- The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Abbreviations
- Notes on Contributors
- Bunyan’s Life: Some Significant Dates
- Introduction: Bunyan’s Presence
- Bunyan’s Life, Bunyan’s Lives
- Bunyan’s England: The Trials and Triumphs of Restoration Dissent
- Bunyan and the Bedford Congregation
- Bunyan’s Theology and Religious Context
- Bunyan and the Word
- Bunyan’s Reading
- Bunyan and Gender
- ‘Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate’: Bunyan and the Writing of Dissent
- Bunyan’s Partners in Print
- Early Works: Bunyan in the 1650s
- Bunyan in Prison: Writings from the 1660s
- <i>Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners</i> (1666)
- ‘The Desired Countrey’: Bunyan’s Writings on the Church in the 1670s
- The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678): Chasing Apollyon’s Tale
- <i>The Life and Death of Mr. Badman</i> (1680)
- <i>The Holy War</i> (1682)
- Piety and Radicalism: Bunyan’s Writings of the 1680s
- <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part II</i> (1684)
- ‘Truth in Meeter’: Bunyan’s Poetry and Dissenting Poetics
- Bunyan’s Posthumously Published Works
- Bunyan, Emblem, and Allegory
- Bunyan and Romance
- The Prose Style of John Bunyan
- The Language of <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress</i>
- ‘Nor do thou go to work without my Key’: Reading Bunyan Out to the Edges
- Bunyan and the Historians
- Bunyan Unbound: Prison and the Place of Creativity
- Bunyan, Poststructuralism, and Postmodernism
- Bunyan, Theory, and Theology: A Case for Post-Secular Criticism
- Bunyan and the Early Novel
- <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress</i> in the Evangelical Revival
- Bunyan and the Romantics
- Bunyan and the Victorians
- Bunyan and America
- Bunyan: Class and Englishness
- Wayfaring Images: The Pilgrim’s Pictorial Progress
- Bunyan for Children
- Bunyan and Empire
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
Scholars have long debated the issue of quietism and radicalism in John Bunyan’s prose and poetry. What is one to make of a minister who exhorts Nonconformists to non-violence in his prose writings yet pens imaginative fictions—one titled The Holy War (1682)—that seemingly glorify bloody acts of social and political radicalism? This chapter looks at the extensive corpus of works published by Bunyan in the 1680s, over the course of the last eight years of his life. This chapter does this through the lens of narrative theology, arguing that an appreciation of Bunyan’s pre-critical biblical hermeneutic helps to reconceptualize the apparent contradictions in his perspectives on violence, especially during the era of renewed oppression that occurred in the early 1680s.
Keywords: John Bunyan, 1680s, violence, pre-critical biblical hermeneutic, radicalism, quietism, narrative theology
Arlette Zinck is Associate Professor of English Literature and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at The King’s University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Her publications on Bunyan include a co-edited volume of essays, Awakening Words: John Bunyan and the Language of Community (2000), a co-authored article, ‘Baxter, Bunyan, and a Puritan Reframing of Ageing’, Bunyan Studies, 14 (2010), and ‘Dating the Spiritual Warfare Broadsheet’, in Texting Bunyan: Attribution, Appropriation, and Influence, ed. Ken Simpson (2010).
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- The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Abbreviations
- Notes on Contributors
- Bunyan’s Life: Some Significant Dates
- Introduction: Bunyan’s Presence
- Bunyan’s Life, Bunyan’s Lives
- Bunyan’s England: The Trials and Triumphs of Restoration Dissent
- Bunyan and the Bedford Congregation
- Bunyan’s Theology and Religious Context
- Bunyan and the Word
- Bunyan’s Reading
- Bunyan and Gender
- ‘Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate’: Bunyan and the Writing of Dissent
- Bunyan’s Partners in Print
- Early Works: Bunyan in the 1650s
- Bunyan in Prison: Writings from the 1660s
- <i>Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners</i> (1666)
- ‘The Desired Countrey’: Bunyan’s Writings on the Church in the 1670s
- The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678): Chasing Apollyon’s Tale
- <i>The Life and Death of Mr. Badman</i> (1680)
- <i>The Holy War</i> (1682)
- Piety and Radicalism: Bunyan’s Writings of the 1680s
- <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part II</i> (1684)
- ‘Truth in Meeter’: Bunyan’s Poetry and Dissenting Poetics
- Bunyan’s Posthumously Published Works
- Bunyan, Emblem, and Allegory
- Bunyan and Romance
- The Prose Style of John Bunyan
- The Language of <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress</i>
- ‘Nor do thou go to work without my Key’: Reading Bunyan Out to the Edges
- Bunyan and the Historians
- Bunyan Unbound: Prison and the Place of Creativity
- Bunyan, Poststructuralism, and Postmodernism
- Bunyan, Theory, and Theology: A Case for Post-Secular Criticism
- Bunyan and the Early Novel
- <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress</i> in the Evangelical Revival
- Bunyan and the Romantics
- Bunyan and the Victorians
- Bunyan and America
- Bunyan: Class and Englishness
- Wayfaring Images: The Pilgrim’s Pictorial Progress
- Bunyan for Children
- Bunyan and Empire
- Index