John Bunyan
The Pilgrim’s Progress, 1678
Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679
John Bunyan, 1628-1688
John Dryden, 1631-1700
John Locke, 1632-1704
Mary Astell, 1666-1731
Daniel Defoe, 1660-1731
I. Locating Bunyan on the
Restoration map

A. Bunyan was in a different social-political-religious
group from that of Hobbes and Dryden.
 1. Lower social rank
 2. Dissenter or non-conformist


Acts of dissent
 Preaching (which was forbidden)
 Refusing to accept the Book of Common Prayer
(which was required)
B. Bunyan wrote TPP in his 12 years in jail.
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II. What does the title page tell us?

Title page
Source of image:
http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/eebo/
A. Key terms:

1. Journey

2. “Similitude of
a Dream”

3. “This world”
vs “That which
is to come”
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A.1. Journey: Metaphor for
Experience


Definition of experience
Christian to Pliable: “had even
Obstinate himself, but felt what I have
felt of the Powers, and Terrours of
what is yet unseen, he would not thus
lightly have give us the back” (14,
emphasis added).

The book’s purpose: “This Book will
make a Travailer of thee” ("Apology").
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A. 2:“Similitude of a dream”: allegory

a) Allegory: several definitions “I saw a Man . . . a Book in
Allegory: OED definition [Notice
his hand, and a great
references to Galatians.]
burden upon his back”

b) Bunyan’s allegory makes
internal conditions visible as if
they were acted out in a
landscape or in some visible
domestic space.




“the wilderness of this world” (10)
the “Slough of Despond” (16-17)
the unswept Parlor (30)
the man in the iron cage (34 ff).
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http://library.uncg.edu/depts/speccoll/exhibits/Blake/pilgrims_progress.html
A. 3. This world vs that which is to come

1. "Interpreter: For the things that are seen, are
Temporal; but the things that are not seen, are
Eternal. . . . But . . . since things present, and our
fleshly appetite, are such near Neighbours one to
another . . . " (32)

2. Bunyan emphasizes the opposition between the
carnal (bodily) senses and an inward capacity for
spiritual seeing and understanding.

3. Bunyan’s allegory solves the epistemological
problem of the invisibility of spiritual (eternal)
knowledge.

Spiritual knowledge is different from and higher than
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“carnal” knowledge.
A. 3. This world vs that which is to come
(cont.)

a) An alternative and competing frame of
reference for inheritance: “I seek an inheritance . .
.”(13)

(See “the lord of the place” [40] and later “Adam the
First,” who tries to make the pilgrims his heirs [69] )

b) An alternative psychology: Passion & Patience
(31)

c) The status of Custom (40)
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A. 3 d. Detail from Apollyon &
Christian by William Blake
“scales like a Fish”; “Wings like a
Dragon, feet like a Bear” (57)
This episode combines the 17th. c.
language of political allegiance with
an apocalyptic understanding of a
battle between God’s forces and the
Devil’s.
For Puritans, this great conflict
reduces the significance of
contemporary political issues and
provides the context for them.
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III. The contrast between law and grace
governs Bunyan’s imagination.



A. Law condemns everyone: “As many as are the
works of the Law, are under the curse; for it is
written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in
all things which are written in the book of the law to
do them” (24).
B. Bunyan’s characterization of Mount Sinai,
Legality, the bondwoman (Hagar) & Ishmael (20-24)
creates an allegorical landscape of the soul’s
experience. The soul must get beyond the law.
C. Bunyan’s use of the “bondwoman” is an
example, within the allegory, of typological reading.
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III.C. Law & Grace provide the underpinnings of what
became a Christian method of interpretation.

1. What is typology?

2. Paul’s example in Galatians of how
Christians should read the Hebrew
scriptures.

3. Typological interpretation is compatible
with but not the same as allegorical
interpretation.
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Claude Lorrain (1600-1682): The Departure of Hagar & Ishmael
http://www.google.com/search?q=Hagar+and+Ishmael&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&btnG=Google+Search
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III. D. Paul’s direction for typological reading

Hagar, who was an Egyptian woman, becomes, in Paul’s
system, a type or figure for the Jewish law or old covenant
(Sinai).

Sarah, Abraham’s wife, is a type or figure for the new
covenant (grace).

That is, Hagar, an Egyptian, foreshadows the old law or
covenant that God made with the people of Israel.

And Sarah foreshadows the new covenant or grace.

Now look again at Bunyan’s use of the “bondwoman.”
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IV. Further Interpretation

1. Law, grace, & the parlor (30-31)

2. Christian loses his burden (37)

3. Christian loses his “Roll” (42)
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V. Returning to
the title page
•Title: an oxymoron
•Compare “itinerant epic”
•Symbolic landscape is also
rural England.
•The “desired Countrey”
requires turning one’s back
on Restoration England—
separating oneself from the
world, a separation that has
political as well as religious
implications.
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VI. Your turn

What question do you think The
Pilgrim’s Progress answers?
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