John Bunyan's "Celestial City" and Oliver Cromwell's "Ideal Society"

Abstract

The object of this essay is to draw a parallel between John Bunyan's dreams and ideals for a new English society as they allegorically appear in The Pilgrim's Progress, part I, and Oliver Cromwell's application of the traditional tenets of the Puritan religion —call, election, predestination— to the organization of the state. Even though Cromwell had died long before Bunyan's work was published in 1678, it can be established that such dreams and ideals for a new English society had been very much in evidence for a long time.