Purtian Men and Women in Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet Essay

Purtian Men and Women in Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet Crossing the Atlantic, Puritans faced not only the physical hardships of an uncultivated land, but excessively difficulties within the structure of their religion. In The Puritan Dilemma, Edmund Morgan details the contradicting tenets of Puritanism. Puritans were to seek salvation even though they were helpless to do anything but evil they were to rely simply on messiah for salvation even though salvation was only possible if preordained by God (7). Additionally, in the Puritan paradigm, the relationship betwixt Christ and the church was analogous to that of husband and wife. Husbands took pre-eminence over wives, just as Christ reigned supreme over His flock. This layered system of servants and masters caused men and women to experience Puritanism rattling differently. The poetry of Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet demonstrates that while Puritan men focused on pleasing their Heavenly Father, Puritan women sought the approval of earthly men.Studying female committal to writing in colonial America, William Scheick notes that Puritans supported this attitude of subordination with Biblical passages. In the Old Testament, Adam declares Eve the bone of his bones and the flesh of his flesh. Because she was taken forth of man, Adam resolves on calling her woman. Similarly, in the New Testament, capital of Minnesota describes Christians as members of the Lords body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Whereas the Genesis passage refers to earthly matrimony, Paul addresses the spiritual marriage between Christians and the Bridegroom Christ. Scheick observes how these passages imply the silent subordination of the second sex to men, and the reverence wives owe to their husbands (62).... ...ism in early New England. Works CitedBradstreet, Anne. The Prologue To Her Book. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lautier. New York Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004 188-190.Hambrick-S towe, Charles E., ed. Early New England Meditative Poetry. New York Paulist Press, 1988.Morgan, Edmund S. The Puritan Dilemma The Story of John Winthrop. Boston Little, Brown and Company, 1958.Stanford, Ann. Anne Bradstreet Dogmatist and Rebel. The New England Quarterly 39 (1966) 373-389. JSTOR. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO. 3 Oct. 2005 .Taylor, Edward. Prologue. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lautier. New York Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004 239-240.---, Huswifery. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lautier. New York Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004 236-237.