The Workings of Allegory in Ausiàs March

Robert Archer

Even in the more theoretical and wide-ranging work on allegory, such as that of Honig or Fletcher¹, literary studies have tended to look to the extended poetic or prose narrative for archetypes and to take these as the basis for discussion for the processes involved in allegory in general. What seems to have been overlooked since Rosemond Tuve's work on the subject a few decades ago² is that allegory, in a less developed form, is an important element in much lyric poetry of the Medieval and Renaissance periods, and that such small-scale examples of allegory are no less representative of it than their more elaborate counterparts in the Roman de la Rose, Piers Plowman or the Faerie Queen. It also might be argued that such allegories, by their very briefness, provide an easier working context for a pragmatic investigation into how allegory functions. Such a working context is available in certain parts of the work of the fifteenth-century Valencian-Catalan poet, Ausiàs March. The aim of this article is both to use the context of March's work as a practical point of reference for the examination of the workings of allegory upon the reader and to shed some light upon certain areas of a very important body of poetry.

Between the large-scale allegories so frequently studied and the small-scale allegories of March's poetry there is a vital linking-point. Both are essentially definable as continued metaphor (Quintilian, XI, ii, 46). Allegory, in either form, is one of the results of «continua metaphora», of extending a metaphor or, from a slightly different viewpoint, a series of connected metaphors: «nam illud quod ex hoc genere (allegory) profluit non est in uno verbo translato sed ex pluribus continuatis connectitur» (Cicero, De oratore, III, xii, 166). It has usually been assumed that this continuance of the metaphor or the connection of metaphors «flowing from» it involves a narrative sequence. The definition of A. D. Nuttall succinctly states this view: «(allegory) is a described set of things in temporal or para-temporal sequences; in short a complex narrative metaphor»³. This exclusively narrative aspect of the allegory is not assumed here, even though it may appear to be self-evident when one thinks in terms of the well-known longer allegories. One other important distinction is established by Quintilian. There are two fundamental types of allegory: that which is, in his own words, tota allegoria («full» allegory) and that which is commixta, the «mixed» allegory which he holds to be more commonly used in oratory. By the former he means allegory in which the metaphor is extended without referring overtly to the underlying sense. It is not «full», allegory, however, but «mixed» as soon as some direct reference to this underlying meaning is made.

The usefulness of this distinction between two possible ways of extending a metaphor into allegory can be seen to better effect in terms of a recent theory of metaphor. According to the theory of «interaction» in metaphor⁴, each of the two terms of which a metaphor is composed predicates of the other term its own inherent associations, and there is a process of adjustment whereby one term integrates into its own body of associations those «projected» by the other term, or else modifies, contrasts or rejects them. The first mentioned term can be called the «primary subject» and the other the «secondary subject»; these would correspond, for instance to «society» and «sea» respectively in the statement «Society is a sea». The secondary subject, in turn, projects its inherent body of associations back to the primary subject and then there takes place, each subject acting as a «screen» or «filter» for the associations of the other, a reciprocal process of adjustment, modification, contrast or rejection. Analogy is a guiding factor in determining which elements interact and which not, although the importance of contrast as a constituent element of the metaphor's meaning cannot be overstated, particularly, as we shall have occasion to note, in the case of poetic metaphor. Lastly, to follow the theory developed by Max Black, upon whose terminology we have been drawing, to its final stage, there is an adjustment of the substance of the primary subject to the now modified node of associations attaching to the secondary subject. In terms of this theory, the «full» allegory would involve an extended metaphor whose primary subject is not explicitly present. It is as if we were to develop a metaphor about the «sea» without overtly referring to the primary subject, «society». Clearly, if a passage of poetic allegory is to function metaphorically at all, the reader has to have some means of knowing that a primary subject is present. In practice, he will usually work from «clues» to the primary subject provided by certain metaphors which have come to acquire a fixed metaphorical sense through their repeated use in similar contexts or because of some other oblique reference to this sense in the poem. Given these conditions, the secondary subject can be developed while the primary subject is left to evolve only as a kind of implicit correlative to it. Sometimes the hidden sense of a passage is so obscure that it goes unperceived by the reader or, if perceived, baffles. In this case aenigma rather than metaphor arises, Quintilian suggests⁵. It is to be inferred from Quintilian's account of allegory that the mixed type is less likely to be classifiable as aenigma since at least some of the primary subject is intermingled with the secondary to make the metaphoric sense more accessible. It has to be added, however, that when one says that the metaphoric sense of a passage is «accessible» one does not imply that it is capable of being literally explicated except in certain central features. The essential feature of a metaphor is that it cannot be reduced to literal terms and relies upon ambiguity at certain outer levels of its meaning⁶.

