Personification allegory

Medieval literature abounds with personifications of abstract concepts the majority of which can only be understood on the allegorical level. The fact that Holy Church, Lady Meed, Reason and Conscience interact as fictitious characters in the first vision of Piers Plowman can only be interpreted as the interplay of personified allegorical characters. The same holds for Lady Nature and the various birds in Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls. The cast of Middle English morality plays offer lists of allegorical personifications; in Mankind, for instance, there appear Mercy, Mischief, Nought, New Guise, Nowadays, Mankind, and Titivillus, the devil. Throughout the centuries personifications tended to become almost 'frozen' icons, but each period created its new forms, e.g. Herman Melville's Moby Dick in modern times.