Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan

Context in Christendom

The Pilgrim's Progress was much more popular than its predecessors. Bunyan's plain style breathes life into the abstractions of the anthropomorphized temptations and abstractions that Christian encounters and with whom he converses on his course to Heaven. Samuel Johnson said that "this is the great merit of the book, that the most cultivated man cannot find anything to praise more highly, and the child knows nothing more amusing". Three years after its publication (1681), it was reprinted in colonial America, and was widely read in the Puritan colonies. The book was often divided into smaller parts or individual episodes that could be made into individual sermons, postcards, or wall charts. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Religious Tract Society produced the book into Sunday School prize editions and cheap abridgments. There were also Bunyan inspired jigsaw puzzles, and some followers crafted their landscapes in Bunyan theme parks.[9]

Because of its English Protestant theology, The Pilgrim's Progress shares the then-popular English antipathy toward the Catholic Church. It was published over the years of the Popish Plot (1678–1681) and ten years before the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and it shows the influence of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments. Bunyan presents a decrepit and harmless giant to confront Christian at the end of the Valley of the Shadow of Death that is explicitly named "Pope":

Now I saw in my Dream, that at the end of this Valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, even of Pilgrims that had gone this way formerly: And while I was musing what should be the reason, I espied a little before me a Cave, where two Giants, Pope and Pagan, dwelt in old times, by whose Power and Tyranny the Men whose bones, blood ashes, &c. lay there, were cruelly put to death. But by this place Christian went without much danger, whereat I somewhat wondered; but I have learnt since, that Pagan has been dead many a day; and as for the other, though he be yet alive, he is by reason of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger dayes, grown so crazy and stiff in his joynts, that he can now do little more than sit in his Caves mouth, grinning at Pilgrims as they go by, and biting his nails, because he cannot come at them.[43]

When Christian and Faithful travel through Vanity Fair, Bunyan adds the editorial comment:

But as in other fairs, some one Commodity is as the chief of all the fair, so the Ware of Rome and her Merchandize is greatly promoted in this fair: Only our English Nation, with some others, have taken a dislike thereat.[44]

In the Second Part, while Christiana and her group of pilgrims led by Greatheart stay for some time in Vanity, the city is terrorized by a seven-headed beast[45] which is driven away by Greatheart and other stalwarts.[46] In his endnotes, W. R. Owens notes about the woman that governs the beast: "This woman was believed by Protestants to represent Antichrist, the Church of Rome. In a posthumously published treatise, Of Antichrist, and his Ruine (1692), Bunyan gave an extended account of the rise and (shortly expected) fall of Antichrist."[47]

Foreign-language versions

"The Pilgrim's Progress has been translated into 200 languages," including Dutch in 1681, German in 1703, and Swedish in 1727, as well as over eighty African languages.[48] In 1681, the first North American edition was issued. In addition, there were nine translations in Southeast Asia, twenty four translations in South Asia, and another eleven in Australasia and the Pacific.[49] Beginning in the 1850s, illustrated versions of The Pilgrim's Progress in Chinese were printed in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Fuzhou and widely distributed by Protestant missionaries. Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the Christianity-inspired Taiping Rebellion, declared that the book was his favorite reading.[50]

Henry Alfred Krishnapillai's magnum opus, Ratchanya Yaathrigam (The Journey of Salvation) is an adaptation of The Pilgrim's Progress in the Tamil language and is considered one of the finest Tamil literary works of the 19th century. Paradeshi Mokshayathra by Rev. K. Koshy/Rev. Joseph Peet (1844), and Sanchariyude Prayanam (1846) by Rev. C. Muller/Rev. P. Chandran are allegorical translations in Malayalam and are one of the earliest prose works in the language.[51]

In Turkish, translations of the book appeared in Greek script in 1879, and in Armenian script in 1881.

The literal textual meaning of The Pilgrim's Progress was also adapted by young converts and missionaries to make sense in different cultural contexts.[49] "For example, Kele Protestants in the Congo omitted the sections that explained original sin" since "this idea was incompatible with their cultural assumptions."[49] The Pilgrim's Progress was also adapted to be relevant for non-Europeans, by tailoring the story to make sense of their own experiences. Heaven was often a place designed to resemble what they had gone through in life. For example, in the American Southern Black culture, Bunyan was changed to be a black protagonist who "was redeemed not only from sin but also slavery."[49] Similarly, a version was written where the injustices which took place in South Africa were reformulated.[52]

There are collections of old foreign language versions of The Pilgrim's Progress at both the Moot Hall Museum in Elstow, and at the John Bunyan Museum in Mill Street in Bedford.