Quintilian's classification of allegory into two fundamental types has important implications for the ongoing dispute about the relationship between personification and allegory. While a close relationship between these is often assumed, there is another viewpoint, established to some extent by Rosemond Tuve and recently developed by Thomas E. Maresca, which holds that passages whose main feature is personification are simply not allegories, properly-speaking. The classical rhetoricians, it is argued, do not make any connection between prosopopeia and allegoria, and their association since then has been an unfortunate accident. Both in function and in poetic effect, the two are worlds apart: an allegory is essentially Spenser's «darke conceit», a figurative statement which is enriched by the very uncertainty of its primary subject. Personification, on the other hand

This distinction between allegory and personification on the basis of their respective levels of semantic richness may be perfectly valid in certain contexts, but it would seem important to establish what it is that the two have in common which requires that a distinction should be made between them. Quintilian helps us to do this. His division of allegory into two types allows us to continue to acknowledge the metaphoric elements in both personifying and non-personifying allegories. Personification may be seen, in effect, as no more than the presence in 'mixed' allegories of elements of an abstract primary subject amidst the discursive elaboration of the secondary. The effect of the use of such abstract elements in the longer examples of allegory may seem, in terms of poetic effect, to divorce them from the semantically rich «full» allegories where only the secondary subject is developed. For the purposes of examining how allegories work in the context of lyric poetry, however, it will clearly be more fruitful to allow personification and allegory their common basis in continued metaphor.

March's use of the «mixed» allegory can initially be studied in XX 17-22:

The sense of the passage is as follows. The desire of the poet is such that there is no escape from its torment even through death: death could not help him (no.n té clau) to obtain the mercè of the lady, his one obsessive aim. The lady's cruelty and displeasure, which cause him to think of death, stand in the way of her favour. For this reason, he does not seek the death which they readily offer him. Through most of the passage, March uses a series of related metaphors which serve to create a coherent sense of place and event. In lines 20-23, in particular, the metaphors which refer the reader to the ideas of locked and opened doors (no.n té clau, n'an guarda, no toch a la porta que.m obren) prompt the reader into the formulation of a mental image in which the poet is seen to be standing before two doors: one of these, leading to mercè, is barred to him by Gran crueldat and grahir poch; the other, guarded by the same janitors, leads to death, and the poet declines to enter there. It is interesting that in creating this scene in the mind's eye, one finds oneself thinking in terms of those allegorical scenes familiar to one in medieval manuscript illumination: that is, a confined space in which figures are positioned in meaningful juxtaposition to one another, and are explicitly or symbolically depicted in the midst of an action. Both the manuscript illumination and poetic descriptions such as this are created to the same end: to delineate that mental picture to which we have recourse in order to better comprehend an abstract notion. Behind both pictorial and verbal allegories lies the process of changing abstract notions into concrete mental shapes, of understanding «per conversionem ad phantasmata», as Aquinas describes it⁹. What is of importance in each of these forms is not detail or colour, but configuration: the way in which the central elements of meaning are heuristically arranged and juxtaposed. The above passage is a valuable part of the poem not for what it communicates to the reader about the experience of the psychological condition of the poet (this is amply described in other stanzas) but for its function of supplying him with the elements needed to construct a clear mental picture through which to grasp more clearly the nature of the relationship between the complex elements which make up this condition. The reader is able to envisage two doors (the context allows these to take on the more specific form of prison doors), one of which, leading to Death, is opened by the two gaolers, who also block his passage through the other door to the imprisoned mercè.

