This lively and innovative work treats a body of literature not previously regarded as a unified genre. Offering comparative readings of a number of texts that are traditionally called allegories and that cover a wide time span, Maureen Quilligan formulates a vocabulary for talking about the distinctive generic elements they share. The texts she considers range from the twelfth-century De planctu naturae to Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow , and include such works as Le Roman de la Rose , Langland's Piers Plowman , Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter , Melville's Confidence Man , and Spenser's Faerie Queene . Whether or not readers agree with this book, they will enjoy and profit from it.