Allegory loses its melancholy character when viewed from a redemptive standpoint

Evidence

In God’s world the allegorist awakens … This solves the riddle of the most fragmented, the most defunct, the most dispersed. Alleg­ ory, of course, thereby loses everything that was most peculiar to it: the secret privileged knowledge, the arbitrary rule in the realm of dead objects, the supposed infinity of a world without hope. All this vanishes with this one about-turn, in which the immersion of allegory has to clear away the final phantasmagoria of the objec­ tive, and, left entirely to its own devices, rediscovers itself, not playfully in the earthly world of things, but seriously under the eyes of heaven. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 637

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Benjamin’s Trauerspiel work and the Marxist appropriation of allegory as redemptive, countering the postmodern pastiche reading of allegory. — connects to: Postmodern allegory is horizontal and relational rather than vertical and fixed — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 392; Dialectical sublation operates as speculative mourning over past selves.; Grey music embodies unresolved doubt rather than black depression (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies Benjamin’s concept of allegory as redemptive rather than merely melancholic fragmentation.

Broader Connections

• Postmodern allegory is horizontal and relational rather than vertical and fixed #expands (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 392