It is their role in this mental scene which endows mercè, gran crueldat and grahir poch with a sense of concreteness which they would not otherwise have. Specifically, this sense of concreteness is that of a semi-humanized presence: cruelty, displeasure, compassion stand on an almost equal plane with the poet as human-like figures (gaolers, captive) in the prison, a place exclusively associated with human misery. It is to this aspect of the passage that the «personification» of these elements is attributable. Personification is seen to arise as a result of the introduction of the primary subject of an allegory into a secondary subject that is in the process of being developed in an imaginatively coherent manner. In this passage there is an additional factor which contributes to the personified aspect of one of the abstract concepts: to depict gran crueldat as a gaoler in mercè's dungeon is to invoke associations that have been strengthened by tradition, since cruelty was a characteristic commonly associated with people in that office. The gap between abstraction and personification is already partly bridged. It is worth comparing the personified «feel» of these words with the effect produced by the presence of other abstract concepts in the first three lines (dolor, bé, mort). These do not have any sense of personification since the statements in which they occur (és en sobiran grau, tinch present, vull ser volenterós) have totally different planes of reference. There is no allegory since the context does not call for a mental picture to clarify it. Similarly, in the final lines, no sense of personification attaches to sentiments, favor, alt secret since the verbs which connect them (descobre, guarda) have too loose a connection to the metaphorical theme of the preceding allegory to allow them to be integrated into the established mental image.

In the same poem there is a passage which might be categorised under tota allegoria:

Line 35 marks a change in the analogical reference of the stanza. It not only explicitly gives the context to which the brief initial simile is meant to be applied, but also furnishes the interpretative basis on which to read the following passage of allegory. The poet's desire no espera both as the candle's flame and as the ship heading for its intended harbour. The latter metaphor is extended and amplified over five lines in which no further explicit reference is made to the intended meaning. The secondary subject is thus developed without any reference to the primary; it falls to the reader to formulate this for himself. In this passage, traditional metaphors with a central meaning fixed through constant use by the troubadours and earlier Catalan poets serve to make the primary subject immediately accessible to the reader. The resulting sense would have been essentially the following: the poet addresses himself to the desired lady (lo port molt desijat) with great impetuosity; no other woman (altre port) can attract him sufficiently to persuade him to place his hopes in her (here ferre brings into play the widely used symbol of the anchor of hope). Having thus placed all his hopes in the lady concerned (the port at which the ship has come to rest), to break utterly with her would be emotionally disastrous. Like the earlier passage of the poem, this stanza prompts the reader into forming a mental picture as a means of construing the sense of the poetic situation. But here there are two important differences. The first of these is a purely local distinction: while lines 20-22 lead us to imagine a «scene», rather like a single photographic exposure, the allegory of 36-40 contains a series of actions which involve the mental picturing of a series of such «scenes», both those which are narratively sequential (setting sail, arriving at the longed-for harbour) and those which are contingencies to the narrative (no other port would hold the ship, weighing anchor from the desired port would end in the poet's drowning). The second difference, on the other hand, points to a possible distinction between certain types of «mixed» and «full» allegory beyond that made by Quintilian. Because of the absence of the primary subject as an explicit element, the «full» allegory was able to present a narrative which has a quite independent existence as a literal statement from the allegory itself. That is, we read March's passage both as a narrative with literal reference to a ship seeking out its harbour and as a metaphoric statement about the poet. «Picturing» here is thus a mental action in its own right, the first stage in the mental image, as well as being a means of understanding an underlying statement through its second stage, the mental schema. Here, we have, as it were, to «see» before we can «see as»¹⁰. In the earlier passage, on the other hand, the act of «picturing» cannot be divorced from the other, functional role of the image as schema in which it clarifies the abstract matter of the primary subject. We only «see» precisely when we «see as». The image has a purely heuristic function and can clearly have none of the freedom to elaborate emotive factors through description enjoyed by the image in the «full» allegory.

This distinction between «picture» and «schema» can be enlarged upon by reference to further passages of «mixed» and «full» allegories. A useful instance of the former is XVI 19-32:

The integration here of primary subject with secondary provides the reader with the material with which to construct a mental schema of the complex poetic situation. This could be summarised as follows. Only the poet's fear keeps from his mind all those harmful thoughts that could at any moment overpower it (19-20); he must strengthen his resolve to keep them at bay if they are not to fully occupy his mind (21-24). The only reason why his mind has not yet given way to these thoughts (that is, the only reason apart from his fear) is that in their voracious greed, the thoughts prevent one another from attaining their common goal (25-28). But if even the feeblest of these thoughts should slip through, the mind would be overcome (by all the thoughts that would then rush in) (29-30). The poet can only have any hope of resisting them as long as they continue to dispute with one another (31-32).

