though it is something of a departure from so
much of Taylor’s poetry. Generally his poetry
has more in common with his sermons, exploring
themes of doctrine and scripture. ‘‘Huswifery,’’
on the other hand, concerns domestic themes in
a very personal spiritual way. Jeffrey A. Ham-
mond writes inEdward Taylor: Fifty Years of
Scholarship and Criticismthat ‘‘Huswifery’’ is
‘‘Taylor’s most Donne-like and perhaps least
representative meditative poem.’’ John Donne
is considered the predominant of the metaphys-
ical poets. Stanford goes so far as to remark that
‘‘Taylor is sometimes even more fantastic than
Donne,’’ adding that ‘‘in his diction Taylor com-
bined the colloquial with the cosmic (again like
Donne), employing abstruse theological or phil-
osophical terms with the homely idiom of the
farm or the weaver’s trade.’’ But ‘‘Huswifery’’ is
not just an example of metaphysical poetry. Jeff
Jeske comments inThe Tayloring Shop: Essays
on the Poetry of Edward Taylor in Honor of
Thomas M. and Virginia L. Davisthat the poem
‘‘derives entirely from the emblem tradition.’’ An
emblemis an image with a short poem or motto
carrying a moral theme. Emblem books were
popular in the fifteenth through the seventeenth
centuries and derived from the emerging art of
engraving. Emblem books were collections of
emblems, giving readers short, accessible snip-
pets of literature and insight. Jeske places ‘‘Hus-
wifery’’ in this tradition because of the brevity of
the poem, the spiritual content, and the strong
visual metaphor.CRITICISMJennifer Bussey
Bussey has a bachelor’s degree in English litera-
ture and a master’s degree in interdisciplinary
studies. She is an independent writer specializing
in literature. In the following essay, Bussey com-
pares ‘‘Huswifery’’ to Psalm 23 in the Bible.
Edward Taylor was a Puritan minister, poet,
and writer. He authored volumes of sermons and
verse, and he remains one of the most important
literary voices in early American history. His
poems, like his sermons, center on matters of
faith and doctrine, although his poetry often
takes on a personal, meditative character. In
‘‘Huswifery,’’ Taylor’s speaker longs to be used
by God in the process of making a garment of
salvation. The poem is shaped by the motif
through which the speaker expresses a personal
desire and by the exploration of spiritual truths.
Similarly, David, in the biblical book of Psalms,
writes poetry to express himself and his relation-
ship to God. David’s psalms are varied in tone
and purpose; they are at times for worship,
thanksgiving, longing, humility, confession, joy,
and every other emotion and experience David
went through. Perhaps the most famous of his
psalms is Psalm 23. Many are familiar with the
lines beginning, ‘‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want’’; the psalm is often quoted at funerals
or in times of tragedy and struggle. Like ‘‘Hus-
wifery,’’ Psalm 23 relies on a motif to relate per-
sonal longing and a pursuit of spiritual truth. A
closer look reveals deeper similarities.
In ‘‘Huswifery,’’ the speaker offers an
extended metaphor of spinning wool into yarn,
which is then woven into fabric and then dyed to
be made into a garment of salvation. The speaker
asks for God himself to be the spinning wheel, for
his own soul to be the spool, and for his own
desires and will to be the flyers. The speaker thenNew England Puritan man(ÓNorth Wind Picture Archives
/ Alamy)
Huswifery