This paper offers a comparative analysis of two major Puritan poets, Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, examining how each expresses religious devotion through distinctly different poetic approaches. Bradstreet integrates her domestic life — her love for her husband and family — with her Puritan faith, treating earthly love as a reflection of divine grace. Taylor, by contrast, focuses almost exclusively on spiritual devotion and worship. Through close readings of four poems — "To My Dear and Loving Husband," "The Flesh and the Spirit," "Huswifery," and "The Joy of Church Fellowship Rightly Attended" — the paper explores how both poets use everyday symbolism to articulate the transformative power of sincere religious faith.
Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor are both poets who wrote from a Puritan orientation, and both display in their poetry the fundamental values of deep faith and spirituality. An important difference between them is gender. Bradstreet writes during a time when it was virtually unheard of for women to engage in literary pursuits. Furthermore, her poetry focuses not only on the purely religious, but also on her domestic life with her husband and children. Taylor, by contrast, tends to focus his poetry purely on the spiritual and the pious life, whereas Bradstreet relates normal human living to her spirituality.
In doing this, however, Bradstreet adheres very strongly to her own Puritan values, marrying these perfectly with her feelings regarding her husband, her children, and her art. The result is a body of work that is at once deeply personal and deeply devout — a balance that distinguishes her voice from Taylor's more exclusively transcendent one.
Bradstreet's poem To My Dear and Loving Husband is an example of how she viewed her family life in relation to her spirituality. The focus of the poem is the love she receives from her husband. The poet connects this all-encompassing love to biblical ideals, such as the "two" becoming "one" in the first line. After that opening, Bradstreet continues to describe the happiness she found with her husband in almost religious terms. She relates emotion to the spiritual, juxtaposing it with earthly wealth such as "Mines of gold" in line 5, or the riches of the East in the following line.
She draws the poem to a conclusion that is again more directly tied to her religion: the mutual love between herself and her husband is spiritualized to the proportions of eternal life. It is so perfect and so deep that it can only lead to eternal life, just as faith does. This poem therefore demonstrates Bradstreet's devotion to her husband while simultaneously expressing her devotion to God. Neither is more important than the other; her faith complements her love, and vice versa. She sees her love as a gift from God that far surpasses earthly value — one projected to surpass even earthly life itself.
Taylor's poetry is much more focused on worship and spirituality than Bradstreet's. Religion appears to encompass all his experiences in life more completely than it does for Bradstreet. Whereas Bradstreet balances her domestic, "earthly" life with her faith, Taylor assigns primary importance to his faith almost to the exclusion of all else. Nevertheless, he too uses everyday symbolism to demonstrate the depth of his relationship with God.
Huswifery is one such poem. Taylor uses domestic symbols — the spinning wheel, cloth, and weaving — to demonstrate his willingness to be an instrument in the hands of God. Just as Bradstreet uses love to demonstrate the eternal value of her faith, Taylor uses the symbolism of clothing to illustrate the effect of God on the soul. Taylor offers his soul to God to be clothed "in Holy robes for glory." Where Bradstreet's love is symbolic of her love for God, Taylor's imagery of beautiful clothing demonstrates his devotion and the concomitant transformation toward perfection in his religion. Both poets, notably, arrive at the image of sacred garments as a metaphor for spiritual grace — from very different starting points.
"Spirit versus flesh allegory in Bradstreet's poem"
"Worship, sincerity, and spiritual beauty in Taylor's poem"
Both poets discussed above show a sincere and all-encompassing devotion to their religion. Both worship and live their lives according to what they sincerely believe is right. As such, their poems share at their root a melodious beauty that is almost unheard of in today's uncertain spiritual times. Although Puritanism is hardly the prevailing worldview today, these poets can still speak to the modern reader in terms of sincerity, beauty, and joy.
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