Allegoresis is the act of interpreting a text as an allegory, even if it wasn’t necessarily written to be one. In other words, it’s when a reader (or critic) finds hidden, symbolic, or moral meanings beneath the literal surface of a work.
It’s different from an allegory itself (a story deliberately written to symbolize something else). Allegoresis is the interpretive process.
Example:
- A critic might read Homer’s Odyssey and interpret Odysseus’s journey home as an allegory for the soul’s struggle toward virtue and self-mastery.
- Dante’s Divine Comedy is often read allegorically, with Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise standing for the stages of the soul’s purification.
👉 So: allegory = the text itself is symbolic, but allegoresis = the interpretation of a text as symbolic.
And there it is! Now go ahead and use allegoresis in you CXC prep/CSEC prep.
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