The Language of Allegory: Defining the Genre

"Quilligan has a number of stimulating new insights into the nature of allegory both medieval and modern. Much of her discussion focuses on The Faerie Queen and Piers Plowman, but she does not neglect Hawthorne and Melville, while Nabokov and Pynchon receive two particularly astute readings. Along with valuable literary criticism, this book gives us an idea of a whole new revival of the theory of allegory."—Virginia Quarterly Review