This paraphrase raises a vital issue. It has proved practically impossible to describe the subject-matter of the passage without recourse to metaphors which either directly or obliquely suggest the notions of «siege», «attack», «battle» and «resistance». It seems improbable that March would have been able to describe this particular state of mental anxiety without recourse to the very same family of metaphors upon which he draws in this passage. Under these conditions, it seems likely that March considered it advantageous to select such of these inevitable metaphors as could be ordered into a coherent sequence. Here, to a considerably greater extent than in the last passage, the sequence forms what is unequivocally a narrative. This is not, it has to be added, a narrative of past event, but one of possible event, of what could happen if the poet's means of resistance should fail. Within the structure of this narrative, the associations «projected» by the metaphors have a specific context of event and sequence with which to interact. It could be predicted that the quasi-visual and emotive power of the associations emitted by such metaphors would be dissipated if these were placed with other metaphors which, although conceptually related, could offer no real core of «predicable» matter. Such inevitable metaphors could, in effect, have had a palling effect upon the reader. March, however, is careful to elaborate the secondary subject of the extended metaphor in such a way that the associations of every verbal element of the passage confirm the relevance of the elements with which each is juxtaposed. Out of this constant reciprocal confirmation in space and time of each element's relevance arises the convincing sense of narrative, accompanied by a mental image. It is to the mental image, in effect, that the interlinking associations of the metaphors elaborated in the allegory refer in the process of confirming and supporting one another to form a narrative. The associations of the metaphors relate to one another narratively in the mental image in its aspect of «picture». This also supports the impact of emotive elements projected with the associations of the metaphors, and it is the mental «picturing» involved in the reading of lines 27-28 that allows the description of deleterious thoughts jostling one another at the door to have its comic effect. At the same time, the passage's clarity as a statement of the poet's condition relies entirely upon the mental image's function as schema. Taking us one stage beyond «picture», it leads us to an understanding of an abstract and complex matter through the process of «seeing» the primary subject «as» the secondary.

In the «debate» allegories, on the other hand, the latter process is far less important. A passage like that of XI 9-24, whose narrative is composed of two «scenes» in which Death and Life address the poet, the mental image has a very different part:

Here the vivid mental image produced by the allegory is of little consequence to its function as a vehicle for the explanation of ideas. When the reader «sees» Life and Death coming out onto the road, he is not helped by his mental image to better understand what is said by the two personified figures except, perhaps, in lines 15-16 where the contrast of physical action that is perceived in the image serves to make the intended paradox more clearly felt. For the most part, the mental image is no more than a context in which the hyperbole of Death's speech and the description of Life's anguished importunements can achieve greater emotive impact: the metaphor of the camí serves as a constant backdrop to the enactment of the ritualised encounter of the two universal forces. The structure of the developed metaphor is such that it does not suggest, either as «scene» or as narrative, a mental schema, while other, unrelated metaphors, deal with the subject-matter of the passage in a way which does not require its mental image to function heuristically. The mental «scene» of the camí serves only to support the already powerful sense of prosopopeia in the traditionally personified mort and vida. Such passages as this allow us to see why Classical rhetoricians should have chosen to treat prosopopeia and allegoria as quite separate figures: the sense of personification here is overwhelmingly stronger than that of allegory. The underlying functional distinction, however, is not between rhetorical figures, but between the use in «mixed» allegory of the mental image as schema on the one hand, and on the other as little more than a supportive background to the mental «picturing» of personified abstractions.

The latter type of «mixed» allegory is, nevertheless, a poetically effective device in its own right, even though it is designed to accomplish less than its counterpart. But in other passages of allegory that are classifiable as «mixed», a different form of the extended metaphor is to be found which cannot be considered as effective. In lines 391-400 of the Cant Moral (CXII), March uses a number of metaphors deriving from the theme of the «battle» in describing the conquest of the flesh by which man prepares for his salvation:

The initial negative exemplum establishes the metaphoric «conquest» (empresa, emprès, sotsmetre), and this is developed from line 395 onwards in metaphors related to the theme of the combat: mes per terra, elegir volch (auxiliaries in the fight), per fer... guerra, no amprà lances ni colobrines. It has to be allowed that the passage is a «continued metaphor» in which the primary subject is also present (delits, penses, esperit, for example), but what separates this passage from the sort of allegory we saw in poem XVI is the absence of a narrative structure uniting the metaphors. This is due entirely to an apparent lack of clarity on March's part about the exact form of the secondary subject, a vagueness of conception which is reflected in the incomplete and unhelpful mental image produced in the reading of the passage. At two points, in particular, the secondary subject of the allegory is developed with complete disregard for the primary. In lines 396, the reader finds himself struggling in vain to find a sense to tolent de si which allows the delits to become identified with something compatible with the previous line's metaphor of the cos that is thrown to the ground. The next two lines confirm the context of the «combat» implicit in the metaphor of line 395 and help build up its metaphoric «presence», amplifying the background of the original metaphoric statement rather than suggesting a further action. But any benefit from this is countered in the final two lines by the clumsy obviousness of negatively contrasting a statement consisting purely of elements of the allegory's secondary subject with one that is an entirely literal development of the primary. The resulting fragmentation of the mental image means that the allegory fails to become the medium of clarification (through the operations of the mental schema) as which it clearly needs to function here. Judged by the standards of those other attempts at allegory in the «mixed» mode which we have seen, this must be deemed one of March's failures.

