his
poetry, which was discovered only in the 1930s. He would, no
doubt, have seen his work's discovery as divine providence;
today's readers should be grateful to have his poems -- the
finest
examples of 17th-century poetry in North America.
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Like Anne Bradstreet, and, in fact, all of New England's first writers, the intense, brilliant poet and minister Edward Taylor was born in England. The son of a yeoman farmer -- an independent farmer who owned his own land -- Taylor was a teacher who sailed to New England in 1668 rather than take an oath of loyalty to the Church of England. He studied at Harvard College, and, like most Harvard-trained ministers, he knew Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. A selfless and pious man, Taylor acted as a missionary to the settlers when he accepted his lifelong job as a minister in the frontier town of Westfield, Massachusetts, 160 kilometers into the thickly forested, wild interior. Taylor was the best-educated man in the area, and he put his knowledge to use, working as the town minister, doctor, and civic leader.
Modest, pious, and hard-working, Taylor never published his
poetry, which was discovered only in the 1930s. He would, no
doubt, have seen his work's discovery as divine providence;
today's readers should be grateful to have his poems -- the
finest
examples of 17th-century poetry in North America.
Taylor wrote a variety of verse: funeral elegies, lyrics, a medieval "debate," and a 500-page Metrical History of Christianity (mainly a history of martyrs). His best works, according to modern critics, are the series of short Preparatory Meditations.
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