in manuscript? Surely, he could recognize its
superiority to any then being written in the col-
ony! It may be that the answer can be found in a
further brief consideration of doctrine and artis-
tic practice.
The opening stanza of ‘‘The Accusation of
the Inward Man,’’ a section ofGods Determina-
tions, contains the following lines:
The Understanding’s dark, and therefore
Will
Account of Ill for Good, and Good for ill...
The Will is hereupon perverted so,
It laquyes after, ill; doth good foregoe.
The Reasonable Soule doth much delight
A Pickpact t’ride o’ the Sensuall Appetite.
And hence the heart is hardened, and toyes
With Love, Delight, and Joye, yea Vanities.
We here find ourselves confronted by such
phrases as ‘‘Understanding’s dark,’’ ‘‘The Will,’’
and ‘‘The Reasonable Soule.’’ If we apply to
them their present-day acceptation, we undoubt-
edly derive a certain amount of sense from the
passage. The fact is, however, that our interpre-
tation of these lines has no connection whatever
with the meaning intended by the poet, for
whom these terms were the copestones of a com-
plex and involved philosophy collected and codi-
fied from almost innumerable writers going back
through the Renaissance to Aristotle. Here we
are presented with the psychological theories
which reinforced technologia; here we have ‘‘sci-
ence’’ consciously and deliberately wedded to
theology. In Professor Miller’s words:
... reason, free and independent, is the king
and ruler of the faculties, and its consort, the
will, is queen and mistress. Puritan theologians
made these two the symbol of the soul’s high
station in the aristocratic society of the cosmos,
and explained that by their voluntary coo ̈pera-
tion the soul becomes both intelligent and
responsible.
It is with such massive weight that the in-
nocent phrase, ‘‘Reasonable Soule,’’ becomes
invested, and if we go a little deeper, this is
what we find: the brain, ruled over by Reason
(synonymous with Understanding), is divided
into three areas—the forward area contains the
imagination; the middle, common sense; and the
rear, memory. Reason (Understanding) is the
agent which selects proper perceptions from the
memory or imagination (both of which have in
turn complicated functions of their own), and
transmits these to the Will, which lodges in the
heart. Therefore when ‘‘The Understanding’s
dark,’’ mistaking evil for good and good for
evil, the Will is corrupted, with the inevitable
sinful consequences indicated in the last two
lines. To go beyond this in explication of Taylor’s
text is unnecessary; for the reader who possesses
a working knowledge of Puritan doctrine the
meaning is clear, and for the reader who does
not, Professor Miller’s book is required reading.
Where the concepts are not specified, we can be
certain that their literal sense pervades the poetry.
They are never merely the mortar holding the
structure together; theyarethe structure. What
we find, in short, is not poetry which embodies
doctrine, but doctrine cast in poetic form. It is
the unqualified primacy of doctrine over poetic
expression which in Taylor’s case spells the differ-
ence between mediocrity and greatness.
Similarly, Taylor’s imagery, basically meta-
physical, was conditioned and shaped at the
source of his imagination by the Puritan theories
of rhetoric and psychology. There is no doubt
that within these severely narrow limitations he
was successful, as becomes clearer if we define
the area of his success. Metrical skill and even
grammar were subordinated to the idea to be
conveyed, and the idea existed exclusively in
terms of Puritan theology. The homely imagery,
if regarded as a virtue, may therefore also be
interpreted as a deliberate effort to keep to the
broadest level of communication. The ends to be
reached explain why sustained passages of real
beauty are not to be looked for: the transmission
of theological truth transcends the esthetic neces-
sity for the flawless blending of communication
and art. Even what we today call the arts, or as
much as remained after thetriviumandquadri-
viumwere modified to fit the Puritan curriculum,
possessed little value beyond their ability to con-
tribute toeupraxia, a concept which reduced the
realm of beauty to practical purposes.
Of all the poems at present in print, the
group entitled ‘‘Five Poems’’ in the Poetical
Worksis the most rewarding. Taylor in these
poems displays his technical and lyrical virtuo-
sity at their best, and somehow, wonderfully
enough, manages to combine art and message
more felicitously than anywhere else. Yet, how
great is such praise when it is recalled that the
original manuscript of his verse runs to four
hundred pages quarto? Gods Determinations
inescapably invites comparison, no matter what
Taylor’s intentions or the apologies of his critics,
withParadise Lost, and the ‘‘Preface’’ toGodsHuswifery