Classics and the Western Canon discussion

There may be a few spoilers in here for people who haven't yet finished the book, but I thought it would be interesting to see what we can find for PP sightings, either just characters or more extensive uses of PP.

Thackeray's Vanity Fair is way too easy, so I'll just toss that out first to get it off the table.

John Buchan wrote a series of adventure books centered before, during, and after World War I featuring Richard Hannay. One of them is titled Mr. Standfast, and it draws heavily on PP. Not only are the first two chapters titled "The Wicket-Gate" and "The Village Named Morality," but one of the characters, a South African named Peter Piennar, carries a copy of PP with him and finds great comfort in it, especially during his days as a prisoner of war in Germany, and later it is used as a sort of code by the characters working in secret.

Pilgrim's Progress has a central role at the very end of the book, but I won't say more because it would be a major spoiler. The series of books is well worth reading if you like adventure novels that are well written but not intellectually challenging.

Patrice wrote: "I was just telling someone today that I now know where the phrase "follow the straight and narrow" comes from, assuming Bunyan didn't borrow it."

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

Little Women has a lot of conscious reference to Pilgrim's Progress. The girls in fact allude to having played it, with their mother making them burdens/

This from The Novel: A Biography by Michael E.C. Schmidt:

“…Bunyan’s direct legacy is to his faith; his oblique legacy is to writers including Defoe, Swift, and Smollett; Blake and Thackeray (Vanity Fair) and Coleridge; Hawthorne (The Celestial Railroad, 1843), Louisa May Alcott (in Little Women he inspires and sustains the March sisters and provides the author with chapter titles) and Harriet Beecher Stowe; James Joyce and Wyndham Lewis and Gore Vidal (Burr abundantly alludes to him); to all the makers and remakers both of plain and of figurative styles. Perhaps his chief heir is Kurt Vonnegut, whose Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five emerges intact but bleakly transformed from the Valley of the Shadow of Death.” P 62

These are the closing words of Chapter 4, which is dedicated to PP. If your library has a copy of this relatively new book and you have persevered through PP, you would probably enjoy at least scanning this chapter (9 pp).

This from Coleridge in the source cited previously:

"The Pilgrim’s Progress,” writes Coleridge with respect, because from Bunyan he learned lessons that went into the making of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “is composed in the lowest style of English, without slang or false grammar. If you were to polish it, you would at once destroy the reality of the vision. For works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.” P60

I think it is very likely that Kierkegaard read PP, and the story of the Giant Despair in the Doubting Castle inspired the writing of Sickness Unto Death.

Patrice wrote: "Absolutely fascinating Lily! I'm getting that book.

But Joyce? Somehow I missed that!"

If you buy it (and I am tempted -- it seems a wonderful reference and my public library itself doesn't have it -- although the library system to which I have access does), allow for an inch and half of shelf space!

That chapter did not clarify the allusion to Joyce for me. But it doesn't particularly surprise me, either. A scan down one those compendiums of notes for Ulysses alone would probably turn up something.

Lily wrote: "This from Coleridge in the source cited previously:

"The Pilgrim’s Progress,” writes Coleridge with respect, because from Bunyan he learned lessons that went into the making of The Rime of the Anc..."

Oh, that's good, Lily!

The Slough of Despond resounds with many. From Wikipedia:

This phrase has been referred to frequently in subsequent literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale The Celestial Railroad is a satirical contrast between Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and Hawthorne's perception of the current state of society. In Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights the character Mr. Heathcliff likens his son's state of depression to having been dropped "into a Slough of Despond". In Horatio Hornblower: The Even Chance, by C. S. Forester, Midshipman Archie Kennedy describes Hornblower's new home as "His Majesty's ship of the line Justinian, known elsewise among her intimates as the good ship Slough of Despond." In Mary McCarthy's novel The Group (1954), "Kay saw that [her husband, Harald] was sinking into a Slough of Despond (as they termed his sudden, Scandinavian fits of depression)..." W. Somerset Maugham alludes to the Slough in his book Of Human Bondage, where in a letter to the protagonist, Philip Carey, the failed poet Cronshaw details that he has "hopelessly immersed [himself... in] the Slough of Despond," referring to his poverty. In Gerald Brom's novel, The Child Thief, The Slough is a passage of terror into the world Avalon, which Peter must travel through. In John Steinbeck's novel, Sweet Thursday (1954), Mack describes Doc's melancholic condition in suggesting that his fellow denizens of the Palace Flophouse help him out, using a punning conflation of slang and Bunyan: "Gentlemen [ . . . ] let us highly resolve to get Doc's ass out of the sling of despond" (79). In Harlan Ellison's short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (1967) the last five surviving humans are tortured by a godlike artificial intelligence named AM. The narrator relates how, among other harrowing experiences, "We passed through the Slough of Despond."[3] In Louisa May Alcott's Hospital Sketches, a grateful Tribulation Periwinkle remarks that she feels "as did poor Christian [ . . . ] on the safe side of the Slough of Despond." In J. G. Farrell's Booker Prize winner, The Siege of Krishnapur, the haunted Padre refers to a particularly dangerous crossing thus:

