[PW] Bunyan and de Geideville -- and Ms Curt.

[swguardian-stumpers at yahoo.com]

>From The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan. http://www.bartleby.com/217/0705.html 

   "The question of the originality of The Pilgrim’s Progress, as to how far its author was indebted to previous allegorists, has been raised again and again. Comparisons have been instituted between this book and de Guileville’s Pilgrimage of the Sowle, in which we have the vision of a city in the heavens acting as an incentive to a pilgrimage on earth, and in the course of which we come upon a wicket-gate and a reception in the house of Grâce Dieu, recalling that of Christian in the house called Beautiful. That there are ideas in common is obvious enough; but the probable explanation is that they had one common source. The looking for a city with eternal foundations was a New Testament idea as accessible to Bunyan as to the monk of Chaliz; while the house of Grâce Dieu and the Palace Beautiful, like the house of Mercy in The Faerie Queene, may well have been suggested by the old houses of entertainment prepared for pilgrims or travellers on their way. Spenser sets forth
 in allegory the dangers, the conflicts and the final victory of the Red Cross knight of holiness; but, apart from the question of the probability or otherwise of Bunyan’s having access to The Faerie Queene, it may be noted that there is one important contrast between this allegory and his own. Spenser dealt mainly with abstract virtues and qualities, his book is an epic of the struggles and triumph of truth; whereas Bunyan, like Chaucer, drew personal portraits and gave concrete presentations of vices and virtues. It would not be difficult to show that Spenser was weakest precisely where Bunyan was strongest."

Peter Macinnis <petermacinnis at ozemail.com.au> wrote:
  This is curiosity.

Source: 306 of 'Scientific American', November 5, 1859:

LITERARY LARCENY.—An extraordinary statement is in circulation in London 
respecting the 'Pilgrim’s Progress', namely, that this celebrated work 
was not written by John Bunyan, but that the entire story is made up 
from an ancient manuscript. Miss Catherine Isabella Curt has published a 
translation, from a French manuscript (in the British Museum), of the 
“Pylegremage of the Sowle,’ by G. de Geideville, a churchman who 
flourished in the fifteenth century. A translation of the original work 
was printed by Caxton in 1483, and Bunyan's 'Pilgrims Progress' is said 
to be nearly a verbatim copy of that extremely rare book.

(NOTE: The source is Cornell's 'Making of America'. I used their OCR 
and corrected it from an image file. The names are all double-checked.)

I have failed, so far, to trace any Web reference to this claim, or to 
de Geideville or to Ms Curt, and I am wondering (no more than that) what 
happened to the claim -- or even where it was made. The local Proquest 
Historical Papers has nothing on de Geideville, there is no mention of 
this "scandal" in "The Times".

Ah well, at least it's in the archives now.

cheers


-- 
_--|\ Peter Macinnis petermacinnis at ozemail.com.au
/ \ Feral word tinker on the right side of Oz at Manly
\.--._* <-NSW, where they also surf who only stand and wade
v http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm
_______________________________________________
Project Wombat
list at project-wombat.org
http://www.project-wombat.org/



.....................
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom 
of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power  than  by violent and sudden usurpations." ~James Madison, speech,  Virginia  Convention, 1788

Sue Watkins