Rereading Allegory is the first major critical study to bring the methodological advances of poststructuralism into the controversial field of genre theory. Using the insights of recent literary theory, Deborah L. Madsen discusses the implications for textual and critical practice of conventional thinking about taxonomy. Issues of literary classification, evaluation, and explanation are situated in the wider context of the politics of representation, where the question "What is Literature?" is posed as a matter of urgent debate. Following the commentary of theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Fredric Jameson, Rereading Allegory is an exploration of a new consensus in genre theory, exposing genre as a questionable "essential" textual quality. Focussing on the problematic relationship that characterizes literary texts and their generic descriptions, Madsen traces allegory from its classical origins through the Romantic era.