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The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan is the most extensive volume of original essays ever published on the seventeenth-century Nonconformist preacher and writer, John Bunyan. Its thirty-eight chapters examine Bunyan's life and works, their religious and historical contexts, and the critical reception of his writings, in particular his allegorical narrative, The Pilgrim's Progress. Interdisciplinary and comprehensive, it provides unparalleled scope and expertise, ranging from literary theory to religious history and from theology to post-colonial criticism.
The Handbook is structured in four sections. The first, 'Contexts', deals with the historical Bunyan in relation to various aspects of his life, background, and work as a Nonconformist: from basic facts of biography to the nature of his church at Bedford, his theology, and the religious and political cultures of seventeenth-century Dissent. Part 2 considers Bunyan's literary output: from his earliest printed tracts to his posthumously published works. Offering discrete chapters on Bunyan's major works--Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), The Pilgrim's Progress, Parts I and II (1678; 1684); The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), and The Holy War (1682)--this section nevertheless covers Bunyan's oeuvre in its entirety: controversial and pastoral, narrative and poetic. Section 3, 'Directions in Criticism', engages with Bunyan in literary critical terms, focusing on his employment of form and language and on theoretical approaches to his writings: from psychoanalytic to post-secular criticism. Section 4, 'Journeys', tackles some of the ways in which Bunyan's works, and especially The Pilgrim's Progress, have travelled throughout the world since the late seventeenth century, assessing Bunyan's place within key literary periods and their distinctive developments: from the eighteenth-century novel to the writing of 'empire.'
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- Introduction: Bunyan's Presence
- PART I: CONTEXTS
- 1: Michael A. Mullett: Bunyan's Life, Bunyan's Lives
- 2: John Coffey: Bunyan's England: The Trials and Triumphs of Restoration Dissent
- 3: Anne Dunan-Page: Bunyan and the Bedford Congregation
- 4: Dewey D. Wallace, Jr.: Bunyan's Theology and Religious Context
- 5: Alison Searle: Bunyan and the Word
- 6: Roger Pooley: Bunyan's Reading
- 7: Margaret J. M. Ezell: Bunyan and Gender
- 8: N. H. Keeble: 'Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate': Bunyan and the Writing of Dissent
- 9: Kathleen Lynch: Bunyan's Partners in Print
- PART II: WORKS
- 10: David Walker: Early Works: Bunyan in the 1650s
- 11: David Gay: Bunyan in Prison: Writings from the 1660s
- 12: Nigel Smith: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666)
- 13: Ken Simpson: 'The Desired Countrey': Bunyan's Writings on the Church in the 1670s
- 14: Michael Davies: Chasing Apollyon's Tale: The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
- 15: Katsuhiro Engetsu: The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680)
- 16: Nancy Rosenfeld: The Holy War (1682)
- 17: Arlette Zinck: Piety and Radicalism: Bunyan's Writings of the 1680s
- 18: Margaret Olofson Thickstun: The Pilgrim's Progress, Part II (1684)
- 19: Elizabeth Clarke: 'Truth in Meeter': Bunyan's Poetry and Dissenting Poetics
- 20: W. R. Owens: Bunyan's Posthumously Published Works
- PART III: DIRECTIONS IN CRITICISM
- 21: Jeremy Tambling: Bunyan, Emblem, and Allegory
- 22: Nick Davis: Bunyan and Romance
- 23: Mary Ann Lund: The Prose Style of John Bunyan
- 24: Julie Coleman: The Language of The Pilgrim's Progress
- 25: Maxine Hancock: 'Nor do thou go to work without my Key': Reading Bunyan Out to the Edges
- 26: Tamsin Spargo: Bunyan and the Historians
- 27: Vera J. Camden: Bunyan Unbound: Prison and the Place of Creativity
- 28: Stuart Sim: Bunyan, Poststructuralism, and Postmodernism
- 29: Lori Branch: Bunyan, Theory, and Theology: A Case for Postsecular Criticism
- PART IV: JOURNEYS
- 30: Cynthia Wall: Bunyan and the Early Novel
- 31: Isabel Rivers: The Pilgrim's Progress in the Evangelical Revival
- 32: Jonathan Shears: Bunyan and the Romantics
- 33: Vincent Newey: Bunyan and the Victorians
- 34: Joel D. Rasmussen: Bunyan and America
- 35: Gary Day: Bunyan, Class, and Englishness
- 36: Nathalie Collé: Wayfaring Images: The Pilgrim's Progress's Pictorial Journey through Time
- 37: Shannon Murray: Bunyan for Children
- 38: Sylvia Brown: Bunyan and Empire
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Michael Davies is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Liverpool. Among his publications is Graceful Reading: Theology and Narrative in the Works of John Bunyan (2002). He is currently preparing a critical edition of The Bunyan Church Book, 1656-1710 for Oxford University Press.
W. R. Owens is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the Open University, and Visiting Professor at the University of Bedfordshire. His publications include volumes XII and XIII of The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan (1994), editions of Grace Abounding (1987) and The Pilgrim's Progress (2003), The Canonisation of Daniel Defoe (co-author, 1988), A Critical Bibliography of Daniel Defoe (co-author, 1998), The Works of Daniel Defoe (joint General Editor, 44 volumes, 2000-2009), and an edition of The Gospels: Authorized King James Version (2011).
Zusammenfassung
This Handbook brings together thirty-eight original essays on the seventeenth-century Nonconformist preacher and writer, John Bunyan. The chapters span Bunyan's life and works, their religious and historical contexts, and the critical reception of his writings, in particular his allegorical narrative, The Pilgrim's Progress.
Bericht
The surprising facility with which Bunyan's works have been appropriated in the service of widely divergent philosophical, political, and aesthetic arguments is beautifully exemplified by this wonderfully readable, interesting, and useful volume. Mark Burden, The Seventeenth Century
