Date of Award

7-1968

Degree Type

Master's Essay - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Literatures, Languages, and Cultures

First Advisor

Victor A. Kramer

Abstract

The poetry of Edward Taylor, the seventeenth-century Puritan poet and divine, is variously labeled "metaphysical," "meditative," and "baroque" and has been compared to the poetry of Donne, Herbert, and Crashaw. The qualities of his poetry which seem to warrant these comparisons (the density of his lines and the yoking "by violence" of the "most heterogeneous ideas," the structure and movement of many of his poems, and the use of "heavily ornate and sensuous metaphors"), along with what Donald Stanford has identified as an "increasing looseness of structure and an increasing irrationality" in his poetry, might seem to identify him as the last heir of the great meditative tradition in poetry. But this general statement of relationship cannot really define nor capture the peculiarity of Taylor's poetry. For while his poetry was shaped by the same meditative tradition, its affinity with the poetry of Herbert and Donne is often found to be just one of superficial theme, verbal similarities, and external, logical structure. But an attempt to understand his poetry by placing it in relation to the central meditative tradition as found in the work of Donne or Herbert can help us to differentiate the essential tone, feeling, and quality of Taylor's poetry. For Taylor's poetry is distinctly Puritan and colonial in more than just the doctrine it expresses. Its underlying spirit, what E. F. Carlisle has called its "deep form," is also intrinsically and fundamentally Puritan. And it is this spirit, more than simply the decline of a tradition or even technical skill, that shapes Taylor's poetry and separates it from the work of Donne and Herbert.

Comments

An Essay Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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