The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
John Bunyan ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Pilgrim's Progress ◽  
Original Essays ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Basic Facts ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Literary Output

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 life and works, religious and historical contexts, and the critical reception of his writings, in particular his allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress. Interdisciplinary and comprehensive, it ranges 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 II, ‘Works’, considers Bunyan’s literary output in its entirety, including individual chapters on his major narratives and allegories: 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). Part III, ‘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. Part IV, ‘Journeys’, surveys the ways in which Bunyan’s works, especially The Pilgrim’s Progress, have travelled throughout the world. Bunyan’s place within key literary periods and historical developments is assessed, from the eighteenth-century novel to the writing of ‘empire’.

The Nonconformist Inheritance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Rivers
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
John Bunyan ◽  
John Wesley ◽  
Religious Attitudes ◽  
Pilgrim's Progress ◽  
The Many ◽  
John Owen

This chapter analyses the editions, abridgements, and recommendations of texts by seventeenth-century nonconformists that were made by eighteenth-century dissenters, Methodists, and Church of England evangelicals. The nonconformist writers they chose include Joseph Alleine, Richard Baxter, John Flavel, John Owen, and John Bunyan. The editors and recommenders include Philip Doddridge, John Wesley, Edward Williams, Benjamin Fawcett, George Burder, John Newton, William Mason, and Thomas Scott. Detailed accounts are provided of the large number of Baxter’s works that were edited, notably A Call to the Unconverted and The Saints Everlasting Rest, and a case study is devoted to the many annotated editions of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and the ways in which they were used. The editors took into account length, intelligibility, religious attitudes, and cost, and sometimes criticized their rivals’ versions on theological grounds.

The Holy War (1682)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Great Success ◽  
John Bunyan ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Pilgrim's Progress ◽  
Future Events ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Literary Characters

By the early 1680s John Bunyan had achieved respect and popularity for his public preaching. As an author he attempted to build on the great success of The Pilgrim’s Progress, first with The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680) and then with The Holy War, which was published in 1682. Bunyan’s most ambitious and elaborate work of fiction took the form of an allegorical battle epic depicting the Christian scheme of salvation, the struggle of the human soul towards salvation, and contemporary and future events. This chapter discusses The Holy War in the context of the religious and literary works available to Bunyan, and as an impressive example of Bunyan’s skill in the creation of individuated literary characters.

The Trinitarian Thinking of John Bunyan in The Pilgrim’s Progress

2019 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-245
Author(s):  
John S. Banks
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
John Bunyan ◽  
Pilgrim's Progress ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Early Formation ◽  
Popular Audience

In John Bunyan’s day trinitarian debate was raging from Oxford to Bedfordshire. In spite of Bunyan’s rough upbringing, he is often considered a literary genius in Britain’s early-modern period, which tends to distract scholars from the fact that he was also a brilliant theologian-apologist. While Bunyan may have been deprived of the traditional tools of scholasticism, he is nevertheless more than capable as a trinitarian apologist. The early formation of Bunyan’s trinitarian thoughts providentially occurred prior to conversion and are evident in his earlier theological writings which prepared him to engage in the trinitarian conversation of the seventeenth century. The two trinitarian instances in the Pilgrim’s Progress which are analyzed in this article not only show Bunyan’s ability to bridge theology for a popular audience but also demonstrate a skillful ability to address the Ranters and Quakers who wandered through Bedfordshire terrorizing the flock with strange doctrine.

The history of a “primary source”: The making of Tûghî's chronicle on the regicide of Osman II

2009 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-62
Author(s):  
Baki Tezcan
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
History Of ◽  
Initial Attitude ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Way

AbstractA short chronicle by a former janissary called Tûghî on the regicide of the Ottoman Sultan Osman II in 1622 had a definitive impact on seventeenth-century Ottoman historiography in terms of the way in which this regicide was recounted. This study examines the formation of Tûghî's chronicle and shows how within the course of the year following the regicide, Tûghî's initial attitude, which recognized the collective responsibility of the military caste (kul) in the murder of Osman, evolved into a claim of their innocence. The chronicle of Tûghî is extant in successive editions of his own. A careful examination of these editions makes it possible to follow the evolution of Tûghî's narrative on the regicide in response to the historical developments in its immediate aftermath and thus witness both the evolution of a “primary source” and the gradual political sophistication of a janissary.

