![]() ![]() Indeed, as Bunyan wrote in ‘ Reprobation Asserted’: Bunyan was a Puritan who believed in the Calvinist idea of the Elect: some people were predestined for heaven, while others, sadly, would probably never get there. What it is, though, is a specific kind of Christian allegory, which reveals Bunyan’s own adherence to a dissenting tradition. ![]() But in the broadest possible sense, Bunyan’s book is a fictional prose narrative whose length certainly qualifies it for the title of ‘novel’. Is The Pilgrim’s Progress a novel? The word was unknown in Bunyan’s own lifetime, and many critics and commentators prefer to name Daniel Defoe’s 1719 book Robinson Crusoe the ‘first novel’, because of Defoe’s realist focus on the everyday which came to be considered such an important part of the novel form. Similarly, Doubting Castle in the book is based on the real (though sadly now destroyed) Ampthill Castle. For instance, the Slough of Despond was modelled on the grey clay deposits around the model village of Stewartby. ![]() melancholy, or depression) or the darkest pit of despair (the dungeon in the Giant Despair’s Doubting Castle).Īnd many of these features of The Pilgrim’s Progress were inspired by the area that John Bunyan knew well, around the county of Bedfordshire in England, around 50 miles north of London. Those wanting to reach the Celestial City of Heaven when they die had better make sure they are not tempted by Mr Worldly Wiseman or the wares on offer at Vanity Fair, or that they don’t succumb to the overwhelming power of the Slough of Despond (i.e. ![]()
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