Allegory in hermeneutic tradition. Gadamer’s rehabilitation of allegory

Abstract

The notion of allegory is bounded with rhetorical and hermeneutic traditions. In the rhetorical tradition allegory is a technique of encrypting given content. However, when we consider the need of deciphering this content, we face the hermeneutic interpretation of allegory. Allegory becomes a tool of interpretation. Thanks to applying allegory one can reveal a hidden truth of the text. This paper is an attempt to present allegory in the latter meaning – in hermeneutic tradition. Its hermeneutic meaning – form ancient Greece to the Baroque – was bounded with dogmatic interpretation of a message. Homer was the first one who applied allegory into interpretation of the myths. In the time of Patristics a need of allegorical understanding of the Holy Scripture appeared. In medieval times allegory played double role: philosophical-theological and aesthetical.
The meaning of allegory was first contested in its appliance into Bible in the time of the Reformation. The last period of confidence with allegory was the Baroque. A downturn of its applying as a tool of reaching the truth started at the age Enlightenment. Gadamer claims, that Kant’s aestheticization of the art was mainly responsible for depreciation of allegory, as according to Kant the only thing that a work of art presents us is beauty.
Gadamer objects to Kant’s aestheticization of art. As a result of rehabilitation of allegory he contested aestheticization of a work of art and its narrowing to a product of a genius. In his view, in our experience of a work of art not only we face beauty but also a truth about ourselves and the world sorrounding us.