The Ruins of AllegoryIn this reexamination of the allegorical dimensions of Paradise Lost, Catherine Martin presents Miltons poem as a prophecy foretelling the end of one culture and its replacement by another. She argues that rather than merely extending the allegorical tradition as defined by Augustine, Dante, and Spenser, Milton has written a meta allegory that stages a confrontation with an allegorical formalism that is either dead or no longer philosophically viable.