Kathleen Lynch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199643936
- eISBN:
- 9780191738876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199643936.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Though John Bunyan maintained a critical distance from what he took to be a conventionalized story form, his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners became the paradigmatic Protestant conversion ...
More
Though John Bunyan maintained a critical distance from what he took to be a conventionalized story form, his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners became the paradigmatic Protestant conversion narrative. Further, its deep epistemological uncertainty gives it an important place in the history of differentiation between human and divine authorities. But Grace Abounding is seldom studied for an understanding of the relations between individual and communal identities. This chapter studies Bunyan as a member of a specific community in formation and under duress. With John Gifford, the chapter illustrates the communal investments in an exemplary life. With Agnes Beaumont and John Child, it details the prices exacted for deviations from that model. With the bookseller Francis Smith, it examines arguments for the liberty of conscience and resistance to the Clarendon Code.Less
Though John Bunyan maintained a critical distance from what he took to be a conventionalized story form, his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners became the paradigmatic Protestant conversion narrative. Further, its deep epistemological uncertainty gives it an important place in the history of differentiation between human and divine authorities. But Grace Abounding is seldom studied for an understanding of the relations between individual and communal identities. This chapter studies Bunyan as a member of a specific community in formation and under duress. With John Gifford, the chapter illustrates the communal investments in an exemplary life. With Agnes Beaumont and John Child, it details the prices exacted for deviations from that model. With the bookseller Francis Smith, it examines arguments for the liberty of conscience and resistance to the Clarendon Code.
Rivkah Zim
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161808
- eISBN:
- 9781400852093
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161808.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter presents a reading of John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (1897). In both texts, the recording consciousness of a prisoner ...
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This chapter presents a reading of John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (1897). In both texts, the recording consciousness of a prisoner explains the reasons for his imprisonment; the narrative is therefore restricted to events and interactions that changed the author's past life and created his literary persona's new responses to them: self-knowledge. The protagonist of each narrative is thus a doubly displaced persona—not only a literary construct but also a shadow from the past—and no longer a separate consciousness except insofar as this is represented by the converted prison writer's quotations of his reprobate self's speech or thoughts. The memorial testimony of the prisoner connotes the experiences of his narrative's shadowy protagonist but specifies different perceptions of these experiences. In this way, each prisoner offers his recollections of personal memories as expert interpretations of historic actions, and description or analysis is coupled with dramatic dialogue.Less
This chapter presents a reading of John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (1897). In both texts, the recording consciousness of a prisoner explains the reasons for his imprisonment; the narrative is therefore restricted to events and interactions that changed the author's past life and created his literary persona's new responses to them: self-knowledge. The protagonist of each narrative is thus a doubly displaced persona—not only a literary construct but also a shadow from the past—and no longer a separate consciousness except insofar as this is represented by the converted prison writer's quotations of his reprobate self's speech or thoughts. The memorial testimony of the prisoner connotes the experiences of his narrative's shadowy protagonist but specifies different perceptions of these experiences. In this way, each prisoner offers his recollections of personal memories as expert interpretations of historic actions, and description or analysis is coupled with dramatic dialogue.
