Taylor, Edward
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...
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