Geoffrey Bles, 1933
Historical Background
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First Christian book
Only prose allegory
Written in two weeks!
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress
Key: Desire
Lots of foreign language quotations
John = Everyman
Some important notes from Kathryn
Lindskoog
The Pilgrim’s Travels
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West
Running away from God
Running toward Joy (the Island)
Reason
Mother Kirk (church)
Hermit (History)
The Jewish Law
The Pilgrim’s Travels
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North—Arid Rationalism
Ignorantia—Knowledge (Kant)
Mr. Enlightenment—Atheism, Naturalism (Claptrap)
Virtue—Natural Human Conscience, Self-Reliance
Technology (Gus Halfways)
Linguistic Philosophy
Sigmund Freud (Sigismund)
Spirit of the Age (Reductionism, called theism wishful
thinking)
Bulverism
Mr. Sensible
Counter-Romanticism (Mr. Neo-Classical or
agnosticism, Humanism, Mr. Angular [T. S. Eliot], Mr.
Neo-Angular or intellectual Christianity)
Fascism and Communism (Marx)
Rigidity, Greed, Coldness
The Pilgrim’s Travels
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South—Sentimentalism
The Arts (Media Halfways, Dadaism)
Poetry (Mr. Halfways, Eschropolis, Edith
Sitwell as Victoriana)
Thrill—Beautiful Literature
Luxuria—Sexual Indulgence (D. H. Lawrence)
Drug-induced Mysticism
Witchcraft
Romanticism (including love of Nature)
Mr. Broad (the Liberal Church)
Idealism
Magic (Anthroposophy and Rudolph Steiner)
Intoxication