- 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
Prison was a difficult yet defining experience for John Bunyan. His writings of the 1660s complement the introspective mode of Grace Abounding (1666) with polemical and pastoral purposes. I Will Pray with the Spirit (?1662) is a forceful attack on the Book of Common Prayer and the regulation of worship by the restored regime. His prison poems present discrete subjects for religious meditation set within an overarching narrative framework of providential history. His writings reshape the boundaries of time and space imposed by the harsh conditions of imprisonment. Christian Behaviour (1663), The Holy City (1665), and The Resurrection of the Dead (?1665) address different aspects of Christian temporal experience under the pressure of persecution. These and other texts of the 1660s anticipate some of the main themes of Bunyan’s major allegories.
Keywords: John Bunyan, 1660s, prayer, resurrection, prison, meditation
David Gay is Professor of English Literature at the University of Alberta, Canada. He is the author of The Endless Kingdom: Milton’s Scriptural Society (2002) and co-editor of Awakening Words: John Bunyan and the Language of Community (2000). He is currently completing a book to be entitled Gifts and Graces: Prayer, Poetry and Politics from Andrewes to Bunyan.
Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
- 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
