NEASECS 2015 (Oct 8-10) Panel on "The Death of Allegory?"
The treatment of post-Renaissance allegory by literary scholars has been consistently negative. Scholars continue to write about the "demise," "abandonment," or "shattering" of allegory during the eighteenth century, as writers purportedly move away from the abstraction of generalization of allegory and towards the concreteness and demonstrability of literal narrative. This panel is dedicated to revisiting the relationship between allegory and the eighteenth century, since the literary form (whether it is understood as a distinct genre or as a mode of writing that can be evoked occasionally) does not go away. Potential panelists are encouraged to submit proposals for any paper investigating the status or role of allegory during the Enlightenment.