Poetic Functions of Allegory and Comedy in Western and Eastern Literary Traditions: A Comparative-Typological Analysis

This article comparatively examines the poetic functions of allegory and humor in Gulkhani’s Zarbulmasal and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales from typological and structural perspectives. The study aims to identify the aesthetic, socio-ideological, and communicative functions of allegorical images and comic representations and reveal their universal and national-cultural features.
Research objectives include clarifying the theoretical nature of allegory and humor, analyzing allegorical images and symbolic forms of expression, and identifying the poetic potential of satire, irony, sarcasm, humor, and grotesque. Particular attention is given to their role in social criticism, moral evaluation, and encouraging readers toward artistic reflection.
Methodologically, the study employs comparative-typological, comparative-historical, hermeneutic, and poetic analysis methods. These methods enable systematic examination of the semantic and structural features of the texts, their symbolic and metaphorical layers, character poetics, and forms of humor.
Comparative-typological analysis demonstrates that, in the works of Gulkhani and Chaucer, allegory and humor function as poetic mechanisms for exposing social inequality, moral decline, ignorance, careerism, greed, and other negative aspects of human nature. Both authors use humor not merely for aesthetic effect but also to develop critical thinking and guide readers toward moral conclusions.
The findings indicate that, in Eastern literary tradition, allegory is closely associated with didactic and moral-educational functions, whereas in Western literature it is connected with satirical realism and individual-psychological characterization. In both works, allegory and humor serve as universal poetic phenomena for understanding human and social problems through symbolic imagery and metaphorical interpretation.
The study contributes to comparative literary studies, historical poetics, allegory theory, and the aesthetics of humor, while providing theoretical significance for studying artistic styles in world and classical Uzbek literature.