Encyclopedia, first published in 1751, is the best ex-
ample of his practical if unpolished style and his
adherence to the egalitarian ideals and the spirit of
scientific inquiry that characterized the Enlighten-
ment. D’Alembert and the encyclopedists, clinging
to their beliefs despite pressure from the conserva-
tives, contributed to the dissolution of the ancient
social and political institutions of France, which
crumbled at the beginning of the Revolution.
An English Version of a Work by Jean Le
Rond d’Alembert
Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot.
Translated by Richard N. Schwab. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1995.
Works about Jean Le Rond d’Alembert
Crumey, Andrew. D’Alembert’s Principle. New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
Diderot, Denis. Rameau’s Nephew and d’Alembert’s
Dream. Translated by Leonard Tancock. New
York: Penguin Classics, 1976.
Hankins, Thomas L. Jean d’Alembert: Science and the
Enlightenment. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.
Alfieri, Vittorio (1749–1803) poet, dramatist
Vittorio Alfieri was born in the northern Italian
aristocracy of the early 18th century. While he
studied at the Military Academy of Turin, one of
the best colleges in Europe, the sheltered life of an
aristocrat did not suit him. He was eager to see the
world, instead, and embarked on a romantic and
extensive series of travels across Europe
(1776–1777), going as far as Russia and Sweden,
some of which he details in his Vita (Life).
Alfieri had a strong sense of Italian nationalism
and rebelled against French classical culture, which
was so prominent among his class and age. As a
result, he attempted to create plays that would rival
French drama.
Alfieri’s experiences in Paris during the French
Revolution would color much of what he wrote.
In his Ode to America’s Independence, for example,
he presents his views on both the French and the
American revolutions, which reveals a decided fa-
voritism for the Americans’ desire for independ-
ence.
Alfieri wrote a total of 19 tragedies, many of
them published in the 1780s, as well as political
treatises such as Of Tyranny (1777), political
poems, and an autobiography. Although he was in-
fluenced by classicism, much of his work is consid-
ered characteristic of the pre-Romantic period of
Italian literature. His works are remembered for the
national conscience they restored to Italian culture.
English Versions of Works by Vittorio Alfieri
Of Tyranny. Translated and edited by Julius A. Moli-
naro and Beatrice Corrigan. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1961.
The Tragedies of Vittorio Alfieri. Edited by Edgar Al-
fred Bowrin. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1970.
Works about Vittorio Alfieri
Betti, Franco. Vittorio Alfieri. Boston: Twayne, 1984.
Caso,Adolph. Alfieri’s Ode to America’s Independence.
Boston: Branden Press, 1976.
allegory
An allegory is a story in which characters represent
abstract qualities, and the literal story line is less
important than the symbolic truth that the story
both conceals and dramatizes. An allegory is simi-
lar to both a parable, the kind of story used in the
Christian Gospels to illustrate moral truths, and a
fable, in which a story dramatizes a practical in-
sight about life. An allegory, however, is more elab-
orate than either a parable or a fable and is
developed in more detail. More complicated alle-
gories reveal a multiplicity of meanings.
allegory 5
In classical literature there are many famous ex-
amples of allegory, including the allegory of the
cave in Plato’s Republic, where Plato likens human
life to the existence of cave-dwellers who can see
reality only in the form of shadows cast on a wall.
In addition, several of the stories in Ovid’s Meta-
morphoses invite allegorical interpretation.
The allegory received its fullest expression in
medieval and RENAISSANCE Europe. Early Christ-
ian writers such as Augustine, and medieval reli-
gious writers who followed him, extended the
parable form to help convey spiritual concepts. As
medieval romances grew in popularity, writers
defused charges of frivolity leveled against their
preoccupation with secular passions by includ-
ing religious meanings. In The Divine Comedy, for
example, Dante achieved a complete fusion be-
tween romance and religious poetry, and every
event and conversation can be understood on
several levels.
In some allegories, such as William LANGLAND’s
Piers Plowman, characters bear the names of ab-
stract qualities (Piers meets and talks with deadly
sins such as Gluttony and Sloth, and virtues such
as Truth and Peace). In other allegories, the char-
acters seem to be real people with whom the reader
can identify while at the same time symbolizing
moral dilemmas. For example, in the 14th-century
English romance
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT,
Sir Gawain, although a good knight and a hero, is
also an ordinary, flawed human being; but the
Green Knight who challenges him, the host who
entertains him, and the host’s lady who tempts him
all have a symbolic function that is not fully ex-
plained and that challenges the reader to search for
the best interpretation.
Renaissance examples of allegory include
Torquato TASSO’s Gerusalemme Liberata, Ludovico
ARIOSTO’s Orlando Furioso, and Edmund Spenser’s
The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596). Jonathan SWIFT
used allegorical techniques in his A Tale of a Tub,
and writers and filmmakers to this day use alle-
gory to engage at once the reader’s emotions and
intellect.
Other Works Featuring Allegory
Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. Mineola, N.Y.:
Dover, 2003.
Dryden, John. “Absalom and Achitophel,” in Selected
Poetry and Prose of John Dryden. Edited by Earl
Miner. Los Angeles: Random House, 1969.
Works about Allegory
Lewis, C. S. The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval
Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Fletcher, Argus. Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic
Mode. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982.
Anchieta, José de (1534–1597) missionary,
teacher, linguist
Dubbed the “Apostle of Brazil,” José de Anchieta is
influential for his contributions as a writer to the
foundations of Brazilian culture. He is also noted
for his concern for the welfare of the Brazilian In-
dians demonstrated through his efforts to protect
the Indians from exploitation under Portuguese
colonization. Anchieta helped to establish several
Jesuit schools, including colleges at Rio, Bahia, and
Pernambuco. He was instrumental in helping to
found the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Anchieta mastered several Indian languages and
helped make the Tupi tongue the main language of
communication among the Indians. Noted for his
linguistic studies, he wrote a grammar of the Tupi
language (Arte de grammatica da lingoa ...do
Brasil), which was widely used by missionaries. He
also compiled a Tupi-Portuguese dictionary. He
translated prayers, hymns, and the catechism into
Indian languages. To teach religious faith, he wrote
catechetical texts, canticles, dialogues, and reli-
gious plays in Tupi and in Portuguese.
Anchieta’s numerous letters and reports, span-
ning the years from 1554 to 1594, provide an im-
portant historical record of Brazil’s development
in the 16th century. He wrote poetry, composing
verses in Portuguese, Spanish, Latin, and Tupi (De
beata virgine dei matre Maria; Primeiras letras). He
is also noted for writing didactic religious plays
6 Anchieta, José de