American Literature 1

EDWARD TAYLOR AND PHYLLIS WHEATLEY COMPAREDEdward Taylor s Our Insufficiency to Praise god Suitably , for His Mercy and Phyllis Wheatley s An anthem to Humanity illustrate distinct differences in the poetry of the puritans and the mature of Reason . While the former embraces a negative look of reality and emphasizes mankind s subordination to divinity , the latter shows reality s optimism , celebrates its intellectual abilities , exalts human possibility , and makes an appeal for recognition of blacks abilitiesEdward Taylor (1642 ?-1729 , an English-born prude pastor and physician , conveys typic aloney prude attitudes . His song embraces the puritan view of man s inferiority before an all-powerful God whom the Puritans could never satisfy . Using somewhat ungainly rescue and belabo multitude his metaphor of the i nfinite voices as atoms and motes Taylor writes that even if an infinite cater together of voices sang God s acclamations , Our Musick would the World of Worlds out ring / and be unfit within thine Eares to ting (Puritan Sermons . In other(a) words , even an unimaginably , impossibly large amount of praise would be insufficient making human confinement everlastingly lacking and humans forever inferiorThe final twain stanzas compute humanity unfit for its own manufacturer , worsened than act we tread upon yet the narrator says to god , We beseech / accommodate thereof . We see no better establish (Puritan Sermons pupil Karl Keller comments that [Taylor s] poetry . takes the form of prayers desiring to be appreciated on highschool . His is a poetry of humility and hope (Keller , 1975 ,. 7 . For the Puritans all human endeavors existed for the glorification of God , and this is certainly the affair of Puritan literature . Poetry exists non for art s saki , nevertheless for God s glorification . The! poem also presents a sooner low opinion of humanity , as a blemished , sinful creature unworthy of its own creator and indeed bound to seek salvation by devoting itself to redemption . as well as , nature is considered terrifying , evidence of God s magnitude and capability to punish mankind for its transgressionsWriting a few generations later on , Phyllis Wheatley (1753-1784 , born in Africa and brought to Boston as a hard worker , conveys the Age of Reason s optimism and positive logic , and her poems reveal a more questioning tone , but without being bellicose or negative toward America s racial situation . In An Hymn to Humanity Wheatley produces a deeply religious poem without terror of God instead , an unnamed prince of heav nly birth (obviously the Nazarene ) arrives on earth to build an empire but , in contrast to the Puritans unworthy planet , he finds bosoms of the great and untroubled and is commanded by God to act in bounties unconfin d /Enlarge th e finis contracted mind /And fill it with thy fire (Boss . In opening , nature is infused with God s potential to do good the innate(p) is not depicted as harmful , but a cum of inspirationWheatley s narrator adds that divine forces stoop d to shine /And deign d to wind my lyre (Boss , meaning that both God and nature have given...If you necessitate to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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