How The Pilgrim's Progress drew on Ecclesiastes
A documented line of influence: John Bunyan demonstrably engaged Solomon’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Ecclesiastes
Solomon · c. 250 BCE
BibleThe influenced
The Pilgrim's Progress
John Bunyan · 1678
EnlightenmentRelevance
7/10
On The Pilgrim's Progress’s page
- Vanity Fair isn't Bunyan's invention — he names the source inside the book, quoting Ecclesiastes' "vanity of vanities, all is vanity"
- The Preacher's hard look at worldly pleasure as emptiness is what the whole episode dramatizes: a marketplace of nothing the faithful must walk through
- Read Ecclesiastes first and you'll catch the borrowed line the moment you reach the Fair
On Ecclesiastes’s page
- Bunyan lifted his most famous episode straight from here — The Pilgrim's Progress's Vanity Fair is named for Ecclesiastes' "vanity of vanities, all is vanity"
- The Preacher's verdict on the emptiness of worldly things becomes a town the pilgrims have to pass through and resist
- One verse, set as an epigraph in Bunyan's text, generated a whole allegorical set-piece