Puritan Poetícs

The University of l'fanÍtoba Puritan PoetÍcs: The Development of Lireral Metaphor Fron John Bunyan to Nathaniel llatrthorne by Eleanor Johuston A Thesis SubnitÈed Eo the Faculty of Graduate SÈudies In PartÍal FulfillnenÈ of the Requirenents for the Degree of Doetor of Philosophy Department of English l,Iinnipeg, l{aniÈoba March 1985 PURITAN POETICS: THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERAL I"IETAPHOR FROM JOHN BUNYAN TO NATHANIEL HAI^]THORNE BY ELEANOR JOHNSTON A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of the University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirenrents of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY @ ,1985 Permission has beerr granted to the LIBRARY OF THE UNIVER- SITY OF MANITOBA to lend or sell copies of this thesis. to the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA to microfilnr this thesis and to lend or sell copies of the film, and UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS to publish an abstract of this thesis. The author reserves other publication rights, and neither the thesis nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or other- wise reproduced without the author's writteu permission. La DocrcR oF PHTL0SoPHY (1985) Unj.versity of ManÍtoba English ülinnipeg, Manitoba TIÏLE: Puritan Poetics: The Development of Literal Metaphor from John Bunyan to NaËhaniel Hawthorne AUTHOR: Eleanor Johnston B. 4., M. A. (Ikríversity of Toronto) ADVISOR: Dr. David l,Iilliæs Ll-l- AcknowledgemenË I wj-sh to thaûk Dr. David Ï{il-J.iams, the rrlnterpreter" of thfs "Progressr" for his excellent guidance, and ifayne Fraser and ot¡r children, for their patÍence and love. E.J. l_v Table of Contents Introduct,ion I Not,es 15 Chapter One: "A literall God . a metaphoricall God t,oo'r: The Refornation of AugustiaÍ.an Aesthetics in Seventeenth-Century English PoetÍcs 16 Notes 77 Ctrapter Two: "I a- the I^Iay": The Aesthetics of Continulng Incar- oatíon in The PÍlgrimrs Progress, Part One . 89 Notes L75 Chapter Three: Epistles frcm the Preacher: The Hieratic Mode of l,lritlng in Puritan Devot,íonal Líterature . i89 Notes 243 Chapter Foun "Not even a net,aphorical existence": Hawthorne in an Age of llieratic and Demotic tanguage 247 Notes 281 Chapter Ffve: "The,figure, the body, the realÍty of sinr': IIaw- t ttProgresstt Ëhorne s in hís "Lettertt. 287 Not,es 344 Bibliography 354 Abs trac t "Puritan Poetlcs: The Deveìopment of Literal I'letaphor from John Bunyan to Nathanieì Hawthorne." By tìeanor Johnston. l''ledieval catholicism, with its heritage of Pìatonic and Augustinian dualism, has left literary criticism with a henitage of symbollsm and allegory, tlo differlng forms of figurative language which point to the same end--a transcendent reality beyond language. Recent critics have begun to argue for a "reformed" aesthetics to account for a Protestant belief in the Real Presence of God in scripture. This thesis articulates a specifically Puritan poetics by examining writings which insist upon a literal identification of the l,tord with the narned ,,thing.,, The cornerstone of Refermation theotogy which shaped Purítan writlng is fha rn#irr^ ñ^r.,^h l^-^- t^),^ :- Lt:- ., r I vrrs uur,rys pvnsr vr^3 LUyu)r uuu s LfudLtve^-^-!:..- eÃpf'e55lul¡^.----^--:--- tft ^L!---LIlln95 uT^i Inls worlo. The l'lord is made word in Scripture, made flesh in Christ. But divine author- ship continues in other imaqines Dei: the Book of the creaturesi the provi- dential historiesofchosen peoples; and the spoken and written words of prophets, including contemporary "voyces of God," who express that tlord anew. The crucial factor which distinguíshes Puritan from medieval theology and aesthetics is a kind of "univocation" which requires metaphor to say "one thing." The "one Iiteral sense" of Reformation exegesís is thus centred,in Puritan poetics.of the tlordron Iiterary and Iiteral incarnation. In Bunyan's use of Chríst's metaphor, "I am the Way,,,the pilgrim learns to read God's "llork" in his own heart, to become the continuing incarnation of God's l,lord in the world, made one with christ. The pllqrim's p rcgress, Part Two exchanges nntaphor for alìegory inasmuch as it falls back uponan absence of the thing referred to; the Real Presence is missing from the minretic I I I word. I page 2 Hawthorne, in an age of Transcendental rctonyny and demotic descrlptive realism, revives incarnational nntaphor--his Letter is made flesh and made word or art--and articulates an aesthetics which invoìves the reader as well as the artfst-narrator in the heroic act of creative interpretatlon and identiflcation. l.lhiìe Hawthorne's theology is nr¡re ironic than Bunyan's, they share the Puritan perception of llteral retaphor as the l,lord made flesh in chosen individuals and the llord made word in their stories of saìvation. Introduction As early as 1614 when Ben Jonson, in Bartholomew Faír satirized the hypocrlte ZeaL-of-the-Land