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Chapter 1: Early
American Literature to 1700
and Puritanism
Michael
Wigglesworth
1631-1705
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©
Paul P. Reuben
September 12, 2019
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Primary
Works |
Selected
Bibliography 1980-Present
| Study
Questions |
MLA Style
Citation of this Web Page
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Chap
1 - Index |
Alphabetical
List |
Table
Of Contents |
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A minister, Wigglesworth is
today remembered for two works The Day of Doom (1662) and
God's Controversy with New England (written in 1662 but
published more than two hundred years later). The first book is known
as the first American bestseller. It contains an expression of the
basic Puritan beliefs described earlier in the Introduction to this
chapter.
Primary
Works
The Day of
Doom, 1662; Meat Out of the Eater, 1670, 1717;
Riddles Unriddled, or, Christian Paradoxes, 1689; "God's
Controversy with New England," 1662, 1873; The Diary of Michael
Wigglesworth, 1653-1657, ed. Edmund S. Morgan, 1970; The
Poems of Michael Wigglesworth, ed. Ronald A. Bosco,
1989.
Selected
Bibliography 1980-Present
Boone, Joseph A. and Michael
Cadden. eds. Engendering Men: The Question of Male Feminist
Criticism. NY: Routledge, 1990.
Elliott, Emory. ed.
American Colonial Writers 1606-1734. Detroit: Gale, 1984.
White, Peter. ed. Puritan
Poets and Poetics: Seventeenth-Century American Poetry in Theory and
Practice. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1985.
Study
Questions
1. Why does Wigglesworth
stick so close to the Bible, in some cases offering virtual
paraphrases of his biblical sources?
2. What does "The Day of
Doom" suggest about how texts were used in Puritan culture?
3. In what ways does the
poem link the private framework of personal salvation with the
communal mission of the Puritans in New England?
4. How does the poem--in
both form and content--reflect Wigglesworth's conception of
audience?
MLA Style
Citation of this Web Page:
Reuben, Paul P.
"Chapter 1: Michael Wigglesworth." PAL: Perspectives in
American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. WWW URL: http://www.paulreuben.website/pal/chap1/wigglesworth.html
(provide page date or date of your login).
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