Thinking activity
John Bunyan
This blog is in response to the Thinking activity of the Puritan and Restoration period assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir, the Department of English, MKBU. In this blog I am going to discuss a major Prose writer of the Puritan Age, who is John Bunyan.
John Bunyan:-
"As there is but one poet great enough to express the Puritan spirit. So there is but one commanding prose writer, John Bunyan."
- William J. Long
In the Puritan Era, two literary figures are the most important.
- John Milton
- John Bunyan
These two men, representing the extremes of English life in the 17th century, wrote the two works that stand today for the mighty puritan spirit. Milton gave us the only Epic since Beowulf, Paradise Lost and The other gave us our only great allegory which has been read more than any other books in our language after the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress.
John Bunyan is considered as the prominent prose writer of the Puritan Age. In the domain of restoration prose, Bunyan alone competes the supremely of Dryden. John Bunyan stands in a class by himself.
"Seventeenth century Puritanism was to find a supreme spokesman in prose fiction as well as in poetry; John Milton and John Bunyan, standing at widely different angles of experience, make one of the most interesting complementary pairs in all Literature".
-Long
Life of Bunyan:-
John Bunyan was born in November 1628 in Elstow, Bedfordshire, England and died on August 31, 1688, in London. He was an English writer and Puritan Preacher, best remembered as the author of the Christian Allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress.
He was the son of a poor tinker. He was sent to school where he learned to read and write, but he was soon busy in his father's shop, where, Among the glowing pots and the fire and smoke of his little forge, he saw vivid pictures of hell and the devils which haunted him all his life. His father married the second time when Bunyan was 16 year old, whereupon he ran away and became a soldier in the parliamentary army.
In his lifetime, he wrote in two reigns. First in Puritan and then in Restoration. It has affected him a lot. The religious ferment of the age made a lasting impression on his sensitive imagination. He joins Sunday sports on the village to forget the terror set by the religion or by the preachers, but is night came on, the sports were forgotten, the terrors returned. The vision of hell and demons swarmed his brain. Even years afterwards he laments the sims of his early life.
His marriage is much more important as with his marriage the real reformation in his life begins. He married a girl as poor as himself. He thus says,
"We came together as poor as might be, having not so much household stuff as a dish or spoon between us both."
The dowry which his wife brought with her was too old, threadbare books "The plain man's Pathway to Heaven"and "The Practice of Piety". Reading these books gave fire to the imagination of Bunyan. He saw new visions and dreamed terrible new dreams of Lost sounds; his attendance at Church grew, he began slowly and painfully to read the bible for himself. We can say that reading these two books have changed his life and vision.
The next few years are like a nightmare for Bunyan's spiritual struggle. One day he feels himself an outcast; the next the companion of angels; the third he tries experiments with the Almighty in order to put his salvation to the proof. So this leads to troubles in his life. After this long struggle, he becomes an open-air preacher. After the restoration of King Charles II, Bunyan was the first to be prohibited from holding public meetings.
Due to the restoration of King Charles II, the Puritan spirit was ended. Thus Bunyan's sermons were prohibited. The "Conventicle Act of 1593" of prohibiting religious meetings without the authority of the established Church was implemented. Bunyan refused to obey this law. It is also believed that this caused his imprisonment in Bedford jail, but there is a difference in opinion. He was simply prohibited to hold public meetings but allowed to worship when and how he pleased.
So, the changing of rule from puritan to Restoration of Charles II affects him a lot. This we can see in our modern world also. In many parts of the world, there are ongoing and neverending conflicts between even the same religion and different insects. When these religions are connected to the government or authority, it always plays a disastrous role in society. There are lots of controversies among various religions taking place every day. Say for an example,
He said to work in prison making shoelaces by which he or need a living for his family. His imprisonment period was 12 years. The best outcome of this in prisonment was it granted him long hours to study two books, the King James Bible and the Foxe's book of Martyrs. An outcome of it was the pilgrim's progress which was written in prison. This book set him as the most popular writer. He was known by the name "Bishop Bunyan". He wrote nearly 60 works.
For Sixteen years this wonderful journey was going on but one day when riding through Cold stone he called a saver cold he died there after a few days at the house of his friend. He was buried in Bunhill Fields burial ground, London.
Works:-
Major works of Bunyan includes,
- The Holy war (1665)
- Grace Abounding to the Chief Sinners(1666)
- The Pilgrim's Progress(1678)
- The Life and Death of Mr. Badman(1682)
- The Pilgrim's Progress II(1684)
"The world's literature has three great allegories- Spenser's Fairy Queen, Dante's Divine Commedia and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The first appeals to poets, the second to scholars and the third to people of every age and condition."
- Willing J. Long
Pilgrim's Progress:-
The Pilgrim’s Progress is a religious allegory, published in two parts first in 1678 and later on in 1684. The work is a symbolic vision of the good man’s pilgrimage through life. It was first published in the reign of Charles II and was largely written while its Puritan author was imprisoned for offenses against the Conventicle Act of 1593.
The story begins as a dream, and then begins a journey in ten stages, which presents vivid pictures of the difficulties and triumphs of the Christian life. The characters of the story are also of religious goods and bads. Like, Mr. Worldly Wisemen, Mr. Blindfold, Mr. Nogood, Me. Heady, Mr. Liveloose, Mr. Hatelight. The place's names are also connected to it. Like, Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle and Delectable Mountains of Youth. So by this we can catch a vision of how deeply Bunyan was rooted to the religion. The last line of this work is also very much important.
"Then I saw that there was a way to hell even from the gates of heaven as well as from the city of destruction. So I awoke, and behold it was a dream!"
William J. Long thus says that this is the story, The great epic of a Puritan's individual experience in a rough world, just as Paradise Lost was the epic of mankind as dreams by the great Puritan who had "fallen asleep over his Bible ''.
Pilgrim's Progress has been translated into 75 languages and dialects and has been read more than any other book save one in the English language.
Taine says,
Next to the Bible the book most widely read in England is the Pilgrim's Progress. Protestantism is the doctrine of salvation by grace and no writer has equal to one year in marking this doctrine understood."
In 2019, the American computer-animated Christian fantasy adventure film written and directed by Robert Fernandez and featuring the voices of David Thorpe, John Rhys-Davies and Kristyn Getty. It is based on John Bunyan's novel "The Pilgrim's Progress".
The Holy war(1665):
The Holy war is the first important work of Bunyan which approaches paradise lost. It is an allegory.
Grace Abounding for the Chief of Sinners(1666):-
This work was written 12 years before Pilgrim's Progress. In this work he writes his religious autobiography. It was composed in prison.
The life and death of Mr. Badman(1682):-
This work is a realistic character study which is a precursor of the modern novel, in which Mr. Wiseman gives convincing reasons for his opinion "that Mr. Badman has gone to Hell."
Conclusion:-
To conclude, we can say though he has given us Pilgrim's Progress, his contribution in literature is not large in numbers. That's why it has been very difficult to know about him. There is only a little evidence of his life and his works. At the same time we can say that after writing a single work, pilgrim's Progress he set a lasting impact and place in English literature.
I hope this blog will be helpful to you to understand the life and works of John Bunyan.
Thank you for visiting…
Work cited:-
Fletcher, Robert Huntington. A History of English Literature. United States, Project Gutenberg.
Lang, Andrew. History of English Literature from Beowulf to Swinburne. United States, Wildside Press, 2003
Long, William J.. English Literature. India, Copia Interactive, LLC, 2021.
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