Busyrs pÍous objections to PuPpets as idols' Protestant ltteralism was already consi.dered a sinpllstic tradition of inter- preËation which excludes, in both aesthetics and theology, any slmbolic or spirltr¡a} dinension. No::maa O. Brown presents the more moderu, if typical' complaint ia Love t s Bodv (1966) as he equates ProLesEant literalism with a temporarÍly popular branch of early tü¡entieth-century theology which sought. to defíne "the hist,orícal Jesus": "To say that historical events have a síngle meaning is to say that historical events are unlque (sing- ular); unívoeatj.on constïucts unÍlinear time. And on Ëhe oÈher hand !o see synbolÍsn ís to see eternal recurrence."l Such historícal conscious- ness blnds Èhe Protestant, Brown continues, to belief that the Incarzratíon t'O1d is a renote, r.rnj-que event, that and New Testament are made consistenL, forced into confo:mity, to reveal the sa¡ne líteral truÈh. And the PurÍtans in Ner¡ England can embark on a IiËeral reproduction of Israel in the wilde::ness. Bondage to the letter Ís bondage to Èhe past."z But Protestant literalism, long before fundamentalists began the quest for the historical Jesus, formed the cornerstone of an aesthetÍcs and theology which ¡¡ere literal Ín a very different sense. LuËherrs ínsfstence oû sola fide, soLa Litera is, rather, the claín that as there is one God, there is also one faith in, one l,Iord of, God" Georgía B. ChrisËopher describes the aesthetic deveJ-opment of this belief when -1- 2 she argues, in "Miltonrs tLiteraryt Theologyrt" Ehat Reformation theology focusses on !Eg1¡1, whÍch Erasmus translaÈed as sermo, speech, the contin- uatly acÈive expression of God.3 Luther and Calvin put such emphasÍs on the Word as ongoing creative expression that the transiÈÍon from theír Ëheology Ëo a specifically Reformation aesEheËics r^ras íneviÈable and immediaÈe. Readíng the scriptural Word I¡Ias an occasion for epíphany' a furËher revelation or incarnation of Christ the l{ord in the reader through the power of the Spirít: "AccordÍng to Luther, the discovery of clarity in ScripÈure r.raiÈed upon an epiphany of Èhe Holy SpÍrit. The Holy SpÍrit's work, formally consídered, was Ëhat of rhetorical experÈíse. In a very imporÈanË sense, faiËh became a rpoetic' acËÍvíty-- a passionate readíng of a divine text (in which the figures l^lere identified and read aright) followed by a reading of experience Ëhrough this Ëext. I,Jith the ReformaËion, relÍgious experience, Lo an overwhelming degree' became' literary' experien"a."4 Northrop Frye, whose The Great Code expresses the Èheological as well as Èhe aesthetic premíses of early Protestantism, explains Èhe power of Logos: "AccordÍng to Genesis 1:4, rGod said, Let there be light; and there was light. I That is, the word was the creative agenË that broughË the thing irrËo b.irrg."s The l,iord, with this great power, is rnade flesh ín Christ and, because ChrisË is the [{ord, He also is Scripture, again, the !üord of God. Fron this essentÍally metaphorical perspective, "literal" refers to the literary activíty of God's expression of Himself in radical, IÍteral, metaphors: J The evenËs the Bible describes are . "language eventsr" brought to us only through words; and it. is the words them- selves that have the authority, noÈ the everiLs they describe. The Bible means literally just what it says . -without primary reference Èo a correspondence of what Ít says to somethÍng outside what it says. !'Ie could almost say Lhat even the exisÈence of God is an inference from the existence of the Bible: in the beginning was the l,{ord. The primary and literal- meaning of the BÍble is íts centrÍpetal or poetÍc meaning. This prímary meaning, which rises simply from the Ínterconnection of the words, is Ëhe metaphor- i-cal meaning. Traditionally, the Biblefs narratÍve has been regarded as "literal-ly" hisËorical and its meaning as ttlíterally" doctrinal or didactÍc: the present book takes. myÈh and metaphor to be Ëhe true literal bases. Frye here uses the word "literally" aS a Pun. HÍs own staÈemenË--"The Bible means Iiterally jusÈ what it says"--has Èwo neanings, depending upon whether the emphasis is on t'literally" or t'means." The terms 'rmeËaphor" and "metaphoricalr" from this perspective, involve the issue of identity, as does a pun, but specÍfically Ídentity through creative expression, a continuing incarnation in words of the spiriLual world in the naÈural. To move from Reformation exegesis of Scripture as contÍnuing incarnatj-on to the writj-ng and reading of Puritan literature, one must first reaLíze that Bunyanr s conËemporaríes considered works such as The Pilerim I s Prosress as the Bíble made new and ËhaÈ , Ín the i¡ork of writing/preaching, Bunyan was received as an instrunent or voice of God. HÍs metaphors are liËeral, thaË is, radically metaphorical (A is B) as the result of incarnation (A is made B).

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