Title: The Pilgrim's Progress

By -John Bunyan

Genre: -allegory (?) novel

Sub-genre: -, Fantasy/ Devotion /Children's Lit (?)

Nationality: - British

Time Period: - 17th Century

First and Last Read by Dr. Rearick - 1964 (Children's version) / Fall 2000

Rated: - A+

Location: - Dr. Rearick's Office, Home and MVNU Mainframe

Comments: - Kipling called Bunyan "the father of the novel," and he did so mainly because of the merit of this work.  Christian colleges may be one of the last places in which Pilgrim's Progress remains on the standard reading list of an Introduction to Literature class, yet not long ago--earlier in this century--a literary person would consider his or her education incomplete without having read this.  And during the Victorian period, Pilgrim's Progress was second in popularity only to the Bible.  It is an indication on how much the tastes of the era can determin a works worthiness.  I had a graduate school friend tell me that he suspected that he was as uncomfortable in Bunyan's allegory as I was in post modern text: he was and still is right.

Personal note: my mother recalls that in the Cubie parsonage when she was growing up the only two books family members were allowed to read was the Bible and Pilgrim's Progress. One of my own earliest memories of reading was being deeply impressed with a simplified version of Bunyan's story called "Little Pilgrims' Progress."  I can even recall the diorama I did for a school book report which used a flashlight on its back to dramatize the moment Christian and Hopeful sees the Celestial City from afar: Elementary School special effects. Amazon.com says this about the children's work: "Now Helen L. Taylor has simplified the vocabulary and concepts of Pilgrim's Progress for younger readers, while keeping the story line intact. The result is a delightful book with a message children can understand.

The Pilgrim's Progress (the first part of which appeared in 1678) Bunyan found himself drawn into a much more novel experiment, developing an ambitious allegorical narrative when his intent had been to write a more conventionally ordered account of the processes of redemption. The resulting work (with its second part appearing in 1684) combines a careful exposition of the logical structure of the Calvinist scheme of salvation with a delicate responsiveness to the ways in which his experience of his own world (of the life of the road, of the arrogance of the rich, of the rhythms of contemporary speech) can be deployed to render with a new vividness the strenuous testing the Christian soul must undergo. His achievement owes scarcely anything to the literary culture of his time, but his masterpiece has gained for itself a readership greater than that achieved by any other English 17th century work with the exception of the King James Bible. Two other of his works, though lesser in stature, are especially worth reading: The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), which, with graphic local detail, remorselessly tracks the sinful temptations of everyday life, and The Holy War (1682), a grandiose attempt at religious myth making interlaced with contemporary political allusions. (see also Index: "Life and Death of Mr. Badman, The")

Pilgrim's Progress at MVNC

Click Here to see the write up on ron Smeenge's performance.

As an Example of Children's' Literature

The Encyclopedia Britannica On-Line, in analyzing Childrens Lit. through time, mentions Pilgrims Progress in Britain's Post-Restoriation period: "Against. . .[a] primitive literature of entertainment stands a primitive literature of didacticism stretching back to the early Middle Ages. This underwent a Puritan mutation after the Restoration. It is typified by that classic for the potentially damned child, A Token for Children (1671), by James Janeway. The Puritan outlook was elevated by Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678), which, often in simplified form, was either forced upon children or more probably actually enjoyed by them in lieu of anything better. Mrs. Overtheway (in Juliana Ewing's Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances, 1869), recalling her childhood reading, refers to it as "that book of wondrous fascination." A softened Puritanism also reveals itself in Bunyan's Book for Boys and Girls: or, Country Rhymes for Children (1686), as well as the Divine and Moral Songs for Children by the hymn composer Isaac Watts, whose "How doth the little busy bee" still exhales a faint endearing charm."

Oct 22, 2003

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