Conclusion: Bunyan’s Turn

Abstract

This chapter argues that the work of John Bunyan signals a shift in the relationship between conversion and rhetoric. Looking at both Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim’s Progress, it considers Bunyan’s use of tropes as a system of portable signs informed by biblical typology. Exploring how this results in allegory replacing the ‘real’, the conclusion outlines how Bunyan’s writings reflect and perpetuate a fundamentally different attitude to trope to that present in the earlier conversion narratives addressed by the book.