The "Third Part"

The Third Part of the Pilgrim's Progress was written by an anonymous author; beginning in 1693, it was published with Bunyan's authentic two parts. It continued to be republished with Bunyan's work until 1852.[53] This third part presented the pilgrimage of Tender-Conscience and his companions.

Dramatic and musical settings

The book was the basis of a condensed radio adaptation, originally presented in 1942 and starring John Gielgud, which included, as background music, several excerpts from Ralph Vaughan Williams' orchestral works.

The book was the basis of The Pilgrim's Progress (opera) by Vaughan Williams, premiered in 1951.

The radio version was newly recorded by Hyperion Records in 1990, in a performance conducted by Matthew Best. It again starred Gielgud, and featured Richard Pasco and Ursula Howells.

English composer Ernest Austin set the whole story as a huge narrative tone poem for solo organ, with optional 6-part choir and narrator, lasting approximately 2+1⁄2 hours.

Under the name The Similitude of a Dream, the progressive rock band of Neal Morse released a concept album based on The Pilgrim's Progress in November 2016. A sequel, entitled The Great Adventure, focusing on Christian's son Joseph, was released in January 2019. Both albums received critical acclaim.

Art and poetry

A number of illustrations created by Henry Melville appear in the Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books under the editorship of Letitia Elizabeth Landon. Each is accompanied by a poem, either by Bernard Barton or by Miss Landon herself. These plates are as follows:

• 1835
  • The River of the Water of Life. (L. E. L.)[54]
  • Christian and Hopeful Escaping from the Doubting Castle (Bernard Barton)[55]
  • Christian Got up at the Gate (Bernard Barton)[56]
  • The Shepherd Boy in the Valley of Humiliation as The Shepherd Boy. (L. E. L.)[57]
• 1836
  • The Pilgrims (Bernard Barton)[58]
  • The Land of Beulah (Bernard Barton)[59]
  • Destruction of the Doubting Castle (Bernard Barton)[60]
  • The Palace Called Beautiful. (L. E. L.)[61]
• 1837
  • The Delectable Mountains. (L. E. L.)[62]

The Pilgrim's Progress was a favourite subject among painters in 1840s America, including major figures of the Hudson River School and others associated with the National Academy of Design. Daniel Huntington, Jasper Cropsey, Frederic Edwin Church, Jesse Talbot, Edward Harrison May, and others completed canvases based on the work. Thomas Cole's The Voyage of Life was inspired by The Pilgrim's Progress.[63]

In 1850, Huntington, Cropsey, and Church contributed designs to a moving panorama based on The Pilgrim's Progress, conceptualized by May and fellow artist Joseph Kyle, which debuted in New York and travelled all over the country.[64] A second version of the panorama, organized by Kyle and artist Jacob Dallas, premiered in 1851.[65] The second version exists today in the collections of the Saco Museum.

References in literature

In Wole Soyinka's novel Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth (2021), the third chapter is entitled 'Pilgrim's Progress'. In describes the travels of the character Dennis Tibidje. He encounters John Bunyan's book Pilgrim's Progress while detained as an illegal immigrant in New Jersey.

Charles Dickens' book Oliver Twist (1838) is subtitled 'The Parish Boy's Progress'. The titular character of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839) and his companion Smike start to read it but are interrupted.

The title of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847–1848 novel Vanity Fair alludes to the location in Bunyan's work.

Mark Twain gave his 1869 travelogue, The Innocents Abroad, the alternative title The New Pilgrims' Progress. In Twain's later work Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the titular character mentions The Pilgrim's Progress as he describes the works of literature in the Grangerfords' library. Twain uses this to satirize the Protestant Southern aristocracy.

E. E. Cummings makes numerous references to it in his prose work, The Enormous Room.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, "The Celestial Railroad", recreates Christian's journey in Hawthorne's time. Progressive thinkers have replaced the footpath by a railroad, and pilgrims may now travel under steam power. The journey is considerably faster, but somewhat more questionable. Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter also makes reference to it, by way of the author John Bunyan with a metaphor comparing a main character's eyes with the fire depicted in the entrance to Hell in The Pilgrim's Progress.

John Buchan was an admirer of Bunyan's, and Pilgrim's Progress features significantly in his third Richard Hannay novel, Mr. Standfast, which also takes its title from one of Bunyan's characters.

