Edward Taylor's Metaphors of Promise

Abstract

rm HE TORMENTS of Edward Taylor's position as Puritan poet have I been emphasized recently, almost to the exclusion of its meager joys.1 Yet Puritan dogma also presents certain opportunities for poetry. It offers kind of metaphor and poetic strategy that help poet like Taylor solve the spiritual problems under which he labors. The Lord's Supper was for Taylor the crowning ritual of Christianity, and its celebration was the occasion for each of his Preparatory Meditations. As Kathleen Blake and Ursula Brumm have noticed, those celebrations offer Taylor principle of metaphor, not just single instance of metaphor.' Donald Stanford, in the introduction to his-edition of Taylor's poems, cites relevant passage from Calvin: . . the visible sign is given to us to seal the donation of the invisible substance. . . .3 Elsewhere, Calvin refers to these signs as tokens or pledges.4 This language is purposefully covenantal, and it comes, in part, from Romans 4:II, where circumcision is the visible sign and seal of God's covenant with Abraham. Taylor calls the Lord's Supper a seal of the covenant of grace.5 He uses the terms signumrn and signatum, where the sign is the celebration of the sacrament, and