coracle wrote:Sorry but I don't think the dictionary was correct.
It seems to be a google definition.
[...]
a) a story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. (Google)
"
can be interpreted"?
That defines nothing.
Anything "can be interpreted" as anything. Anyone can say "but I interpret it that way". It's meaningless. (Perhaps what you might expect from Google ...)
And I'd say "reveal a hidden meaning" is too vague, too.
The b) and c) definitions that you quote, talk about symbols and representing or symbolizing ideas. That's more substantial, it's then possible to discuss whether there really are such symbols present in a text, not just look for interpretations.
I saw somebody on the net saying about allegory (probably quoting from
The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms) that it “involves a continuous parallel between two (or more) levels of meaning in a story, so that its persons and events correspond to their equivalents in a system of ideas or a chain of events external to the tale.”
I think the continuous parallel is missing when you try to look at Narnia as allegory. There are details in Narnia that correspond to equivalents in our world, but it would be too much to say that "its persons and events" correspond in that way. Too many of them don't.
I would say that there are glimpses of allegory in Narnia, but that the Chronicles as such aren't allegory. Lewis might have written allegory whether he meant to or not, but most of the time he didn't. What he meant to do, was to write about "supposals" - suppose that Christ would come to a world of animals, how would he then come and what would he do?