This working group proposes to rethink one of the most prevalent modes of cultural expression in the Early Modern world, allegory. We focus on cultural manifestations of allegory between 1350-1700. Instead of the narrow definition of Early Modern allegory as a textual phenomenon, we propose an interdisciplinary approach that highlights allegory’s intermedial, performative, and multi-sensorial aspects. The reading list reflect the diverse interest of our participants with background in History, Comparative Literature, Art History, English, Medieval Studies, and Book History and Print Culture.

Reading List 

Session 1: 

Michel Foucault's The Order of Things, “The Prose of the World”, pp.19-50 

Rosemond Tuve's Allegorical Imagery, “Chapter 1: Problems and Definitions” pp.3-55 

Session 2: 

Walter Benjamin's Origin of the German Trauerspiel. Translated by Howard Eiland. (section on Dürer’s Melancolia I) 

Mitchell Merback's Perfecion’s Therapy, pp. 33-53

Session 3: 

Walter Benjamin's "Central Park"

Thomas Hobbes' "Introduction" to Leviathan. 

Jean Bodin's Colloquium of the Seven about Sacrets of the Sublime. translated by Marion Leathers Kuntz.

Session 4: 

Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Beekeepers

Jürgen Müller's "Of Birdnesters and Godsearchers: A New Interpretation of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Beekeepers."

Session 5: 

Christine de Pizan's City of Ladies

Session 6:

Cesare Ripa's Iconologia

Marina Warner's Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form

Thomas Kyd's Arden of Faversham

Andrew Sofer's The Stage Life of Props. pp. 50-60.

Marguerite Tassi's The Scandal of Images: Iconoclasm, Eroticism, and Painting in Early Modern English Drama. pp. 29-37.

Huston Diehl's Staging Reform: Reforming the Stage: Protestantism and Popular Theatre in Early Modern England. pp. 9-14. 

Suggested other readings: 

Baskins, Cristelle Louise, and Lisa Rosenthal. Early Modern Visual Allegory: Embodying Meaning. Aldershot, England; Ashgate, 2007. 

Fletcher, Angus. Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode. Princeton: Princeton UP. 2012. 

Jameson, Fredric. Allegory and Ideology. London: Verso, 2019. (selected excerpts)  

Johnson, Barbara. The Wake of Deconstruction. Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1994. (“Allegory and Women”) 

Melion, Walter S., and B. A. M. (Bart A. M.) Ramakers, eds. Personification: Embodying Meaning and Emotion. Leiden; Brill, 2016. 

Ramakers, Bart. “Dutch Allegorical Theatre: Tradition and Conceptual Approach.” In Urban Theatre in the Low Countries, 12:127–47. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2006. 

Raskolnikov, Masha. Body against Soul: Gender and Sowlehele in Middle English Allegory. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2009. (chapter 1: “Thought Enfleshed”) 

Robertson, Anne Walters. “The Savior, the Woman, and the Head of the Dragon in the Caput Masses and Motet.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 59, no. 3 (2006): 537–630. 

Rothenberg, David. “The Most Prudent Virgin and the Wise King: Isaac’s Virgo Prudentissima Compositions in the Imperial Ideology of Maximilian I.” The Journal of Musicology 28, no. 1 (2011): 34–80 

TWhitman, Jon. Interpretation and Allegory Antiquity to the Modern Period. Leiden; Brill, 2000. (selected excerpts)