John Bunyan: Allegory and Imagination

First published in 1984, John Bunyan: Allegory and Imagination is informed not only by an enthusiasm for Bunyan but by an understanding of the literary and theological currents of the time. Criticism of John Bunyan has generally presented him as ‘an artist in spite of himself’, an unreflective writer who chanced on a vein of untutored genius. It is hard to believe that a work like the Pilgrim's Progress, which has gripped readers through the centuries, came to being entirely by chance. In this book Professor Batson draws on the Augustinian tradition, prevalent in the Middle Ages, that literature reveals truth by similitudes, and enhances spiritual understanding. Without suggesting that Bunyan had a scholarly acquaintance with scholastic theory, she shows how his writing embodies the approaches implicit in this attitude. By lucid and penetrating analysis of each of the major works in turn, she demonstrates Bunyan’s skill in structuring his narrative, his skill in dialogue, his ability to demonstrate various levels of meaning, his handling of the dream phenomenon, and his emphasis on metaphor and memory. She also shows how the allegory of the major works operates at a level of continuous metaphor. This is a must read for scholars and researchers of English literature.