Term Paper: Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress John Bunyan born 28 November 1628 to 31 August 1688, is known as an English Christian writer and speaker. He is well-known for the writing of The Pilgrim's Progress. Although Bunyan was a Reformed Baptist, he is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on August 30th. Bunyan was not well educated. He followed down the pathway of his father who pursued tinker’s trade, and also served in the Parliamentary Army from 1644 to 1647. He lived in Elstow until his wife died. Bunyan then moved to England (Bedford), where he had remarried. In the 1650’s, John became a successful deacon and began speaking or “preaching”. He continued to preach without a preaching license, and the main authorities turned their cheeks for a while, but later had to imprison him. In March of 1675 he was again imprisoned for preaching publicly without a license. This book is told as a dream. The author illustrates in the beginning of the book that he falls asleep in the wilderness and “dreamed” of Christian. In the book there is a “spiritual guide”, his name Evangelist. Evangelist later visits Christian and encourages him to leave the City of Destruction. Eva also claims that salvation in the Celestial City, known as Mount Zion, will be found. This entire novel consists of different Palaces, Valleys and Mountains. Christian starts out in his own city, the City of Destruction. He is loaded down with a pretty massive burden on his back, and Evangelist clues him in that perhaps he should try asking God for salvation. Christian decided that this would be the way to go, and sets off for the Celestial City, even though nearly all of his friends and family try to change his mind. This first section, of course... ... middle of paper ... ...ian, are blinded because of their inevitable fallen humanity. In Pilgrims Progress, the power of the word in strong. Bunyan emphasizes the power of the word, God’s or otherwise, in the pilgrim’s quest. First and foremost, the text abounds with scriptural allusions, which Bunyan's readers would have been very familiar with. Biblical literacy is the primary importance to the Puritans, and the weight of scripture cannot be underestimated. The words of scripture are as powerful when verbalized as they are when read, and the characters often quote scripture to one another. They also speak aloud to comfort themselves and one another, as when Christian is in the Valley of the Shadow of Death (Page 77 ebooks). The pilgrims spend a great deal of time of their pilgrimage in conversation, and Bunyan uses these dialogues as an opportunity to communicate theology to his readers.
In the 1700’s the Puritans left England for the fear of being persecuted. They moved to America for religious freedom. The Puritans lived from God’s laws. They did not depend as much on material things, and they had a simpler and conservative life. More than a hundred years later, the Puritan’s belief toward their church started to fade away. Some Puritans were not able to recognize their religion any longer, they felt that their congregations had grown too self-satisfied. They left their congregations, and their devotion to God gradually faded away. To rekindle the fervor that the early Puritans had, Jonathan Edwards and other Puritan ministers led a religious revival through New England. Edwards preached intense sermons that awakened his congregation to an awareness of their sins. With Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” he persuades the Puritans to convert back to Puritanism, by utilizing rhetorical strategies such as, imagery, loaded diction, and a threatening and fearful tone.
While residing in England, the Puritans and faithful Catholics faced prosecution, which led to their immigration to the New World. Most left England to avoid further harassment. Many groups and parishes applied for charters to America and, led by faithful ministers, the Pilgrims and Puritans made the long voyage to North America. Their religion became a unique element in the New England colonies by 1700. Before landing, the groups settled on agreements, signing laws and compacts to ensure a community effort towards survival when they came to shore, settling in New England. Their strong sense of community and faith in God led them to develop a hardworking society by year 1700, which Documents A and D express through the explanation of how the Pilgrims and Puritans plan to develop...
Rituals are held as a very important part of any society, including ours. They go back to ancient times or can be as simple as maintaining one’s hygiene. Non-western societies have rituals that may seem very foreign to us, but they have been engrained in their communities and are essential to their social structure. This interpretation will focus on the Great Pilgrimage, a ritual performed by Quechuan communities. We will be looking specifically at a community in the area of Sonqo.
He was a man whose very words struck fear into the hearts of his listeners. Acknowledged as one of the most powerful religious speakers of the era, he spearheaded the Great Awakening. “This was a time when the intense fervor of the first Puritans had subsided somewhat” (Heyrmen 1) due to a resurgence of religious zeal (Stein 1) in colonists through faith rather than predestination. Jonathan Edwards however sought to arouse the religious intensity of the colonists (Edwards 1) through his preaching. But how and why was Edwards so successful? What influenced him? How did he use diction and symbolism to persuade his listener, and what was the reaction to his teachings? In order to understand these questions one must look at his life and works to understand how he was successful. In his most influential sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, Jonathan Edwards’ persuasive language awakened the religious fervor that lay dormant in colonial Americans and made him the most famous puritan minister of the Great Awakening in North America.
