Instead of being unambiguously decrypted, allegories enable liminal areas to emerge between literal and figurative dimensions. In this process, historically "old" and epistemologically "new" aspects can ironically diverge. This comparatist volume focuses on the ludic potentials of one such "old-new" type of fascination - the allegory of love - which become particularly evident in the interplay between abstraction and hyper-concreteness.

Susanne Köbele, Tim Huber, Tatiana Hirschi, University of Zurich, Schwitzerland.