This book proposes that allegory is not a species of literature but a structure of reading applied to uncomfortable juxtapositions within literary texts. Examples from centuries of response to English Renaissance narrative poetry show not what poems mean but how they may be read and what cultural conditions encourage allegorical or nonallegorical readings. The study also encompasses interpretations of classical verse, biblical parable, Jacobean masque, modern lyric, and television advertising to explore how texts move in and out of the category of allegory.