Search engine for discovering works of Art, research articles, and books related to Art and Culture
Javascript must be enabled to continue!
Bunyan, Emblem, and Allegory
View through CrossRef
This chapter discusses John Bunyan in relation to five versions of allegory, in turn: personification; allegorical narratives, and Bunyan’s use of the allegorical framework of the dream, popular in the medieval period; the concept of figura, as developed by Erich Auerbach; emblems and emblematic allegory; and pictorial symbols as allegory. Finally, the chapter considers the work of Walter Benjamin and Paul de Man, and discusses the radical uses of allegory in critiquing ideological meanings and the view that language is inherently allegorical, which destabilizes both authors and their utterance, making all expression ironic, taking irony as a form of allegory. Although focusing mainly on The Pilgrim’s Progress, the chapter also discusses Bunyan’s use of allegory in his other fictional works.
Title: Bunyan, Emblem, and Allegory
Description:
This chapter discusses John Bunyan in relation to five versions of allegory, in turn: personification; allegorical narratives, and Bunyan’s use of the allegorical framework of the dream, popular in the medieval period; the concept of figura, as developed by Erich Auerbach; emblems and emblematic allegory; and pictorial symbols as allegory.
Finally, the chapter considers the work of Walter Benjamin and Paul de Man, and discusses the radical uses of allegory in critiquing ideological meanings and the view that language is inherently allegorical, which destabilizes both authors and their utterance, making all expression ironic, taking irony as a form of allegory.
Although focusing mainly on The Pilgrim’s Progress, the chapter also discusses Bunyan’s use of allegory in his other fictional works.
Related Results
The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan
The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan
The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan is the most extensive volume of original essays ever published on the seventeenth-century Nonconformist preacher and writer. It examines Bunyan’s...
Bunyan’s Posthumously Published Works
Bunyan’s Posthumously Published Works
This chapter provides an overview of sixteen works left in manuscript at Bunyan’s death. After giving an account of the circumstances of their posthumous publication, the chapter d...
The Prose Style of John Bunyan
The Prose Style of John Bunyan
This chapter examines Bunyan’s reputation as a prose stylist, his conceptions of style, and two important features of his writing—his use of dialogue and his control of pace—throug...
Bunyan and Religious Allegory
Bunyan and Religious Allegory
This chapter re-examines John Bunyan's religious allegories, and in particular The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), as works that complicate what might be thought of as novelistic habits...
Introduction
Introduction
This chapter introduces The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan. It reflects upon Bunyan’s ‘presence’ as a religious and historical figure and an author of major significance for litera...
Global Bunyan and Visual Art
Global Bunyan and Visual Art
This book advances the conversation about the presence, aesthetic appropriation, and re-interpretation of the foundational English author John Bunyan (1628–1688), whose works and l...
Cognitive Poetics of Allegorical Experience
Cognitive Poetics of Allegorical Experience
Where does allegory come from? Most studies of allegory view it as a type of artistic or literary endeavor. Our claim is that allegory arises from ordinary experience as people see...
Bunyan and the Bedford Congregation
Bunyan and the Bedford Congregation
This chapter provides an overview of Congregational government and discipline at work in the Bedford church from its foundation in 1650 to the 1720s, and of Bunyan’s role as its mi...