Edward Taylor (1642-1729) New England Puritan. Born 1645? Coventry Warwickshire, Eng. Died 1729 Westfield,

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Edward Taylor (1642-1729) New England Puritan.
Born 1645? Coventry Warwickshire, Eng.Died
1729Westfield,
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After the Great Ejection, left England(wouldnt
sign the oath)studied divinity at
Harvardbecame minister of Westfield,
Massachusetts (physician too)
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Puritan He was learned, grave, severe, stubborn,
and stiff-necked. He was very, very pious but
sincere.
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His poetry shows that Taylor was a devoted
Calvinist. It was his custom to write a poem
("Meditation") before each Lord's Supper.
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Religious intellectualwritings intended to
defend the Puritan faith (reformed theology or
Calvinism) against newer more liberal religious
ideas
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Poetry similar to that of English metaphysical
poet, John DonneAms only metaphysical poet of
the time
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Metaphysical meta transcending, over,
abovetranscending the physical world dwelling
in the spiritual world of ideas
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Poetry explored the mystery of Gods grace
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Tradition of medieval debate that explores the
progress of mans soul from creation and the fall
of man to redemption through Christ
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best work Preparatory Meditationsmost famous
poem Gods Determinationsexamples of Reformed
spiritual experience and devotion
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Gods Determinations

• Idea that everything in life is according to
  Gods plan and that Gods mercy triumphs

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Carried on the meditation literary tradition
begun in the middle ages and later practiced by
Puritans. Process of meditation
involvesImmagination, Reason, Will
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Subject imagining a scene drawn from the Old or
New Testaments, the details of the life of
Christ, the terrors of hell, or a current
situation.
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Truth thru reason deriving eternal truths
(invisible things of God) from that scene
through a process of reasoning about ones own
relation to God
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Will determining to have more faith, to give up
sin, to abide by God's laws, or to have greater
moral discernment
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The Puritan Conception of The Mind Man seen as
a  "receptor" to divine will. 
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• Puritans believed that because of Adam's misuse
  of his faculties, God had withdrawn his blessing 
  from the reasoning process, causing a paralysis
  of the faculties and a disruption of the flow of
  information

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thus man could no longer automatically understand
God's will.  Both meditation and the conversion
process were attempts to "rewire" or "reconnect"
this arc.
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Taylor, like Bradstreet, frequently uses the
"Venus and Adonis" form (stanzas consisting of
six lines of iambic pentameter rhyming ababcc)
that permits questioning in the quatrain and an
answer or conclusion in the couplet.