V

A STUDY OF THE PLATONIC HERITAGE OF LOVE IN THE POETRY OF EDWARD TAILOR

Vlzvrol Roy'Smith

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

August 1969 ABSTRACT

An examination of the influence of Platonic love in the

poetry of Edward Taylor, this study provided an expanded cultural

framework for explaining Taylor's "unusualness" as a Puritan, Taylor's

Platonic inheritance was surveyed by comparing ideas and images of

love from the Platonic dialogues, the Enneads. and The Courtier.

The continuing influence of Platonism within a complex tradition of

Christian love was evident in Taylor's poetry through his expansive

view of man and in a vitality and vividness of imagery more often

associated with Hellenistic and Renaissance Platonism than with

Puritanism.

The first chapter examined the Puritan as poet in order to

reevaluate the assumptions which have largely shaped Taylor criticism.

Since the most productive efforts have examined Taylor either by

reinforcing his indebtedness to metaphysical models or by acknowledging

the form but dismissing it in order to reaffirm the doctrinal intent,

Chapter II concluded that these touchstones have limited the range of

Taylor's achievement. The chapter also explored the possible relation­

ships between the artist and his use of cultural concepts and symbols.

In addition, Platonic love was identified and defined.

Chapter III considered the importance of Platonism in Taylor's poetry as the concept of heavenly love. As the source of all love, it produced the world of heavenly realities and enabled the poet to anticipate its vision by raising him to the summit of creation. Of IP

particular interest were those images of devotional love which Taylor

restored to the spirit of Platonism. Chapter IV examined Taylor’s

concept of earthly love as the desire to know and love the objects

of this world. As symbols, they enabled him to transcend analogies,

to penetrate teasing glimpses of divine beneficence, to unmask the

reality of form and, ultimately, to confront God as even the angels

could not. Taylor was concerned with the problem of knowing good

as an inner beauty of form which preceded external appearances, and

it was shown that Taylor restored numerous images from the natural

world to the organic richness and regenerative power they enjoyed

in the pre-Edenic or Platonic garden.

Because the Incarnation is regarded as the pivotal doctrine

in the fusion of the Platonic and Christian traditions, Chapter V

compared the conventions, images, and phraseology of Neo-Flatonic

secular love with Taylor's response to the Platonic Father when

incarnate. The scope of the Platonic tradition of love included

The Courtier and was extended to the Petrarchan and Metaphysical

schools of poetry inasmuch as they illustrate different phases of

Platonic love.

In conclusion, love in Taylor's devotional poetry was shown to

be dependent upon the reality of an intellectual vision. It was a

love moved by sensual delight but guided by understanding, and it

satisfied the intellectual demands of Platonism by joining the desire

for beauty with a love of soul for what may also be known as good.

The Platonic concept of the enhanced soul was central for Taylor. A self-renewing and aspiring consciousness led him to seek a spontaneous understanding of the whole and to share fully in the glory of creation. Taylor's expanded vision spared him the rigorous expurgation associated with the medieval ascent and lifted him, instead, in Platonic flight to the center of the Neo-Platonic All. TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER Page

I. THE PURITAN AS POET...... 1

II. THE KNEAD IN THE LOAF...... 19

III. HEAVENLY LOVE...... 36

IV. EARTHLY LOVEs NATURAL SIMBOLS...... 71

« The Garden of the Worlds Puritan and Platonic .... 71

The Tree...... 78

The Circle ...... 88

The House and the Body ...... 99

V. THE COURTING CHRIST ASP LATONIC LOVER ...... 130

Summary ...... 158

FOOTNOTES...... 164

LIST OF WORKS CITED 184 1

CHAPTER I

THE PURITAN AS POET

It has become the practice among scholars of Edward Taylor to

bless his marriage of two strains of love imagery, the Christian and

the mystical, and to assume the importance of the Platonic heritage

to both. Yet the union of the two types of love imagery to form the

literary and devotional arm of western love poetry with Platonism,

the philosophical rationale, has been apparent in the substance of

that poetry, if not always visible on the surface, since long before

Edward Taylor.The consummation of the dual tradition of Christian

and Platonic elements of love is now of such long standing and so

familiar to modern scholarship as one of the concerns of mystical 2 love that an appreciation of its components, especially the Platonic,

is hampered at the outset by their discrimination.

General studies of religious love in English verse have acknow­ ledged a heritage composed of Christian, mystical, and Platonic love, and have proceeded by establishing usable limits for the discussion 3 4 of each. Where Taylor is concerned, however, studies of mysticism have been circumscribed by the immediate Puritan indebtedness to the

English meditative tradition,"’ Although these efforts have managed to present a strong resemblance to the meditative poetry of the earlier seventeenth century, analyses of Taylor's poetry have commonly stressed a Puritan application, to the detriment of the broader Anglo-Catholic tradition, the occasional antagonist of doctrinal Puritanism but literary and religious forebear of the New England Puritans.Although 2

the end of the criticism is justified (Taylor is, after all, a Puri­

tan), studies of his mysticism are forced to proceed on limited 7 premises, if not against the grain of the more familiar interpreta- 8 tions. Further, the elements of Platonic love in Taylor s poetry,

and particularly the love imagery, have gone unexamined almost as if

irrelevant.

