The ends of allegory

This book proposes that allegory is not a species of literature but a structure of reading applied to uncomfortable juxtapositions within literary texts. The interpretive careers of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and of the same figures in Spenser's Faerie Queene provide central examples to show not what these poems mean but how they may be read and what cultural conditions encourage allegorical or non-allegorical readings.

Also encompassed here are interpretations of classical verse, Biblical parable, Jacobean masque, modern lyric, and television advertising in order to explore how texts move into and out of the category of allegory.