Edward Taylor

Edward Taylor c.1642-1729, American poet and clergyman, b. England, considered America's foremost colonial poet. He emigrated to America in 1668 and graduated from Harvard in 1671. From then until his death, he served as Congregational minister for Westfield, Mass. An ardent Puritan, Taylor agreed completely with the Calvinistic beliefs of his time. His best poems, "God's Determinations" and "Preparatory Meditations," show a strong similarity to the English devotional metaphysical poets . Since he did not publish his poems in his lifetime, his poetry remained in manuscript until 1937. In 1939, T. H. Johnson published a selection of his poems. The best edition of Taylor's works was edited by D. E. Stanford in 1960.

Bibliography: See studies by N. S. Grabo (1962), D. Stanford (1965), and W. J. Scheik (1974).

Taylor, Edward (c.1644–1729), English‐born poet, emigrated to Boston (1668) and after graduation from Harvard (1671) became the pastor and physician of the Massachusetts frontier town Westfield, where he remained until his death. Not until 1937, when some of his poems were first published from manuscript, was he discovered to be an author of importance. His work as a Puritan sacred poet has been hailed as the finest 17th‐century American verse. He is in the direct line of the English devotional metaphysical poets, such as Herbert, Crashaw, and Quarles, and his writings, though considered less important than those of his masters, are matched by none of his colonial contemporaries. His grandson, Ezra Stiles, in accordance with the request that none of his “poetical works” should be published, kept them in manuscript. Not until 1939 was the volume Poetical Works, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, published from the papers at Yale, followed by a more comprehensive edition of Poems in 1960. Fourteen related sermons, delivered 1701–3, and preparatory meditations in verse were first edited as Christographia (1962). Diverse Unpublished Writings were collected in three volumes (1981).

Taylor, Edward (c.1644–1729), American metaphysical poet and divine. His devotional poems remained in manuscript, at his own request, and were not published until 1937, when their importance to the history of early American letters, and their own considerable quality, were at once recognized.