Both Bunyan’s work The Pilgrim’s Progress and Vetranović’s epic poem Pelegrin have journey as the arche-typal image of quest. The image of journey serves as a metaphor to analyze the inner life of man, his doubts, fears, moral dilemmas, etc. However, the approach applied by the two authors is different, as are the two allegorical traditions to which they belong. This is especially obvious in the use of the same or similar details. In The Pilgrim’s Progress the treatment of all the details is such that they give encouragement to the main character to overcome the diffioultes in the dingenous journey, which produces a sense of optimism both in the main character and in the reader. In Pelegrin the same details serve to frighten the character, to minimize his figure so that he almost becomes a non-entity. The elements of the grotesque in Pelegrin strengthen that impression. Consequently, Vetranović’s work is said to contain some elements present in the 20th century literature.
