Pilgrim's Progress

views updated

Pilgrim's Progress. Religious allegory by John Bunyan, published in two parts (1678, 1684). Widely regarded as a classic in puritan literature, it renders Bunyan's own spiritual progress (recounted in Grace Abounding) into a more objective universalized myth, embodied by the solitary pilgrim Christian's search for the Celestial City. Allegorical figures (Giant Despair, Hopeful), satirical portraits of hypocrites or backsliders (Mr Worldly-Wiseman), and realism enliven an episodic series of adventures, though each reflects a step in the puritan stages of conversion. Part II, centred around Christian's wife, is more concerned with problems in nonconformist communities than with the individual.

A. S. Hargreaves

More From encyclopedia.com