In contrast to these examples of «mixed» allegory, the passage of tota allegoria in March are not meant to be quite as accessible in sense. Generally speaking, they require much more of the reader, who has to work out for himself the underlying sense as best he can, using whatever «clues» may be available to him either in the context of the poem as a whole or in the form of metaphors with traditional meanings. The help of either or both of these two factors can mean, in effect, that the interpretation presents little real difficulty. This is the case, for instance, in LIX 29-32 where the traditional images of carçre (the Prison of Love) and the cruel mar (symbol of amorous suffering in the troubadour tradition), and preceding description of the poet's psychological condition and the ambivalent metaphors of remey, conort and juhý remove most of the obstacles to interpretation. However, there are two passages in which the interpretative difficulties inherent in tota allegoria come to the fore.

The first of these (VI 25-32) shows a structure which is best described not as a narrative but as a series of consistent statements about a common theme. The constituent elements of the allegory through which the poet laments the folly that has led him into subjection to Amor are grouped together as interrelated «scenes»:

The influence of context and the presence of metaphorical «clues» oblige the reader to approach the passage on two levels at once. As he reads the «literal» account of the deeds of the senyor, he works out the parallel meanings of the passage's metaphors as applied to the poetic situation. This might be rendered as follows: the poet is foolish to allow himself to become subject to Love (26) which is unable to make anyone happy (27). Love never acts justly or fittingly (28-29). It puts an end to those whom it should cure (30). It deliberately makes a painful delay in entering into the hearts of those who long for its coming (31), while those who think themselves able to resist it are soon overthrown (32). The last line concerns the fort castell of the poet's will which vows to oppose sensual love and to verament amar (16). As one reads the passage, one notices that the mental image produced by it functions as a schema by means of which we try to ascertain the intended metaphorical meaning. The mediation of the schema, beyond the mental «picture», is perhaps most clearly felt in the final three lines where the metaphorical sense is at its most elusive. In order to better understand what is meant one has to make an especially strong effort to «see» the primary «as» the secondary subject.

These last three lines are, in effect, difficult to interpret with any certainty. Arguably, they verge on aenigma. On the other hand, as Rosemond Tuve pointed out, discussing the rhetorical conventions of a later period, the whole purpose of an allegory of this sort was to «give pleasure by a meaning half concealed»¹¹. The reader has to apply a certain amount of intellectual effort together with his knowledge of the appropriate poetic conventions, to unlock the partly hidden meaning; the aesthetic and intellectual satisfaction to be derived from reading this passage lies in the act of unlocking. But the process involved is far from being a matter of matching, in a one-to-one correlation, figurative language with literal statement. In order to read March's text satisfactorily one has to allow it its full value as an essentially metaphorical development, each of whose elements interacts with the primary subject to produce a meaning which, as we noted earlier when discussing theory, is not capable of reduction to literal statement. It is, in effect, to this phenomenon that Spenser referred when he noted «how doubtfully all Allegories may be construed»¹². He would seem to have been commenting here not so much upon the difficulties of finding the literal correlative to an allegorical statement, but on the ultimate impossibility of expressing the meaning of poetic allegory except as allegory. Thus, the unraveling of the passage conducted above through a series of literal equivalents can be no more than an attempt to reproduce the skeletal structure of the underlying meaning based in the major analogies between secondary subject (the allegory read literally) and the primary (what the reader knows or can assume about the poet). Around this central core are gathered many other layers of important meaning -verbal, mental-visual, abstract, sensory, emotive- which are not available to any manner of reformulation in literal terms.

