Michael Wigglesworth

Abstract

The most well-known poet in early New England, Michael Wigglesworth (b. 1631–d. 1705) enjoyed greater popular appeal than the erudite Anne Bradstreet or the private Edward Taylor. In 1638, at the age of six, Wigglesworth emigrated with his family from England to New Haven colony. There he flourished as a student of Greek and Latin, entering Harvard College in preparation for a career in medicine. Over the course of his studies, Wigglesworth felt a call to the ministry, although medicine continued as an interest. Graduating in 1651, he first served as a tutor at Harvard College before receiving an invitation to minister to the church in Malden, Massachusetts Bay colony. Recurrent illness left Wigglesworth often unable to preach or travel. Out of long hours of sad convalescence was born his career as a poet. At sixty-one Wigglesworth provoked scandal by marrying the much younger Martha Mudge, his housekeeper, an event that precipitated a return to health and a season of leadership in colonial affairs. An intellectual, Wigglesworth wrote for a broad audience. His major poems, Meat out of the Eater and The Day of Doom, were colonial bestsellers, with copies eagerly purchased, read aloud among families, and gifted to friends. Wigglesworth viewed his poetry as a contribution to the public good. The poems, he hoped, might make difficult theological concepts clear to laypeople and aid Christians in diagnosing and relieving their spiritual maladies. Further, they might provide fresh, accessible language to help men and women evaluate their responsibilities to God and to the broader community. In addition to ballads, elegies, and other verse, Wigglesworth also wrote letters, a brief autobiography, two Latin orations on eloquence, a two-volume diary, printed and manuscript sermons, at least one court petition, and an election sermon (1686, not extant). Scholars used to routinely denigrate Wigglesworth’s work as gloomy or unsophisticated, but recent interest in lived religion, reading practices, and a more democratic artistic milieu has provoked a reassessment of the poet and his influence. Questions remain in Wigglesworth studies. The Boston Atheneum holds a tightly scribbled volume of sermons attributed to Wigglesworth that has barely been studied. Little has been done with the second volume of the diary, extending from 1658 to 1683 and exhibiting a more mature approach to marriage, desire, and the spiritual life, with shorthand passages in process of being deciphered. Although scholars beginning with Perry Miller have noted that the poem God’s Controversy with New-England helped to establish the jeremiad tradition and was influential on later election sermons, it has received comparatively little attention. And the shorter poems painstakingly edited by Ronald Bosco await sustained interpretation. Still, Wigglesworth’s life and work have formed the basis of several rich veins of scholarship, drawing historians, literary scholars, and theologians into an increasingly shared conversation about Puritan aesthetics, spirituality, sexuality, and communal ideals.