Determinationsreminds us that William Blake
was to askhisquestions with even more penetra-
tion and amplitude of reference. Taylor has
given us sufficient evidence of what he might
have done had the major control of his poetic
genius rested on a basis broader than the theo-
logical compulsions of his community.
But he was, first and foremost, a Puritan
clergyman; it may therefore be taken for granted
that both his orthodoxy and his clerical knowl-
edge were impeccable. There is no record of his
having aroused the antagonism of his fellow
clergymen; on the contrary, the available infor-
mation indicates that from the time of his dis-
embarkation in Boston in 1668 until his
acceptance of the Westfield post in December,
1671 (after refusing a choice position at the Sec-
ond Boston Church tendered him by Increase
Mather), he was unusually well regarded. There
is nothing in his later life to alter this belief.
This means that he was extremely sensitive
at all points of contact with, and at all times to
deviations from, orthodoxy; yet he had at the
same time the heart and impulses of a poet. Is it
therefore too much to suppose that there were
occasions when the poet transcended the clergy-
man, even if such occasions were limited to a
phrase or a sparkling metaphor? We may well
imagine that Taylor then looked at his verse with
a sense of dismay, that he realized it had some-
how strayed from the narrow path set out for it
by theology and logic, and that his verse ‘‘suf-
fered’’ from being poetic at the expense of direct
meaning, as in this excerpt from the ‘‘Preface’’ to
Gods Determinations, already quoted in part:
Infinity, when all things it beheld,
In Nothing, and of Nothing all did build,
Upon what Base was first the Lath, wherein
He turned this Globe, and rigall’d it so trim?
Who blew the Bellows of his Furnace Vast?
Or held the Mould wherein the world was
Cast?
Who laid its Corner Stone? Or whose
Command?
Where stand the Pillars upon which it stands?
Who Lac’de and Fillitted the earth so fine,
With Rivers like green ribbons Smaragdine?
Who made the Sea’s its Selvedge, and it locks
Like a Quilt Ball within a silver box?
Who spread its Canopy? or Curtains Spun?
Who in this Bowling Alley Bowld the Sun?
It may perhaps be that Taylor’s sense of the
imperfection of his verse—from the Puritan
standpoint—caused him to suppress it in its
entirety. It may be he felt, ever-watchful shep-
herd that he was, that there was more in his lines
than should be presented to a reading public as
sensitive as he was. All of which brings us to the
major paradox in Taylor’s verse: it is precisely at
those places where Taylor has lapsed from Puri-
tan standards that we find his poetic expression
most rewarding to the modern reader; yet his
lapses are exceptions; the rule is that he writes
acceptable Puritan verse. Therefore, from the
Puritan point of view he must be considered a
fine poet who made certain regrettable slips,
whereas from our point of view he is a mediocre
poet—although the best American Puritan poet
known to us—who has infrequent and incom-
plete passages of beauty. To put it somewhat less
seriously, Taylor is a Puritan poet who did not,
unfortunately for the modern reader, fail in his
appointed task often enough.
Source:Sidney E. Lind, ‘‘Edward Taylor: A Revalua-
tion,’’ inNew England Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4, Decem-
ber 1948, pp. 518–30.Sources
Hammond, Jeffrey A., ‘‘Discovery and Reaction—before
1960,’’ inEdward Taylor: Fifty Years of Scholarship and
Criticism, Camden House, 1993, pp. 1–21.
Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman, eds., ‘‘Emblem
Books’’ and ‘‘Metaphysical Poetry,’’ in AHandbook
to Literature, 9th ed., Prentice Hall, 2003, pp.177–78,
309–310.
Jeske, Jeff, ‘‘Edward Taylor and the Traditions of Puritan
Nature Philosophy,’’ inThe Tayloring Shop: Essays on
the Poetry of Edward Taylor in Honor of Thomas M. and
Virginia L. Davis, edited by Michael Schulter, University
of Delaware Press, 1997, pp. 27–67.
Kutler, Stanley I., ed., ‘‘Puritans and Puritanism,’’ inDic-
tionary of American History, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003.
Stanford, Donald E., ‘‘Edward Taylor,’’ inDictionary of
Literary Biography, Vol. 24,American Colonial Writers,
1606–1734, edited by Emory Elliott, Gale Research,
1984, pp. 310–21.
Taylor, Edward, ‘‘Housewifery,’’ inThe Norton Anthol-
ogy of Poetry, 3rd ed., edited by Alexander W. Allison, et
al., Norton, 1983, p. 385.
VanGemeren, Willem A., ‘‘Psalm 23,’’ inThe Expositor’s
Bible Commentary: With the New International Version,
Vol. 5,Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs,
Zondervan, 2003, pp. 214–19.Huswifery