The Pilgrim's Progress in Modern English

The Pilgrim's Progress in Modern English

1678 • 522 pages

Ratings46

Average rating3.5

15

I read the first volume and started the second. The first volume is the allegorical dream of the adventures of Christian on his journey to heaven. The second volume starts with several pages of Bunyan talking about how fantastically well the first volume sold and how much it changed the world and how many copycats there were. He then proceeds to tell the story of the journey of Christiana, Christian's wife. As awesome as that sounds, I'm going to save it for another day.

As far as allegories go, this one's pretty transparent. With characters named things like Mr. Worldly Wiseman it doesn't take a huge stretch of the imagination to get the point. I didn't dislike the book, I just didn't find it particularly compelling or inspiring. My favorite parts were the creative ways he integrated Bible passages and even more so, the awesome tidbits of poetry that popped up occasionally. I wish he'd written the whole thing in verse...

December 7, 2009