SOURCE: Spargo, Tamsin. “‘I being taken from you in presence’: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners and claims to authority.” In The Writing of John Bunyan, pp. 43-67. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 1997.

In the following essay, Spargo examines Grace Abounding as one of the first texts to explore the subject of liberal humanism, noting that it has often been studied as a founding example of the struggle to define the meaning of authority, authorship, and modern subjectivity.

I. Presence Restored?

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners occupies a unique position within the traditionally agreed canon of texts by John Bunyan. In a literary criticism which takes as its supreme object of knowledge the individual human consciousness, any text which can be read as autobiographical is assured of a double significance. It may be read as itself offering the most immediate access to the originating consciousness of the...