Cooch Behar: Medieval Regional History in a Bengal Frontierland

2021 ◽  
pp. 097152312110355
Author(s):  
Chanchal Adhikary
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
Eastern India ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
Regional History ◽  
Historical Developments

For constructing the medieval political history of Cooch Behar, also known as Koch Bihar, the Persian manuscript of Bah rist n-i-Ghaybī, discovered in 1919 by Jadunath Sarkar in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, is very significant. This text facilitates our understanding of important historical events in eastern India during the time of Mughal Emperor Jahangir (1601–27). The text also provides important details of peasants’ revolts during the Mughal occupation, with remarkable implications until recent times regarding border relations between India and Bangladesh. The article examines the historical facts presented in this important text and corroborates them with other sources to argue that this text should be read as a chronicle for the history of warfare, society and peasants’ life in the region throughout the seventeenth century, with significant implications for later historical developments in Cooch Behar.

Discourse

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Poesio
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Hierarchy Theory ◽  
Discourse Representation Theory ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Discourse Model ◽  
Relational Coherence ◽  
Basic Facts ◽  
The Right ◽  
Intentional Structure

Discourse is the area of linguistics concerned with the aspects of language use that go beyond the sentence—and in particular, with the study of coherence and salience. In this chapter we present a few key theories of these phenomena. We distinguish between two main types of coherence: entity coherence, primarily established through anaphora; and relational coherence, expressed through connectives and other relational devices. Our discussion of anaphora and entity coherence covers the basic facts about anaphoric reference and introduces the dynamic approach to the semantics of anaphora implemented in theories such as Discourse Representation Theory, based on the notion of discourse model and its updates. With regards to relational coherence, we review some of the main claims about the relational structure of discourse—such as the claim that coherent discourses have a tree structure, or the right frontier hypothesis—and four main theoretical approaches: Rhetorical Structure Theory, Grosz and Sidner’s intentional structure theory, the inference-based approach developed by Hobbs and expanded in Segmented DRT, and the connective-based account. Finally we cover theories of local and global salience and its effects, including Gundel’s Activation Hierarchy theory and Grosz and Sidner’s theory of the local and global focus.

scholarly journals O PROGRESSO DO PEREGRINO E A ÉTICA DA CONVERSÃO INDIVIDUALISTA

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (20) ◽  
pp. 318-345
Author(s):  
Marcelo Ramos Saldanha
Keyword(s):  
John Bunyan ◽  
Pilgrim's Progress

O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar a alegoria religiosa The Pilgrim's Progress, do escritor inglês John Bunyan, buscando encontrar no enredo e no contexto histórico que se entrelaça à obra, alguns elementos que nos permitam compreender o ethos da vida peregrina desse indivíduo em busca da sua salvação. Assim, considerando que a obra foi escrita como resposta ao conturbado cenário religioso e político da Inglaterra do século XVII, analisaremos o enredo, os dogmas e os símbolos religiosos presentes no livro, buscando compreender a relação entre fé e vida “mundana”, indivíduo e comunidade e, principalmente, o valor das narrativas de devoção na experiência de conversão, para, então, entender como tais valores, expostos nas potentes alegorias de Bunyan, geraram um universo lúdico e concreto que validou uma ética  religiosa, profundamente individualista, que se tornou a marca do conversionismo puritano, e que continua a fazer sentido, mesmo para pessoas que não compartilham do contexto histórico e social do escritor.

The Patrimonial Project of Dzhankent

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 467-532
Author(s):  
Irina Arzhantseva ◽  
Svetlana Gorshenina
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
National Identities ◽  
The Other ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Special Place ◽  
National Symbols ◽  
Geographical Position ◽  
The One

AbstractThe archaeological site of Dzhankent, in addition to its geographical position and the wealth of finds from there, occupies a special place for several other reasons, too. It was the first site in Central Asia to be excavated (1740-1741) and photographed (1858), and it has recently become one of the national symbols of independent Kazakhstan (since 1991). Over the period of more than 270 years during which it has been studied, Dzhankent has been approached by generations of explorers, excavators and researchers from different theoretical positions and with different aims which have corresponded more or less to political or geopolitical programmes. The aim of this contribution is, on the one hand, to show how the various actors who worked at this site related to one another and to the various types of power (local, Tsarist, Soviet), and on the other hand, to analyze the changes in the theoretical approaches of these actors. At the same time, it is important to trace the transformation of Dzhankent, in its pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial contexts, into a memorial supposedly linked to imperial or national identities which, in turn, had been forged around a constructed past.

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