Bunyan and Things: A Book for Boys and Girls

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 16; p. 7
• Main Author: Tambling, Jeremy
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2012
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Bunyan, John (1628-1688); Children; English literature
• ISSN: 0954-0970

[...]the thing is what is material, but does not quite have the status of a distinctive name, and it cannot be brought into full objectification; and here it is worth clarifying, secondly, that , the thing is associated with what Freud calls 'the lost object', and is always a substitute, then, for something unnameable that has been lost, which is represented by, but is not identical to, the mother.17 Then, thirdly, the thing as object stands in the place of the symbol; it has a phallic reality, but this is always substitutional, in place of lack and loss. [...]in the preface, ''Our Women please themselves with childish Toys' (1. 91-92): 'things' being part of country life - an egg, a flint, a fish, a swallow, a bee, a spider, a mole, a cuckoo, a butterfly, a lark, fatted swine, a post-boy, a horse, a ring of bells, a child with a bird (two small things together), a rose-bush, a pismire (recalling Proverbs 6:6-9), a horse and rider, a penny-loaf, a boy and a paper of plums (where the emphasis is on things as consumable, gone in a moment), or a lantern. The cuckoo is first addressed, and seen as inadequate in all the seasons (only winter is not spoken of), and then commented on, in the last six lines: Since Cuckows forward not our early Spring, Nor help with notes to bring our Harvest in: