Wigglesworth

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Michael Wigglesworth
Lesson Plan

Terms and People to Know
Devotional Poetry: Poetry written to praise a religious figure or profess a religious belief
Metaphysical Poetry: Common during the 17th century, it is poetry which delights in developing extended metaphors, usually between seeming disparate objects - i.e. love and a compass (Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"
John Donne: Best known metaphysical poet (English, 1572?-1631)
Conceit: in poetry a particular extended metaphor, usually employed to convey a complex thought.
Jeremiad : A rhetorical style which preaches hell and damnation because of the sinfulness of its audience. Usually a sermon, but this could be in a novel, poem, or other work. It could also be secularized as a more warning for any kind of dire future because of the apathy/ignorance/indolence of its audience.

Michael Wigglesworth

Religion

How is Christ described? What does say about their view of Christianity?
What values are ascribed/rewarded in this poem?
What is punished?
Where does he suggest Unconditional Election?
What does he address in stanza 109?
"whose grace transcends men's thought" (stanza 135) how does this fit into unconditional grace?
What do you make of the saints reaction in stanza 219?

Style/imagery

Why the gloss (words on the side)? What function do they serve?
Why open at night?
Why call the martyrs "sheep" Stanza 22
Why the sinners "goats" 27
How is this like a sermon? Compare with Winthrop
What do you make of the chain of thinking of the sinners in stanza a 183-4
Small detail, but why use "chaff" (stanza 207) to describe the lost souls?

Life

Times
Two links below: the first is more historical, the second is more literary. they should be considered as a supplement to the overview on the period included in your textbook.

Puritanism The Oxford Companion to United States History

Puritanism: The Sense of an Unending: From the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature This has a particularly good bibliography.

Class Discussion

How is Christ described? What does say about their view of Christianity? Cf. stanzas 6, 7
What values are ascribed/rewarded in this poem? Stanza 22 Martyrdom, 23 accepting your tribulations, 24 loving Christ deeply, 25 those who converted (though their "faith was weak")
What is punished? Hypocrites 27, apostates (turncoats) 28, "better knew" 29, broke god's law 30
Where does he suggest Unconditional Election? 40 "My Father chose/before the world's foundation"
What does he address in stanza 109? Free will. But for Puritans, what function would free will serve? what good is free will with unconditional election?
"whose grace transcends men's thought" (stanza 135) how does this fit into unconditional grace?

What do you make of the saints reaction in stanza 219? ("thankful wonderment,/To see all those that were their foes thus sent to punishment")
Why does god punish what he sees as sinners? Stanza 138 and earlier.
How does the chapter from Matthew connect to the poem?

On the rod

The Second Book of the Kings 7:14

I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:

Style/imagery

Jeremiad: cf page 295 stanza 8.
Why the gloss (words on the side)? What function do they serve? Cf. ANCIENT MARINER (1789), PILGRIM'S PROGRESS (1678-1684 [part II])
Why open at night?
Why have Jesus appear as a light? STANZA 5
Why call the martyrs "sheep" Stanza 22
Why the sinners "goats" 27
How is this like a sermon? Compare with Winthrop (note counterarguments in stanzas 110-130
What's a sepulcher?
What do you make of the chain of thinking of the sinners in stanza a 183-4
Small detail, but why use "chaff" (stanza 207) to describe the lost souls?
Rhyme scheme

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okay, now given all of this, how would you summarize the Puritan world view?

Group Questions

Group Questions #1

List names of people in group and designate one person as the recorder. Use quotes from the text to support your points.

The literary critic and scholar Jeffrey Hammond notes that The Day of Doom "above all, [is] a sermon in verse designed 'To set forth Truth,' as one of Wigglesworth's contemporaries put it, 'and win men's Souls to bliss' by weaning its readers away from a reliance on the world and the carnal self " ( Hammond 43).

How does the poem do this? How does it "wean" readers from the world and body?

Obviously, the poem is steeped in the bible, a familiarity that many (most?) modern readers lack. To illustrate the connections between the bible and this poem, use the handout (Course Site>Course Documents>Reading Assignments>#7 Bible Excerpt) and find correlations between the two. Focus on chap 24 v. 45-51; 25 v. 1-13; and 25 v. 30+. Look for both imagery and language. How would these connections help readers?
The critic Alan Pope argues that "In each debate Wigglesworth portrays the ways of God as logical and rational. Christ is a lawyer and logician debating the sinners and justifying the logic of God to weak-reasoning men. [. . . .] Wigglesworth's achievement is the logical examination of religious dogma and complex theological tenets in a poetic form." (Pope)

Help Pope prove his argument: Which lines/words illustrate this point and how do they do so?

Connect the readings from the Course Site -- From Glorious Appearing; "The Return of the Warrior Jesus;" Letter to the editor from Clarksdale Press Register -- to Day of Doom. What similarities do you find? What does this reveal about current American culture?

Images From the Past

Illustration from an old edition of Day of Doom

Links

21st century version of this poem: Cake's "Sheep Go to Heaven; Goats go to Hell"

Quotes from Critics

"For Puritan readers, truth as they defined it was beauty, and once we view The Day of Doom in terms of the expectations of such readers, we begin to understand its phenomenal popularity. Recent studies developing this approach have started with the recognition that the poem was, above all, a sermon in verse designed To set forth Truth, as one of Wigglesworth's contemporaries put it, and win men's Souls to bliss by weaning its readers away from a reliance on the world and the carnal self " (Hammond 43).

Jeffrey A. Hammond, `Ladders of your own': `The Day of Doom' and the repudiation of `carnal reason', in Early American Literature , Vol. 19, n. No., Spring 1984, pp. 42-67.