everything, whatever happens, has three meanings. The first is the practical meaning, what the books calls, 'the thing the plowman sees.' The cow has taken a mouthfull of grass, and it is real grass, and a real cow. [...] The second is the reflection of the world about it. Every object is in contact with all others, and thus the wise can learn of the others by observing the first. That might be called the soothsayer's meaning [...] The third is the transsubstantial meaning. Since all objects have their ultimate origin in the Pancreator, and all were set in motion with him, so all must express his will -which is the higher reality. [...] The book is saying that everything is a sign.
(Gene Wolfe: The Shadow of the Torturer)
Everything of which we are conscious…has for us a deeper meaning still, a final meaning. And the one and only means of rendering this incomprehensible comprehensible must be a kind of metaphysics which regards everything whatsoever as having significance as a symbol.
(Oswald Spengler, quoted in Jack Vance's The Star King)
There were four categories of allegory used in the Middle Ages, which had originated with the Bible commentators of the early Christian era. The first is simply the literal interpretation of the events of the story for historical purposes with no underlying meaning. The second is called typological, which is connecting the events of the Old Testament with the New Testament; in particular drawing allegorical connections between the events of Christ's life with the stories of the Old Testament. The third is moral (or tropological), which is how one should act in the present, the "moral of the story". The fourth type of allegory is anagogical, dealing with the future events of Christian history, heaven, hell, the last judgment; it deals with prophecies.
(Wikipedia entry for Allegory in the Middle Ages)
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