第6單元　約翰?班揚

John Bunyan (1628-1688)（約翰·班揚）

1Life（生平）

John Bunyan was born in the little village of Elstow, near Bedford in 1628. He joined a small group of non-conformists among the working people, and soon became active both in preaching and in writing. According to the passing of a law forbidding unlicensed preaching after the Restoration, he was arrested and kept in jail for 12 years. He was the chief Puritan writer to participate in the struggle against the corrupt, dissolute feudal regimes of Charles II and James II after John Milton.

約翰·班揚于1628年出生在貝德福特附近埃爾斯多村莊。他加入工人當中一個不信奉英國國教的小團體，很快便積極從事傳道和寫作事業。王朝復辟后通過的禁止未經當局許可傳道的法案使班揚被捕入獄，長達12年。他是繼約翰·彌爾頓之后又一個主要的清教徒作家，他參加了反查理二世和詹姆斯二世的封建專制統治的斗爭。

2Major Works（主要作品）

The Pilgrim’s Progress《天路歷程》

Holy War《圣戰》

3Selected Work（選讀作品）

◆The Pilgrim’s Progress《天路歷程》

It is a religious allegory and is divided into two parts. The allegory takes the form of a dream by the author, in which he sees and tells Christian’s pilgrimage. Part II relates Christian’s wife who sets out with her children on the same pilgrimage, accompanied by her neighbour Mercy. Experiencing lots of difficulties, they get to their destination.

Though an allegory, the places that Bunyan paints are English scenes, and the conversations vividly repeat the language of his time.

The selected part is the most famous scene in the novel—the Vanity Fair. It describes one of the tests the hero has experienced, which is also exciting part of the book. In this chapter, the author compares their own society to “vanity fair” and all people in society are called the devil. It serves to show how the author detests the society.

此書采用寓言形式寫成。這個寓言出現在作者的一個夢里，在夢里他看到并講述了基督徒克里斯蒂的朝圣歷程。第二部分講述妻子和孩子在鄰居“仁慈”的陪伴下開始同樣的朝圣歷程并最終到達目的地。

雖然使用寓言體，書中描繪的場景來自英國真實場景，所講語言是他那個時代語言的形象再現。

這里所選的是其中最著名的一場，即“名利場”，描寫了主人公所經歷的許多考驗中的一次，是全書比較精采的部分。在這一章中，作者把自己所處的社會比作“名利場”，把社會上形形色色的人物稱作魔鬼，足見作者對當時的社會丑惡如何深惡痛絕。