Alan Moore, in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, enlists The Pilgrim's Progress protagonist, Christian, as a member of the earliest version of this group, Prospero's Men, having become wayward on his journey during his visit in Vanity Fair, stepping down an alleyway and found himself in London in the 1670s, and unable to return to his homeland. This group disbanded in 1690 after Prospero vanished into the Blazing World; however, some parts of the text seem to imply that Christian resigned from Prospero's League before its disbanding and that Christian travelled to the Blazing World before Prospero himself. The apparent implication is that; within the context of the League stories; the Celestial City Christian seeks and the Blazing World may in fact be one and the same.

In Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, the protagonist Jo and her sisters read it at the outset of the novel, and try to follow the good example of Bunyan's Christian. Throughout the novel, the main characters refer many times to Pilgrim's Progress and liken the events in their own lives to the experiences of the pilgrims. A number of chapter titles directly reference characters and places from Pilgrim's Progress.

The cartoonist Winsor McCay drew an allegorical comic strip, entitled A Pilgrim's Progress, in the New York Evening Telegram. The strip ran from 26 June 1905 to 18 December 1910. In it, the protagonist Mr. Bunion is constantly frustrated in his attempts to improve his life by ridding himself of his burdensome valise, "Dull Care".[66]

C. S. Lewis wrote a book inspired by The Pilgrim's Progress, called The Pilgrim's Regress, in which a character named John follows a vision to escape from The Landlord, a less friendly version of The Owner in The Pilgrim's Regress. It is an allegory of C. S. Lewis' own journey from a religious childhood to a pagan adulthood in which he rediscovers his Christian God.

Henry Williamson's The Patriot's Progress references the title of The Pilgrim's Progress and the symbolic nature of John Bunyan's work. The protagonist of the semi-autobiographical novel is John Bullock, the quintessential English soldier during World War I.

The character of Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-5: The Children's Crusade is a clear homage to a similar journey to enlightenment experienced by Christian, although Billy's journey leads him to an existential acceptance of life and of a fatalist human condition. Vonnegut's parallel to The Pilgrim's Progress is deliberate and evident in Billy's surname.

Charlotte Brontë refers to Pilgrim's Progress in most of her novels, including Jane Eyre,[67] Shirley,[68] and Villette.[69] Her alterations to the quest-narrative have led to much critical interest, particular with the ending of Jane Eyre.[70]

Walt Willis and Bob Shaw's classic science fiction fan novelette, The Enchanted Duplicator, is explicitly modeled on The Pilgrim's Progress and has been repeatedly reprinted over the decades since its first appearance in 1954: in professional publications, in fanzines, and as a monograph.

Enid Blyton wrote The Land of Far Beyond (1942) as a children's version of The Pilgrim's Progress.

John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath mentions The Pilgrim's Progress as one of an (anonymous) character's favorite books. Steinbeck's novel was itself an allegorical spiritual journey by Tom Joad through America during the Great Depression, and often made Christian allusions to sacrifice and redemption in a world of social injustice.

The book was commonly referenced in African American slave narratives, such as "Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom" by Ellen and William Craft, to emphasize the moral and religious implications of slavery.[71]

Hannah Hurnard's novel Hinds' Feet on High Places (1955) uses a similar allegorical structure to The Pilgrim's Progress and takes Bunyan's character Much-Afraid as its protagonist.

In Lois McMaster Bujold's The Borders of Infinity (1989), Miles Vorkosigan uses half a page torn from The Pilgrim's Progress as a coded message to his fleet to rescue him and 9,000 others from a POW camp.

Sir Walter Scott uses Bunyan's tale in chapter 32 of his novel The Heart of Midlothian (1818) to illustrate the relationship between Madge Wildfire and Jeanie Deans. Madge explains: "But it is all over now.—But we'll knock at the gate and then the keeper will admit Christiana, but Mercy will be left out—and then I'll stand at the door trembling and crying, and then Christiana—that's you, Jeanie,—will intercede for me. And then Mercy,—that's me, ye ken,—will faint[.]"

In Marguerite Young's novel, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, the titular character always carries a copy of Pilgrim's Progress with her. The structure of the novel is inspired by Pilgrim's Progress too, being composed largely of the narrator's seemingly omniscient reminiscences about other characters' inner lives and dreams.

In George Eliot's novel Middlemarch, a lengthy quotation from the conclusion of the trial of Faithful in Vanity Fair serves as the epigraph to Chapter 85.