Emblem and Interpretation in the Pilgrim's Progress

Abstract

Critics of The Pilgrim's Progress 1 have been at a loss to classify the work generically. Bunyan has incorporated elements of the romance, the sermon, and the drama into a broad allegorical superstructure, and although critics grudgingly admit that the Pilgrim is an allegory, they are fond of praising it for its departures from what they consider to be the limitations of that mode. Roger Sharrock claims that the work's continuing vitality is the creation, not of allegory, but of myth. 2 Bunyan has been praised for his very plain language . . . without slang or false grammar 3 and for his realistic characterizations.4 George Bernard Shaw, enamoured by the dialectical element, enthusiastically finds in Bunyan a dramatist better than Shakespeare, while more sober-minded critics have pointed to Bunyan's narrative ability and his focus on middle class life as assuring the Pilgrim a key position in the development of the English novel.6 If there is controversy over the Pilgrim's generic nature, there can be no doubt that Bunyan's style is predominantly visual. The narrative is Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream, 7 and our primary interest is in what the dreamer saw. The Pilgrim abounds in striking verbal pictures which have attracted scores