The degree of activity of such associations as these in the process of interaction by which the allegory produces its meaning is appreciably greater in the passage under discussion that in any example of «mixed» allegory which we have encountered so far. This must be one of the more important functional differences between Quintilian's two broad categories, and it can perhaps best be accounted for if we posit for the «mixed» allegory a mental process in which the interaction of the secondary subject and the also present primary subject involves an almost instantaneous identification of one with the other. This identification reduces the «interactive» stage in the formation of each element of the allegorical meaning to one in which few associations need to be projected by each subject before a satisfactory meaning is reached. Such interaction as there is, moreover, will become progressively limited as the allegory develops, since every new metaphor of the same theme which is used in a way consistent with preceding metaphors will tend to make a certain specific context increasingly sufficient as the referent of the metaphors coming thereafter. The more the allegory develops, the more all associations except those related directly to the central meaning become extraneous. The conceptual «gap» between subjects is, to a degree which will obviously vary between particular instances, closed by the specification of relevant elements of the primary subject. In the «full» allegory, on the other hand, as in poem VI, this gap is left open. A greater volume of associations has to pass from one term to the other (and back again to be reciprocally absorbed, rejected or contrasted) before an acceptable meaning takes shape. Even then, because of the much more tentative nature of such meaning than that which is available in the «mixed» allegory, those associations which do not form the central core of the allegory's meaning remain actively present as possible elements of meaning. A later development in the allegory may supply a context in which such associations come to be more clearly meaningful. It would also follow that the more uncertain the central meaning of the metaphors, the greater is associative activity likely to be. This is evident in lines 30-32. Here the problem involved is that of selecting from a vast range of associations interacting between elements of the given secondary subject (cavador, loguer, metge, etc.) and the suggested context of Amor rich in implications of both a general and a specifically Marchian nature. The «full» allegory has much of the conceptual openness in its primary subject that we find in metaphor. It develops the subsidiary term, but leaves the main subject untouched. «Mixed» allegory, by developing both, spells out and delimits the grounds of analogy on which they are to interact. The metaphor's essential ambiguity is largely quashed.

The problem of determining central meaning becomes particularly acute in the very different form of «full» allegory to be found in the famous first three stanzas of Veles e vents (XLVI) which describe a fantasized voyage across a nightmarish sea. Clearly, the journey referred to is purely a metaphor for the poet's declared intentions to struggle to gain, perhaps to regain (he speaks of a retorn) the addressed lady's affections. In the final two stanzas the poet laments -thus setting up an ironic contrast with the affirmations in the first three- the lack of opportunity to actually perform the supreme act of proof (the cas molt fér) of his constancy, even if by doing so he would separate himself forever from the lady. He can only hope that the chance to prove himself will be given him soon (qual prech Déu sia tost) so that he can back up his words with actual deeds (56). These details make it quite clear that March is not fantasizing in the first three stanzas about a real voyage about to be physically undertaken, although the ironic effect of the later stanzas depends upon this assumption on the reader's part. It is to this also that the initial impact of the passage is largely indebted:

As an allegory, the literal description of the passage has to be read as the secondary subject of an extended metaphor whose primary term is the poet's desires with regard to the lady. The allegorical meaning of the passage emerges, as in all other forms of metaphor, through the interaction of the bodies of associations attaching to these two terms. It becomes clear, however, as the allegorical reading is made, that a process of interaction is brought into play which is, once again, quite different from that which we have been able to posit for other passages of allegory. What marks out the Veles e vents allegory from the rest is the great disproportion between the quantity of material pertaining to the secondary subject and subsequently «projected» for interaction with the primary and the amount which this is actually able to utilize. That is to say, as literal statement these stanzas contain a vast amount of detail which simply does not «translate», either as a definable core of meaning or as further ambiguous matter, into elements of the underlying allegory. Many elements of the description of the voyage have to be left as they are, in their given literal sense, for want of a corresponding element in the primary subject with which to interact fruitfully. We can call the passage a «full» allegory in so far as it is not «mixed», but there is clearly no sense in which the term can be used to describe the extent of the allegorical content. Clearly, a detailed allegorical reading is simply neither appropriate nor possible here. Instead, the reader finds himself structuring a framework of allegorical meaning around a certain number of words and phrases to which the rest of the passage attaches itself at a purely literal level. This means that large sections of the passage become, as it were, «collectively» allegorical, constituing blocks of metaphorical meaning. The structure of this allegory is best explained in the following table which divides the passage into these metaphorical «blocks» and attempts to explicate the central meaning of each of them.

