HW 7: Text Analysis

Text Analysis: Influential Religious Books

Introduction

History has been marked by influential books. These books have provoked revolutions, taken down laws, created kings, and changed lives. Likewise, some of these books have shaped religious thought throughout the ages. Two of the most influential pieces of Christian literature are The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri and The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.

The Divine Comedy is one of the most well know works of fiction to come out of the Roman Catholic church. In the book, Dante himself is guided through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Heaven (Paradiso). The most well known of the three parts to his work, The Inferno, is largely responsible for the concept of the various circles in Hell.

The Pilgrim’s Progress is perhaps just as influential in Protestant Christian churches. The book depicts the journey of the main character (aptly named Christian) to the Celestial City ruled by the King. Pilgrim’s Progress functions as an extended metaphor for the Christian life, including the temptations to turn away from the “narrow path.”

Both books represent a journey. Both books talk about heaven and hell. Both books examine the Christian life. Yet because of their different religious starting points, they would make a great study for comparison.

Preparation and Data Wrangling

I will be using texts from the Gutenberg Project, which is an organization dedicated to publishing books online after the copyright has expired. The Gutenberg project is one of the best places to get the full text of older books.

The books need to be downloaded from the Gutenberg Project. Then they need to be tokenized by word to analyze the emotions associated with the books.

Analysis

How does Pilgrim’s Progress Change Throughout the Book?

As Christian progresses along his journey, he gets closer and closer to his end destination—the Celestial City. He also learns a lot about himself and the world as he meets more people and encounters more trials. As he gains experience on his journey, Christian becomes more able to avoid trouble by staying on the path to the Celestial City. Does the positivity of the book change as the author nears the end of the book to reflect Christian’s journey?

As we can see, the beginning of the text is very negative. During this time, Christian is still in the City of Destruction. He’s just starting out on his journey and learning a lot. Throughout his journey, the negatives become less prominent, and the book takes on a more positive tone. At the end of the book, Christian crosses the river of death (the very negative spot at the end of the book) and is welcomed into the Celestial City in a bittersweet moment of leaving behind his former life.

How does the overarching emotion of Pilgrim’s Progress compare to that of Dante’s Inferno?

Out of the three parts of Dante’s Divine Comedy, the first part, Inferno, is possibly the most well known. This first section detail’s Dante’s descent into Hell with Virgil as his guide. With it being the most famous, it seems natural to compare it to its Protestant counterpart.

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As expected, Dante’s Inferno is significantly more negative than Pilgrim’s Progress. While Bunyan’s protestant fiction includes mentions of Hell, destruction, and damnation, the ultimate purpose of the book is to show that Christian does in fact make it to the Celestial City. In Dante’s version, he doesn’t reach Paradise until the third section of the Comedy. Thus, we can expect to find emotions like sadness, fear, and anger in The Inferno, while trust and anticipation are frequent themes in Pilgrim’s Progress.

How does the positivity of The Divine Comedy change throughout the parts?

The result is exactly as expected. When Dante is in the inferno (Hell), he is surrounded by suffering. In purgatory, he is able to see a less prominent form of suffering as purgatory is a waiting room for heaven. Finally, Dante makes it to paradise, where he sees the glory of eternal life.

Conclusion

As we can see from the analyses conducted above, the two stories are very similar in nature. Both authors told of one man on a journey to discover both themselves and their faith. Both books have been highly influential and are still the subject of discussion in religious and academic circles. Despite being written long ago, the stories live on in the communities they influenced.