Religion was the foundation of the early Colonial American Puritan writings. Many of the early settlements were comprised of men and women who fled Europe in the face of persecution to come to a new land and worship according to their own will. Their beliefs were stalwartly rooted in the fact that God should be involved with all facets of their lives and constantly worshiped. These Puritans writings focused on their religious foundations related to their exodus from Europe and religions role in their life on the new continent. Their literature helped to proselytize the message of God and focused on hard work and strict adherence to religious principles, thus avoiding eternal damnation. These main themes are evident in the writings of Jonathan Edwards, Cotton Mathers, and John Winthrop. This paper will explore the writings of these three men and how their religious views shaped their literary works, styles, and their historical and political views.
Lambdin, Laura C. and Robert T. Lambdin, ed. Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales. London: Greenwood Press, 1996.
... Print. The. 2003 Hartman, Louis F. & Lella, Alexander A. The Anchor Bible, The Book Of Daniel. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Print, 1978 Cook, Stephen L. Apocalyptic Literature.
Because of their Puritanical beliefs, it is no surprise that the major theme that runs throughout Mary Rowlandson and Jonathan Edwards’s writings is religion. This aspect of religion is apparent in not only the constant mentions about God himself, but also in the heavy use of biblical scriptures. In their respective writings, Rowlandson and Edwards utilize scripture, but for different purposes; one uses it to convey that good and bad events happen solely because of God’s will, and the other uses it, in one instance, to illustrate how it brought him closer to God, and, in another instance, to justify his harsh claims about God’s powerful wrath.
Zuckerman, Michael “Pilgrims in the Wilderness: Community, Modernity, and the Maypole at Merry Mount”, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Jun., 1977), pp. 255-277. The New England Quarterly, Inc.
Spurgeon was in love with reading; as a lad he spent time reading his grandfather’s books. Spurgeon was said to have read six books or more per week; reading also provided Spurgeon with a firm background. When Spurgeon was in school, he appeared to have low intellect, but he was really smart. Spurgeon liked the book Pilgrims Promise so much that he read it more than 100 times. At the tender age of 14, Spurgeon attended All Saints Agricultural College. Because of hard times Spurgeon struggled with his relationship with God. Eventually, he found God and became a minister in Cambridge shire at age 17 (“Charles” Tlogcal.com).
wrote a pamphlet to the people in England and told about all the good things
In his Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer assembles a band of pilgrims who, at the behest of their host, engage in a story-telling contest along their route. The stories told along the way serve a number of purposes, among them to entertain, to instruct, and to enlighten. In addition to the intrinsic value of the tales taken individually, the tales in their telling reveal much about the tellers. The pitting of tales one against another provides a third level of complexity, revealing the interpersonal dynamics of the societal microcosm comprising the diverse group of pilgrims.
John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress is an allegorical story about the Christian religion. It allegorizes the journey of a Christian into "the Celestial City, which represents heaven. Although Pilgrim's Progress may seem simple and straightforward, there are many deeper meanings throughout the whole story. Bunyan uses the names of his characters to signify whom the character represents in the story, for example, the character Hopeful represents hopefulness, Help represents people who are willing to help others in need of assistance, Faithful represents people who are faithful to whatever they are associated with, and the main character, Christian, represents all young Christians in the world. His journey to the Celestial City is a journey every Christian must face in their lifetime before allowed into heaven. Within his journey there are many obstacles such as temptations both tangible and intangible for instance, the merchandises sold at Vanity Fair and the shortcuts offered, illustrate temptations real Christians must face and overcome; finding an easy way into heaven, and being thrown off course by material things. The character Christian overcomes many obstacles before reaching his destination, the Celestial City. But during his journey he does not face all these obstacles alone. He meets a variety of people all through his journey to the Celestial City; some of these people mock his traveling to the Celestial City, some decide to follow him, and some help him along his way. Christian meets Faithful who decides to join him on his travels. Faithful is a character that faces many difficulties on his own journey to the Celestial City; his journey has many diff...
This story was insightful into the lives of one tribe of Indians near Jamestown.The third passage I read was an excerpt from The Bay Psalm Book. In this the Puritans had re-edited the Bible and tried to simplify its words. Their version was modified to rhyme and to have what the Puritans referred to as "plainness.
The Golden Treasury of Poetry. Hemans, Felicia. "Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers." New York, New York: Western Publishing Inc., 1959.