pathetic.org members may categorize their work so that visitors to the site can find a particular type of poetry more easily. Because a piece may fit in more than one category, you may come across a particular poem several times. Whether you are looking for poetry written in a particular style, or a poem on a certain topic, you can browse through the categories listed here to find a variety of works that meet the criteria.
Allegory: A figurative illustration of truths or generalizations about human conduct or experience in a narrative or description by the use of symbolic fictional figures and actions which resemble the subject's properties and circumstances.
NOTE: Though similar to both a series of symbols and an extended metaphor, the meaning of an allegory is more direct and less subject to ambiguity than a symbol; it is distinguishable from an extended metaphor in that the literal equivalent of an allegory's figurative comparison is not usually expressed.
NOTE: Probably the best-known allegory in English literature is Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.
(Compare aphorism, apologue, didactic poetry, epigram, fable, gnome, proverb)
(See also metaphor, personification)
