allegorism

From allegory +‎ -ism.

allegorism (usually uncountable, plural allegorisms)

1. The use of allegory.
   • 1999, Tullio Pagano, Experimental Fictions, page 149:

     These two tendencies correspond, mutatis mutandis, with the development of symbolism and allegorism in twentieth-century literature.

   • 2001, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, page 255:

     Schmidt makes a rather surprising statement when he ventures to assert that in general S. Irenaeus avoids allegorism, that when he uses it the exegesis is mostly typology, and that allegoristic passages are not for him determinative for faith.

   • 2014, Doris Medina, Mad Men 252, →ISBN:

     Jordan Bartel of the Chicago Tribune named the chapter a timeless and saw a feasible Emmy recommendation for Vincent Kartheiser, however sensed the kitchenette sink allegorism and finishing voiceover was a itty-bitty heavyhanded.

   • 2018, E. Khayyat, Istanbul 1940 and Global Modernity:

     He prefers a figural “attitude” to the pagan and primitive allegorisms and symbolisms, flags and emblems, which in his mind owe their strength and modern, global popularity to the powerful sense of history that the girual though had developed.

2. (theology) The belief that the primary value and significance of what is earthly and tangible is the way it points to the divine.
   • 2000, Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis Vol 2: The Four Senses Of Scripture, page 277:

     He goes so far as to affirm that in Scripture 'all has a spiritual meaning, but not everything has a literal meaning' (De princ. 2,3,5). We have here the point of departure for all the exaggerations of medieval allegorism.

   • 2007, Fred Skolnik, Michael Berenbaum, Encyclopaedia Judaica - Volume 3, page 645:

     The issue of the merits or demerits of allegorism became pronounced at the close of the 13th century and was keenly contested in the polemical literature of the second Maimonidean controversy.

• Gallimores