Dante's epic masterpiece was written between 1308 and 1321 and represents an allegory of the writer's view on life after death. Traveling through hell, purgatory and heaven, Dante is first guided by the poet Virgil, and then by Beatrice, a woman he idolized in his youth. On his journey, he learns about the definitions and actions of sin as well as virtue. While the obvious story is a detailed travel journal of Dante's journey, the allegory is found between the lines and in various symbols that tell of the Christians' search for the right path to God.
Published in two halves in 1590 and 1596, Spenser's allegory to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and the religious conflict in England at the time, is told as a romantic tale set among knights, mystical beasts and fair maidens. The obvious story follows several knights through whose experiences and choices the poet explores the concepts of holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice and courtesy. The Faerie Queene of the title is a reference to Queen Elizabeth I, whom Spenser idolized due to her ability to unite England in the Protestant faith. The antagonists of the story, as well as the trials and tribulations the knights endure, bear obvious signs of Catholicism, which Spenser despised.
The story told in this poem from the 17th century seems more like a script from an Indiana Jones' movie, containing treacherous rivers, quicksand, bogs, stinking swamps and an undeterred hero. However, the names of the characters in "The Pilgrim's Progress" are a giveaway that the narrative is hiding a meaning other than the trials and tribulations of Christian and his family on their way to salvation. Christian is helped and hindered by Good Will, Faithful, Hopeful, Ignorance and the giant Despair. John Bunyan was a Puritan preacher at odds with the state religion prescribed by King Charles II and was repeatedly imprisoned for assembling congregations unauthorized. "The Pilgrim's Progress" is an allegory to his view of Puritanism as the only true path to a Christian life.
First written as a stand-alone poem in 1839, "The Haunted Palace" was later incorporated by Poe into the novella "The Fall of the House of Usher," where it represented a symbol for the mental decline of one of the protagonists. The poem tells the story of the inhabitants of a beautiful palace who, when evil things arrive, go to pieces and subsequently haunt the place. Poe presents the palace as an allegory for the mind, which, after experiencing some extraordinarily frightening events, can deteriorate and become a shadow of its former self.