Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH COLONIAL LITERATURE
4. In “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” what conventions and tropes
often used in the sonnet form does Bradstreet use? What, if anything, is
unconventional in her using them? Why?
5. How does Bradstreet console herself for such losses and suering as the
deaths of her grandchildren and the burning of her house? How, if at all,
does her religious faith support her as a woman?
2.8 MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH
(1631–1705)
Michael Wigglesworth’s parents, Edward
and Esther Wigglesworth, brought him with
them when they emigrated to the American
colonies in 1683. Wigglesworth was educated
in America, rst at home under the tutelage
of Ezekiel Cheever (1514–1708), then at
Harvard. In 1652, he earned his MA from
Harvard and remained there as lecturer.
After his graduation, Wigglesworth also
began preaching; he ultimately became an
ordained minister at Malden, Massachusetts
in 1656. Chronic illness curtailed his ministry
activities, ministry that he nevertheless
maintained through his writing. His The
Day of Doom: Or, A Description of the Great
and Last Judgment, with a Short Discourse
about Eternity (1662) is a didactic religious
poem, exhorting his parishioners to adhere
to true Puritan doctrines and ideals. Its
publication coincided with the controversy
over church membership, later resolved in
Image 2.4 | First Edition of The Day
of Doom
Author | Michael Wigglesworth
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | Public Domain
what became known as the Half-Way Covenant, allowing church membership
without conversion testimony. The Covenant intended to bring colonists to the
fervid faith held by rst-generation settlers. This historical context may help
explain the purpose of Wigglesworth’s work.
Its eectiveness as a didactic piece appears in its extraordinary popularity
(selling over 1,800 copies) and its being used to teach children Puritan theology.
Its 224 eight-line stanzas—all with striking details and often terrifying images—
arrest the attention of wandering minds and souls threatening to fall into sins of
omission and commission, souls that may repent too late before the inevitable
judgment day. Its stanzaic lines alternate between eight and six syllables; with
internal rhymes in the eight-syllable lines, and end rhymes in alternating pairs
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