found: Baldick, C. Oxford dictionary of literary terms, via Oxford reference online, Dec. 15, 2012(allegory: a story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. The principal technique of allegory is personification, whereby abstract qualities are given human shape; an allegory may be conceived as a metaphor that is extended into a structured system. In written narrative, allegory involves a continuous parallel between two (or more) levels of meaning in a story, so that the persons and events correspond to their equivalents in a system of ideas or a chain of events external to the tale: each character and episode in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), for example, embodies an idea within a pre-existing Puritan doctrine of salvation)
found: Oxford dictionary of phrase and fable, via Oxford reference online, Dec. 15, 2012(allegory: A story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. The word comes (in late Middle English) via Old French and Latin from Greek allēgoria, from allos 'other' + -agoria 'speaking')
found: Cuddon, J. A dictionary of literary terms and literary theory, 1998(allegory: as a rule an allegory is a story in verse or prose with a double meaning: a primary or surface meaning; and a secondary or under-the-surface meaning; closely related to the fable and the parable)
found: Merriam-Webster online, March 6, 2015:(allegory: a story in which the characters and events are symbols that stand for ideas about human life or for a political or historical situation)
