Taylor, Edward. (ca 1642 - 1729).
L i f e
>> colonist in Massachusetts, New England
- received university education (Harvard), studied ministry
- as a minister provided leadership during the crises of King Philip’s War
- served as a community physician > images of medical plants and herbs in poems
- fathered 14 children, buried 5 of them in infancy > poems on this theme
W o r k
- requested his work not to be published after his death
- his manuscripts found in the Yale University Library
R e l i g i o u s P o e t r y :
Preparatory Meditations (1682 - 1725):
- a series of intensely private poems
- rich profusions of metaphors and images, playful language, puns and paradoxes
< the Metaphysical tradition
- images from the Bible: especially from the sensuous “Song of Songs”
- images from the activities of everyday life: uses the dialect of farming
=> God’s message can be divined in a wordplay
God's Determinations Touching His Elect (ca 1680):
- a long moral poem opposing good x evil in military terms
< the Bible and the experience of the English Civil War
O c c a s i o n a l P o e t r y :
- author of miscellaneous poems, distinctive for his apprehension of detail
=> the poet of ‘wilderness baroque’
"Huswifery":
- weaving as a metaphor for God's creations
"Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold":
- a poem of detailed natural observation
Basics
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Author
Edward Taylor. (ca 1642 - 1729). American colonist. -
Work
Poet. Clergyman. Author of Preparatory Meditations (1682 - 1725). -
Genres
Metaphysical Puritan poetry. Devotional and occasional poems.
Literature
Baym, Nina, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.
Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Cunliffe, Marcus. The Literature of the United States. London: Penguin, 1991.
Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Lexington: D. C. Heath, 1994.
McQuade, Donald, gen.ed. The Harper American Literature. New York: Harper & Collins, 1996.
Ruland, Richard, Malcolm Bradbury. Od puritanismu k postmodernismu. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1997.
Vančura, Zdeněk, ed. Slovník spisovatelů: Spojené státy americké. Praha: Odeon, 1979.
Quote
"This goes to pot, that not / Nature doth call. / Strive not above what strength hath got, / Lest in the brawle / Thou fall".
From "Upon a Spider Catching a Fly".