罗经国版《新编英国文学简史上》第六章3.ppt

John Bunyan Bunyan’s life Bunyan’s literary creation The Pilgrim’s Progress allegory Textual study: The Pilgrim’s Progress Bunyan’s life Born in 1628, uneducated tinker; From the reformation he received an excess of the spiritual independence which had caused the Puritan struggle for liberty; The religious ferment of the age made a tremendous impression on Bunyan’s sensitive imagination; The dowry of his wife, two books entitled The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven and The Practice of Piety, gave fire to his imagination; Became an open-air preacher, imprisoned because of his refusal to obey the law prohibiting religious meetings without the authority of the Established Church; Bunyan’s life Wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress while in prison. Bunyan’s literary creation The Pilgrim’s Progress: its story The story tells of the spiritual pilgrimage of Christian who, with a book in his hand and a burden on his back, flees from the City of Destruction and meets the perils and temptations of the Slough of Despond, Vanity Fair, and Doubting Castle. He faces and overcomes the demon Appollyon, journeys through the interpreter’s House, the Palace Beautiful, the Valley of Humiliation, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and the Delectable Mountains and finally reaches the Celestial City. Bunyan’s literary creation The Pilgrim’s Progress: an allegory A tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. The most famous allegory in English literature is John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. Bunyan’s hero, Christian, makes a journey to the Celestial city, during which he meets such characters as Hope, Shame, and Despair. The symbolic meaning of the journey is the search for spiritual salvation. Textual study The Pilgrim’s Progress: its theme The allegory depicts the Puritan struggle for freedom of worship, the eternal struggle of man to fi