The allegory flourishes in lines 1-2, where it is rapidly established through three important metaphors, in the metaphorically suggestive pelegrins, retorn and then in the more obliquely metaphorical nudrit e fet. Thereafter, the details of each section of metaphorical meaning serve principally to amplify the sense of the metaphorical blocks on a purely literal plane of reference. The enumeration of the winds in the first of these blocks (lines 3-8) has the effect of giving greater substance to the claim made metaphorically by the poet to being able to summon considerable powers of will to achieve his desired goal. Similarly, the unnatural marine phenomena (9-16) are not of metaphoric significance individually, but by collectively stressing the notions of danger and extraordinary difficulties, they increase the emotive power of the corresponding metaphor of the sea as a place of amorous ordeals. Beyond this collective function, individual elements of the passage do not contribute to its allegorical level on the basis of positive comparison but through negative analogy. As we saw earlier, the meaning of any metaphoric form includes that which results from the contrast between interacting subjects. Thus, statements like per gran remey en terra exiran and the passages concerning the pilgrim's secrets and perill are meaningful as metaphor by virtue of the contrast which their interaction with the primary subject brings to light. In all, the passage is largely made up of descriptive material designed to suggest a mental «picture» full of emotive resonance. It prompts a mental image which is almost entirely simple «picture». We «see» what is described but are rarely able to «see» this «as» an aspect of the primary subject of the allegory beneath. Its work as schema is limited to a few elements only, and the extensive heuristic function of other types of «full» allegories is totally absent here.

On the basis of this examination of the use of small-scale allegory in March the following observations regarding the processes of allegory in general can be made:

(1) Quintilian's division of allegory into «full» and «mixed» types implies the possibility of grouping diverse forms of extended metaphor, including those with personification, under the same rubric by tracing both main categories back to their common roots in metaphor seen as an «interaction» of its two constituent subjects. The development of only the secondary subject of the basic metaphor in «full» allegory allowed this to retain a properly metaphoric sense of ambiguity in those areas of meaning outside the explicable core. In the «mixed» allegory, much or all of this ambiguity is lost through the spelling out of the «implicative complex» of the primary subject together with the secondary. Certain instances of «full» allegory, however, clearly are not meant to function in any fully «interactive» way; rather, «blocks» of the subsidiary subject interact collectively with the main subject.

(2) Allegories can be distinguished on a further functional level according to the role played by the mental image produced by the reading of an allegory. Some types of allegory involve the construction of a mental schema -a mental picture used heuristically- through which we are able to construe the abstract ideas which are the subject of the passage. The mental image in forms of both «mixed» and «full» allegories contain such schemata. In certain types of «mixed» allegories, mental picture could not be distinguished from schema: we could «see» precisely and only at that moment in which we could «see as». Other «mixed» allegories were shown to function purely as picture. Certain «full» allegories seemed to involve the reader equally in the creation of picture and schema, to the extent that while a passage could function allegorically only when we «saw» secondary subject «as» primary (schematically), picturing was an essential and separate preliminary. In other «full» allegories, on the other hand, the schematic function of the image was minimal and picture, with its attendant emotive elements, was all-important.

(3) Allegories are not limited to purely narrative structures. A series of metaphors can also have the function of allowing the reader to construct a single «scene» rather than the series of such scenes which we might normally associate with narrative.

(4) The sense of personification which is a feature of most «mixed» allegories is largely dependent upon the power of the extended metaphor to present a vivid mental picture through consistent reference to a human plane of reality. The extension of the metaphor need not be elaborate when traditionally personified subjects are used, but less widely personified abstractions require greater metaphoric consistency to create the necessary vividness of mental image.

As far as the poetic functions of the allegory in March are concerned, it is the first and second of the points just made which are of most relevance. March uses the allegory for the explicative value of its mental image as schema to some extent in many passages, while he uses it exclusively for this purpose in at least one poem. Elsewhere, the «full» allegory's unimpeded process of «interaction» results in a rich body of metaphorical meaning which can be contrasted with the almost entirely emotive effect of the first three stanzas of «Veles e vents». Allegory, at other times, proved to be an effective means of avoiding the palling effect of «inevitable» metaphors, allowing their associative power to become recharged in the fresh context created by their juxtaposition in a narrative scene. What became equally clear was that March's occasional lapses in the use of continued metaphor occur when the mental image is not taken sufficiently into consideration.