[Note 6, Chapter one, in print version]
Surely one reason for the prevalance of such analogies in Western thought is that all action (and all discourse containing description or presentation of action) inevitably takes the form of conflict, progress, or a combination of them -- all of which forms encourage spatialization. See Angus Fletcher, Allegory: Theory of a Symbolic Mode. (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1964): 151, for an argument that the battle and progress provide the two fundamental forms of allegorical narrative.
Last modified 28 December 2004