Chapter 4
Part IV of Chapter 1 of A Student's History of American Literature by William Simons. The Slipperbox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Matt Perard. Part IV. Puritan Poetry in New England. Baison Book.
Anne Bradstreet. Michael Wigglesworth. The Puritans were not susceptible to the charms of poetry. The strenuous life of the pioneer left little time for cultivating any of the arts. And the spirit of New England was too serious and too stern to permit indulgences in what was merely pleasant or beautiful. Even after the first critical years of danger and struggle were passed, the intellectual life of the people
was bounded by the narrow limits of religious discussion and theological debate. That the Puritan was not without imagination, however, is abundantly proved by the forceful figures and impetient rhetoric of the prose writers whom we have been considering. Moreover, some of these same men did occasionally slip into rhyme.
William Wood has been quoted. Even John Cotton was the author of verses, halting and rough-cune and full of the queer conceits which were common at the time. It is significant that this pious man wrote much of his verse in the pages of the household almanac where it remained hidden from the public eye. And sometimes he disguised its metrical character by inscribing it in Greek.
Much ingenuity was expended upon epitaphs and obituary tributes. So solemn a theme as that of death justifying poetical expression. If there were any opportunity to play upon the name of the deceased, the opportunity was gracefully seized. When the Reverend Samuel Stone, the successor of Thomas Hooker at Hartford, died in 1663, his colleagues vied with one another in their fervent
appreciations of his virtues. He was compared to the stone which Jacob set up and called Ebenezer, and also to the stone with which David slew Goliath. He was termed whetstone that edified the obtusist mind, lodestone that drew the iron heart unkind.
And this, within the compass of a single epitaph, one quotation will serve to show the skill with which these versifiers were sometimes able to conquer the difficulties of rhyme. Here lies the darling of his time. Mitchell expired in his prime, was four years short of 47, was found full ripe and plucked for heaven. If poetry be rare among our forefathers, it is nevertheless true that the first English book printed in America
passed for poetry with them, and for poetry of an edifying and noble type. The whole book of Psalms, commonly known as the Bay Song Book, was printed on the New Press at Cambridge in 1640. This work, designed to provide a metrical version of the Psalms of David, to be used in the churches, contains the joint efforts of three New England ministers,
the chief divines in the country, Richard Mather of Dorchester, Thomas Weld, and John Eliot of Roxbury. The preface, written by Mather, declares that It has been one part of our religious care and faithful endeavor to keep close to the original text. If, therefore,
the verses are not always so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect, let them consider that God's altar needs not our polishings, for we have respected rather a plain translation than to smooth our verses with the sweetness of any paraphrase. They so have attended conscience rather than elegance, fidelity rather than poetry. In the illustration of the art displayed by these divines in their paraphrase,
historians have invariably cited some of the most atrocious of the compositions. This seems hardly fair. The following examples are sufficient to show the average result of the sad mechanic exercise of these godly men. From paraphrase of Psalm 11 Psalm C1
Psalm C1 Psalm C2 Psalm C3 Psalm C4 Psalm C5
Psalm C6 Psalm C7 Psalm C8 Psalm C9 Psalm C9
Psalm C9 Psalm C9 Psalm C9 Psalm C9 Psalm C9
Psalm C9 Psalm C9 Psalm C9 Psalm C9 Puritanism in New England, there was one other Puritan versifier whose inspiration
appealed yet more strongly to contemporary minds. This most popular of early American poets was Reverend Michael Wigglesworth, minister at Malden, Massachusetts, author of a tremendous and dismal epic, surcharged with the extreme Calvinism of the time. This masterpiece of Puritan theological belief is entitled The Day of Doom. It was published in 1662 and for a hundred years remained, as Lowell expresses it, the solace of every fireside in the northern colonies. This
long and desolate composition is an imaginative account of the Last Judgment. The voice of the trumpet is heard summoning the living and the dead before the dreadful bar. Some hide themselves in caves and dells and places underground. Some rashly leap into the deep to escape by being drowned. Some to the rocks, oh senseless blocks, and woody mountains run, that there they might this fearful sight and dreaded presence shun. In this jingling ballad measure so strangely
inappropriate to a solemn theme, the reverend author pursues his gloomy way. It is not well to linger over this protest presentation of medieval art and logic, yet it is through these crude expressions of the early literature that we are brought in closest touch with some phases of the Puritan mind. First we are given the appeals of the condemned, the children argue with reference to Adam's fall. Not we, but he ate of the tree, whose fruit was interdicted, yet on us all of
his sad fall, the punishments inflicted. How could we sin that had not been, or how is his sin without consent, which to prevent we never had a power? The reply is heard that Adam stood not for himself alone but for all mankind, that had he done well instead of ill all would have shared in his benefits, nor would they have then protested that they deserved not to share therein on the ground now urged. The inexorable judge does, however, yield a point in mercy to the children and infants.
Yet to compare your sin with their who lived a long time, I do confess yours in much less, though every sin's a crime. A crime it is therefore in bliss, you may not hope to dwell, but unto you I shall allow the easiest room in hell. The glorious king thus answering, they cease and plead no longer. Their consciences must needs confess, his reasons are the stronger. Much of Wiggler's vision is too lurid to be described here, such raw strength as he applied
in painting the details of his fiery picture, but intensifies the horror of it and increases our wonder that such conceptions could have prevailed. It is interesting to remember that at the very time when the Malden minister was writing his Day of Doom, John Milton was engaged upon the real epic of Puritan faith, one of the masterpieces of all literature. Paradise Lost was published in 1667. It was but a decade thereafter that John Bunyan completed his beautiful religious allegory,
Pilgrim's Progress. But the Puritanism of New England, its narrowness and hardness, no doubt intensified by the isolation and, perhaps, the depression, incident to life in a comparatively rude and struggling colony, was represented by the zealot Michael Wigglesworth with his sing-song verse and the stern ascetic Cotton Mather with his laborious and often fantastic prose. It was eminently fitting that when Wigglesworth died in 1705, the author of the
Magnaealia should have preached his funeral sermon. The two stand appropriately together. They taught the same doctrine and in their two great representative works, they exhibit the literary attainment of colonial America in the 17th century. The following books will be found especially helpful for reference and for supplementary reading. John Fiske's Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, Beginnings of New England, George P. Fisher's The Colonial Era,
American History Series, R. G. Thwaites' The Colonies, Epics of American History. The one authoritative work on early American literature is Moses Coit Tyler's Monumental History of American Literature during the colonial time. Two volumes. For teachers and advanced students of the subject, Professor Tyler's books are invaluable. In Stedman and Hutchinson's Library of American Literature are to be found extended selections from the works
of all these early writers. This excellent library should be in every school and in constant use for illustration during the course. The series of Old South Leaflets published by the Old South Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts, contains reprints of various papers of interest, notably a description of New England by John Smith, number 121. Manners and Customs of the Indians from the New England Canon by Thomas Morton, number 87. The Lives of Bradford and
Winthrop by Cotton Mather, number 77. Bradford's Memoir of Brewster, number 48. Roger Williams' Letters to Winthrop, number 54. Bradford's History of the Plymouth Plantation with a report of the proceedings incident to the return of the manuscript to Massachusetts was printed and published by The State at Boston in 1901. The lives and times of Francis Higginson and Bradstreet and Cotton Mather have been presented in recent interesting biographies. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne,
F.J. Stumson's King Noct, Mary Johnston's To Have and to Hold, with other standard works of fiction dealing with this colonial period may be read with great advantage also. End of part four, chapter one.
