In the introduction to one edition of A Book for Boys and Girls, the celebrated English poet and Baptist preacher John Bunyan asks:
Here, Bunyan appears to be addressing – and apologizing to – his would-be detractors “for seeming to play the fool” by penning and subsequently publishing a collection of poems that are unabashed in their “simplicity, and [written] in the same pure, idiomatic language” that ornaments Bunyan’s highly renowned Christian allegory The Pilgrim’s (Cheever 109, 106).
It ought to be noted, however, that Bunyan’s recurring employ of references to the “smallest things,” including, or such as, the afore-mentioned “fly,” in connection to much larger – and predominantly religious, or sacred – truths in A Book for Boys and …show more content…
The narrator of the poem confesses that they, privy only to fleeting glimpses of light, are still unable to “distinguish day from night.” In their confusion, Bunyan writes, the narrator resembles those “who are but just of grace possest, / [for] They know not yet if they be curst or blest” (7). In addressing their confusion and worry – and in emphasizing the latter by employing several cognitive verbs in quick succession: “I fancy,” “I hope, I doubt” – Bunyan seems to celebrate their humility. This notion of celebration, or praise, is likewise discernible in Bunyan’s depiction of the narrator’s self-awareness, which is so unlike the lack of self-awareness exhibited by the subjects of “Of the Boy and Butter Fly”; this narrator seems acutely aware of the limitations to their understanding of the universe. In depicting this awareness, Bunyan makes it apparent that he finds his readers capable of great introspection and, in doing so, he lends them a sense of power not unlike the sense of power lent to the subjects of “Upon the
Here, Bunyan appears to be addressing – and apologizing to – his would-be detractors “for seeming to play the fool” by penning and subsequently publishing a collection of poems that are unabashed in their “simplicity, and [written] in the same pure, idiomatic language” that ornaments Bunyan’s highly renowned Christian allegory The Pilgrim’s (Cheever 109, 106).
It ought to be noted, however, that Bunyan’s recurring employ of references to the “smallest things,” including, or such as, the afore-mentioned “fly,” in connection to much larger – and predominantly religious, or sacred – truths in A Book for Boys and …show more content…
The narrator of the poem confesses that they, privy only to fleeting glimpses of light, are still unable to “distinguish day from night.” In their confusion, Bunyan writes, the narrator resembles those “who are but just of grace possest, / [for] They know not yet if they be curst or blest” (7). In addressing their confusion and worry – and in emphasizing the latter by employing several cognitive verbs in quick succession: “I fancy,” “I hope, I doubt” – Bunyan seems to celebrate their humility. This notion of celebration, or praise, is likewise discernible in Bunyan’s depiction of the narrator’s self-awareness, which is so unlike the lack of self-awareness exhibited by the subjects of “Of the Boy and Butter Fly”; this narrator seems acutely aware of the limitations to their understanding of the universe. In depicting this awareness, Bunyan makes it apparent that he finds his readers capable of great introspection and, in doing so, he lends them a sense of power not unlike the sense of power lent to the subjects of “Upon the