UTOPIAN PROMISE - Annenberg Media

32 UNIT 3, UTOPIAN PROMISE
ANNE BRADSTREET AND EDWARD TAYLOR
Bradstreet and Taylor, both poets and Puritans, are a natural pairing.
Both deal eloquently with difficult Puritan theological issues, such as
anxiety about election and the struggle to “wean” affections from
worldly interests. In this vein, they are frequently celebrated for their
poignant evocations of family life and domestic culture, manifested by
their use of simple, homely metaphors. Although Bradstreet’s work
was published in her lifetime and Taylor’s was not, they share concerns
about the problem of literary authority and the writer’s relationship to
her or his audience: Taylor’s “Prologue” and Bradstreet’s “Prologue”
and “The Author to Her Book” struggle with questions about the
writer’s agency and the compatibility of poetry and Puritan piety.
While both were apparently uninterested in or unwilling to see their
own work published (Bradstreet’s poetry was published without her
knowledge or consent), they both left carefully copied and preserved
manuscripts at their deaths, suggesting that they took their vocations
as poets very seriously. Bradstreet’s work is obviously complicated by
her position as a woman in a patriarchal society, creating tensions not
present in Taylor’s poems. Although both poets worked in the “plain
style” on occasion, they both experimented with other poetic traditions.
Bradstreet’s poems tend more toward the classical, while
Taylor’s depend on biblical imagery and elaborate, extended poetic
conceits.
MARY ROWLANDSON AND SARAH KEMBLE KNIGHT
Rowlandson’s and Knight’s narrative accounts of their respective journeys
provide important insight into the role of women in early New
England. Both texts chronicle journeys that were unusual undertakings
for women—though obviously to totally different ends.
Rowlandson’s journey was an unwilling one, and she struggles to
maintain the Puritan ideal of passive femininity even while actively
working for her own survival. Knight, on the other hand, embarked on
her travels voluntarily and clearly embraces her role as a businessperson,
active in a traditionally masculine realm. While Rowlandson filters
her every experience through scripture and searches constantly
for signs of God’s will, Knight barely mentions spiritual issues and
concerns herself instead with witty social commentary. Perhaps their
only point of overlap is their racism and intolerance of cultural practices
different from their own. Written only twenty years apart, these
two narratives reveal the diversity of the New England experience and
the increasing secularization of Puritan culture.
JOHN WOOLMAN AND SAMSON OCCOM
Both Woolman’s Journal and Occom’s Short Narrative function as spiritual
autobiographies, narrating their authors’ conversion to and
acceptance of Christianity. While Woolman’s Quakerism was quite different
from Occom’s evangelical Christianity, both men experienced a
profound conversion in early youth, and both found their calling as