Quote 1
But must
I needs want solidness, because
By metaphors I speak? Were not God’s laws,
His gospel laws, in olden time held forth
By types, shadows, and metaphors?
In these lines from the Author’s Apology
that prefaces Part I, Bunyan defends the content of his work from
those who might accuse him of playing with mere fantasies. Bunyan
denies that his book must “want,” or lack, solidity simply because
it uses a metaphorical style. He affirms that metaphors can go hand
in hand with serious thought.
Bunyan’s self-defense goes to the heart of a long-standing
tradition of religious leaders looking askance at literature and
deeming it mere entertainment, empty of spiritual value. Religious
fiction writers through the ages have defended themselves in much
the same way that Bunyan does here. He notes that the Bible itself
contains metaphors and “types,” or examples representing general
truths. God’s gospel laws refer to the New Testament, in which Christ
delivers many of his most profound spiritual statements through
parables in which the actual content of the story is different from
what the story seems to portray. Bunyan’s scene of the floor sweeper
in the Interpreter’s house in Part I is an example of the author
composing his own parables much like those of Jesus.