"The Padre was looking more haggard and wild-eyed than ever. He had thought that he would never be able to reach the banqueting hall because he had had to cross the stretch of open lawn swept by musket fire and grape which lay between the Church and the hall and which he had thought of as the Slough of Despond." (1973)

Patrice wrote: "Really, the fun of reading all of these books is finding the references yourself, isn't it? But a little help wouldn't hurt..."

To me, it's the balance of the use of criticism, as Feliks suggests, and one's own reading. Good teachers have inestimable value, but they also can't do one's own homework.

-- 2014 publication

Ah, yes, The Celestial Railroad.

The biggest difference between it and Pilgrim's Progress is the point of view -- we get the railroad from the character's, and he's not a reliable judge -- and that it's rather more about the failure.

From Villette, by Charlotte Brontë:

Time always flowed smoothly for me at my godmother's side; not with tumultuous swiftness, but blandly, like the gliding of a full river through a plain. My visits to her resembled the sojourn of Christian and Hopeful beside a certain pleasant stream, with "green trees on each bank, and meadows beautified with lilies all the year round."

Lily wrote: "This from The Novel: A Biography by Michael E.C. Schmidt:

“…Bunyan’s direct legacy is to his faith; his oblique legacy is to writers including Defoe, Swift, and Smo..."

Thanks for sharing this Lily.

I've been eyeing up Schmidt's book in a bookshop, but haven't taken the plunge and bought it yet. It's certainly something I would rather buy than borrow from the library, as know it would be used and referred to for many years to come.

Muckrackers! I was surprised to find how negatively the original man with a muck-rake was portrayed in PP. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckraker

I have been reading Rich Atchinson's The Day of the Battle concurrently w/PP. I took note that PP was mentioned twice.

The battle for Sicily. "Brigadier General Ted Roosevelt (one of TR's sons)[with The Big Red One] ... had insisted on splashing ashore in Gela with the first assault wave."

"An admirer deemed him 'one of the world's most fluent reciters'--and 'in a rhythmic state of mind' he spouted passages of Kipling, Pilgrim's Progress and the iambic pentameter of his favorite poet, Edwin Arlington Robinson" (94).


"But Roosevelt also sensed that a larger fate awaited him. Sharing a ride to Palermo... he recited poetry with his usual fluency... Clues could be found in the dog-eared copy of The Pilgrim's Progress carried in his kit bag: 'I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am.... My marks and scars I carry with me'" (160).

Pilgrim's Progress was charming. I am not quite at the end yet but have enjoyed it. It makes me smile often. Sorry I didn't get a chance to participate in the discussion.

Theresa wrote: "Pilgrim's Progress was charming. I am not quite at the end yet but have enjoyed it. It makes me smile often. Sorry I didn't get a chance to participate in the discussion."

How does PP relate to your original idea about the Wilderness?

Nemo wrote: "How does PP relate to your original idea about the Wilderness? "

It didn't really. I could think more about that, but originally I had in mind someone being seriously lost and finding their way in the dark with more references to nature as being evil.

On the other hand I did start wondering about Gestalt psychology (and to some extent, gestalt therapy, which is apparently not all that closely related to gestalt theory). I didn't look too deeply into it, but perhaps others can see some correlations?

Again, apologies for having voted for this read and not being here to participate. I blame James Joyce ;-)

I was reluctant to start reading it before finishing Ulysses and VERY reluctant to finish Ulysses. Also, the first week of discussion on PP was daunting as there were 5 pages of comments to go through.

Fortunately, I also voted for Eliot (we had a runnoff vote and I voted for PP the second time) so maybe I will have a chance to redeem myself by keeping up with the Eliot discussions. I think the trick for the perpetual procrastinator is to get into the thread before it becomes 5 pages of comments to read :)
Not that the comments aren't interesting of course, they add so much depth to the reading experience. Quite valuable.

I'm with you, Theresa. I had every intention of participating in the PP discussion, but life turned crazy on me. I was also late to the week one comments and was a little overwhelmed! :-) I did finally finish the book and all of the discussions a couple of nights ago. Here's hoping life let's us hop on board the Eliot train sooner rather than later!

Genni wrote: "Here's hoping life let's us hop on board the Eliot train sooner rather than later! ..."

Indeed!

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

:)