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Overview
In this biography, each of Bunyan's works, including the dozen published posthumously, is analyzed in its immediate historical context. The Pilgrim's Progress, although not published until 1678, takes its rightful place as a contribution to the momentous debate over conscience between 1667 and 1673. This historical approach, as distinct from the literary one favored by nearly all of Bunyan's biographers, reveals the changes in his views over time, including his interest in the millenarian Fifth Monarchists in the 1650s, his circumspect endorsement of militant action to block the anticipated succession of James, duke of York, in the 1680s, his retreat from this position following the disclosure of the Rye House conspiracy, and his cooperation with James II's government when it offered toleration to dissenters.
Bunyan's extraordinary ability to rouse the imaginations of his readers is shown to be rooted in his intense spirituality and powerful creativity, and given emotive force by his deep sympathy for the poor and oppressed and his fierce commitment to the principle that truth must be free. Two periods in prison, one lasting more than eleven years, failed to crush his spirit. Unbroken, he emerged from confinement to continue his preaching and writing, having honed a regime of composition that served him well as a free man. No less significant was his triumph over debilitating depressive moods that left him with a keen sensitivity to the importance of light, warmth, and love. Bunyan's potent creativity enabled him to turn his experiences into a gripping spiritual autobiography and two major allegories that attest to his triumph over crippling despair and a repressive government.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780804745307 |
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Publisher: | Stanford University Press |
Publication date: | 04/29/2002 |
Edition description: | 1 |
Pages: | 720 |
Product dimensions: | 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Abbreviations | xv | |
Prologue | 1 | |
1. | The Early Years | 3 |
"My Heighth of Vanity": Bunyan's Youth | 4 | |
"Kill, Kill, Was in Mine Ears": Bunyan in the Military | 11 | |
"The Religion of the Times": Early Religious Influences | 21 | |
2. | Spiritual and Psychological Crisis | 30 |
"An Exceeding Maze": The Struggle with Despair | 31 | |
"To Joyne in Fellowship": John Gifford and the Bedford Church | 61 | |
"Thred-bare at an Ale-House": The Ranter Challenge | 67 | |
3. | The Young Preacher | 75 |
"A New Upstart Sect": Bunyan and the Quakers | 75 | |
"These Dangerous Rocks": Sectarian Ferment | 88 | |
"Scalding Lead": Professional Clergy and the Rich | 96 | |
"Two Covenants in Their Right Places": Pulpit Theology | 103 | |
"Inchantments, and Witchcrafts": Quakers and Witches | 115 | |
"Throw Away All Thy Own Wisdome": Pulpit Controversy | 121 | |
4. | Confronting Persecution | 127 |
"Sweetly in the Prison": Arrest, Trial, and Appeal | 130 | |
"Holding Fast the Good": The Early Prison Years | 146 | |
"Gospelly Good": Christian Behaviour, a Last Testament | 161 | |
5. | Millenarian Expectations | 173 |
"Out of Babylon": The Return of the Holy City | 176 | |
"Now Is the End Come": The Last Judgment | 189 | |
"Read My Lines": Poetry and the End Times | 199 | |
"A Drop of Honey": Autobiographical Reflections | 207 | |
6. | Charting the Pilgrimage | 210 |
"The Way He Runs": The Christian Life as Metaphor | 211 | |
"Against Our Religion": The Setting of The Pilgrim's Progress | 216 | |
"Whither Must I Fly?": The Pilgrimage | 227 | |
"As I Pull'd, It Came": Inspiration and Experience | 229 | |
"By Dint of Sword": Persecution and Allegorical Warfaring | 243 | |
"Turn up My Metaphors": Interpreting the Allegory | 252 | |
7. | The Anvil of Debate | 266 |
"A Strict Separation": Church Membership and Communion | 271 | |
"Like an Eel on the Angle": Edward Fowler and the Debate about Justification | 278 | |
"Escape the Prison": Freedom | 286 | |
"Union and Communion Among the Godly": The Baptismal Controversy | 291 | |
"Cumber-ground Professors": Prophetic Admonitions | 301 | |
"Shie of Women": The Agnes Beaumont Episode | 309 | |
8. | Evangelical Concerns | 313 |
"Anathematised of God": Enemies of the Faith | 317 | |
"Wholsome Medicine": Teaching the Basic | 323 | |
"Holy-day Saints": Damned Professors | 328 | |
"Venture Heartily": Preaching Grace | 334 | |
"What Chaines So Heavy?": Evangelical Outreach | 341 | |
9. | Popery's Long Shadows | 355 |
"This Day of Jacobs Trouble": The Popish Plot and the Godly | 356 | |
"Good Coin in the Best of Tryals": A Sense of Impending Danger | 366 | |
"O Debauchery, Debauchery": Restoration Society and the Reprobate | 374 | |
"The Drum in the Day of Alarum": England in Crisis | 390 | |
10. | Holy Warfare | 401 |
"The Alarm of War": The Campaign to Repress Dissent | 403 | |
"New Modelling the Town": Efforts to Control the Boroughs | 411 | |
"Blood, Blood, Nothing but Blood": The Plot of The Holy War | 414 | |
"If Thou Wouldest Know My Riddle": Interpreting the Allegory--Soteriology and Personal Experience | 419 | |
"Things of Greatest Moment Be": Millenarian and Historical Concerns | 426 | |
"Turn the World Upside Down": Challenging Unregenerate England | 433 | |
11. | The Struggle with Evil | 439 |
"Tyranny of the Antichristian Generation": Antichrist and the Tory-Anglicans | 443 | |
"Vipers Will Come": Maintaining Priorities amid Political Turmoil | 452 | |
"The Rage of the Enemy": Battling Persecution | 455 | |
"A Place to Fight and Wrestle in": Repudiating Iniquity | 470 | |
12. | Nonconformity and the Tory Backlash | 479 |
"To Set You Right": Defining Women's Place | 480 | |
"Kiss the Rod": Survival and the Ethic of Suffering | 485 | |
"To Friends, Not Foes": A Return to The Pilgrim's Progress | 498 | |
"His Own Executioner": The Suicide of John Child | 515 | |
"The Christians Market-day": Repulsing the Seventh-day Sabbatarians | 519 | |
13. | Facing a Catholic Monarch | 526 |
"These Pretended Righteous Men": Denouncing Hypocritical, Persecuting Conformists | 530 | |
"God's Iron Whip": Seeking Hope Amid Persecution | 535 | |
"Catching Girls and Boys": Homely Rhymes and Poetic Diversions | 538 | |
"Take Shelter": Christ as Refuge | 548 | |
"Sack-cloth, Tears and Affliction": The Church in the Wilderness | 554 | |
14. | Toleration Renewed: Bunyan's Final Months | 564 |
"Liberty ... to Eat Freely": Dissent and the Lure of Toleration | 565 | |
"Watchman, Watchman, Watch": Reinforcing the Faithful | 573 | |
"A Voice from the Throne": Grace as a River, Christ as an Advocate | 580 | |
"Where Promises Swarm": The Quest for Jerusalem Sinners | 588 | |
"Ah! Pride, Pride!": A Transcript of the Heart | 594 | |
Epilogue | 601 | |
"Ah Goodman Bunyan!": A Retrospect | 601 | |
"To Every Place": Bunyan and His Pilgrims Through the Ages | 610 | |
"As Fancy Leads the Writers": Bunyan's Literary Reputation | 619 | |
Appendix | Provisional Dating of Bunyan's Publications | 637 |
Bibliography of Primary Sources | 643 | |
Index of Biblical References | 661 | |
General Index | 665 |