As a ten year old I remember being read to by an eccentric Head Teacher. His favoured authors were Dickens, Wordsworth and Bunyan and along with A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist and Daffodils I vividly remember the strange world of Pilgrim's Progress. I also remember singing John Bunyan's resume of his book set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams (although to call him the composer of this folk tune seems to be pushing it!). The story and especially the hymn spoke to my early love of chivalry and Arthurian romances; the idea of the lone traveller setting out on a quest for something usually mistily shrouded but quite specific is very strong in my psyche.
A reminder of the story follows:
The English novel begins behind bars, in extremis. Its first author, John Bunyan, was a Puritan dissenter whose writing starts with sermons and ends with fiction. His famous allegory, the story of Christian, opens with a sentence of luminous simplicity that has the haunting compulsion of the hook in a great melody. "As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Denn; And I laid me down in that place to sleep: And as I slept I dreamed a Dream."A "Denn" is a prison, and Bunyan wrote most of the book in Bedford county gaol, having been arrested for his beliefs during the "Great Persecution" of 1660-1690. He shares the experience of prison with Cervantes, who had the idea for Don Quixote while incarcerated in La Mancha. Like so many novels, The Pilgrim's Progress blends fact and fiction. As well as being the record of Bunyan's dream, a well-known fictional device, it is also an archetypal tale – a quest, fraught with danger. Christian's pilgrimage takes him through the Slough of Despond, Vanity Fair and the Delectable Mountains in a succession of adventures that keep the reader turning the page. With his good companions, Faithful and Hopeful, he vanquishes many enemies before arriving at the Celestial City with the line that still reverberates through the English literary tradition: "So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."
In Hollywood terms, the novel has a perfect "arc". It also contains a cast of unforgettable characters, from Mr Worldly Wiseman to Lord Hategood, Mr Stand-fast and Mr Valiant-for-Truth.
(The Guardian Best Books List)
I suppose now with the benefit of hindsight I can appreciate the steeping of my young mind in protestant Christianity. I went to Methodist Sunday School, loved singing hymns, and later joined the Boys' Brigade in the family tradition. And always this image of a lone traveller in all my favourite hymns: "Who would true valour see", "Courage, Brother, do not stumble", "My faith it is an oaken staff, the traveller's well loved aid", "Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?" and of course, "When a Knight won his spurs". I was never encouraged to analyse these hymns, just sing them in an open voiced, unapologetic manner that marks one out as brought up Northern Methodist. Of course, they're all suffused through with brave journeying, overcoming whatever problems you have, and reaching the destination which is always there if not a little mysterious.
Another favourite hymn was Jerusalem: "And did those feet in ancient time..." Blake's hymn of political striving and resacralising the landscape interpreted by me as the goal of my incipient socialism and Green awareness.
So on an individual Bunyanesque way, how do I see my progress. It's certainly goal oriented which is to get back to my starting place, home in Cromer. Will I be changed? I hope there will perhaps be insight, self knowledge, even some sort of grounding and rooting in the Norfolk landscape and its many treasures. Personally, my goal is less easy to define, in fact it is very misty in the best Arthurian tradition, perhaps, as with the Way of Taoism, to travel is all that's needed .
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