It is the primary purpose of this study to consider the influ­

ence of Platonic love on the poetry of Edward Taylor as a religious

and philosophical assumption and as a literary aesthetic manifest in

particular images. The secondary purposes are threefolds l) to

reflect the general desirability of the approach in light of the

existing criticism, 2) to explore the maximum use of the evidence for

Platonic love as an aesthetic criterion, and 3) to determine how

these purposes affect Taylor's total accomplishment and reputation.

Nowhere in the present body of scholarship can there be found a study of the Platonic love tradition in Taylor, and, with a single 9 exception, discussions of Platonism appear only to clarify meditative poetry. As statements on Platonism, the studies are indirect as well 10 as infrequent and open to the same criticisms as the mystical approach.

As suggested, determinations of Taylor's practices of poetic devotion indicate that scholars have not chosen to minimize or dismiss a heri­ tage of religious love. In this sense, the absence of concern for

Platonic love cannot be considered an omission. The neglect does not result from a lack of interest in the past as an agent in Taylor's poetic lovemaking but from a need to extract from Platonism that under- 11 standing necessary to relate Taylor to the meditative tradition. 3

Other critics of varying persuasion have not hesitated to uncover vital

cultural and literary influences from the past, and they have realized, although to widely differing extents, that these influences account in 12 large measure for Taylor's thought and expression. These efforts

have not, to borrow a familiar metaphor, feared the repressive, dead hand of the past which often threatens to choke out life.

Perhaps because Platonic love is a familiar assumption to the larger tradition of love in the western world, literary scholars, who are more sensitive to traditions indigenous to our poetry than most and who often defend tradition as a value in itself, sometimes find themselves writing about a tradition which they understand too well.

Quite properly, scholars have regarded the Platonic-Christian fusion not only as natural and understandable from a literary point of view but also as historical and philosophic certainty. Unfortunately, however, the very surety of the dual tradition, as well as the author­ ity of those who have written, has placed full consideration of its potential richness outside the scope of studies of Taylor, As a result, evaluations of his poetry have proceeded on the bases indicated, and his reputation has rested in large measure upon an anomalous, 13 exquisite, but nevertheless, curious provincialism.

While it is clear from the range of studies that their authors have a vital sense of the cultural past, it is apparent also that the necessity to examine extra-Puritan influences in Taylor has been superseded by the priorities of Taylor criticism. These priorities have, in turn, been determined by the first task required for a relic from the past and obscurity: locating him in literary history, and, 4

predictably, with the critical means most in fashion. The discovery

of Taylor's poetry was heralded. The discovery came at about the time

when Bernard Smith related the history of American literature to the

history of American life:

It occurred to me that the real link in that relationship is the attitude toward literature that men have had under varying circumstances—the ideas they have had regarding its value and purpose and the way its excellence or lack of it may be deter­ mined. In other words, literary criticism seemed to me more clearly related to social history than are poetry and fiction,

The precise nature of the demands upon the attention of scholars

does reflect a critical temper, but the effect is to accustom us to

looking in specific directions. Frequently, the result has been to

regard Taylor's stature as a poet as the function of considerations

dear to the critics. One such consideration, the Puritan premise, has been applied with little concern for the poet's voice. Willie T.

Weathers, who has quarreled with that premise, J writes, "Since the

orthodoxy of Edward Taylor has thus far gone unquestioned, it has been

easier to account for his poetic limitations than for his considerable poetic a chievement.

Although the main body of Taylor's poetry was first examined in 17 the 1930's, it has already been suggested that the subsequent attention paid to Taylor is as much a reflection of a critical milieu 1 8 as a fortuitous accident of discovery. Yet Taylor's preference for the metaphysical vogue of a generation earlier over that of his English contemporaries, the Augustans, and the singular quality of spirit which seemingly distinguishes Taylor from his Puritan brethren has, over the last three decades, defied the proofs of continuing criticism and left scholars at pains to explain a phenomenon. 5

The strain is more evident in the general thrust of Taylor

scholarship than in admissions. Among those to admit the failing is

Perry Miller, who writes that the discovery of the Taylor manuscripts

"completely upset the established perspective on Puritan literatures

here was a hitherto unknown poet of great distinction (who by now has

taken an assured place in criticism), who in secret, over a long period

of years, wrote in the most exquisite, the most subtle,of metaphysical veins. The mystery of this solitary labor in the wilderness is yet 19 unsolved," Norman Grabo's Edward Taylor is, in part, an attempt to

solve the mystery:

How then is Taylor's obvious unusualness—his particular quality of mind, his undeniable artistic accomplishment—to be explained? The kernel of the problem lies in the fact that in our concern for the uniqueness of the New England Way, our search for the native grounds of American ideas in Congregational church polity, and our fascination with the intellectual matrix that distinguished the Puritan from his Christian forebears, we have ignored a most crucial side of Puritanism, We have painted our picture in blacks and grays because we at first took the color and light of the Puritan faith for granted—and then forgot about it; and our picture no more squares with the colorful world than a black-and- white photograph does. For the Puritan faith had a gloriously bright side, too; but, in the dark and complicated folds of reform and controversy, we have lost the golden thread of private devotion. Prayer, meditation, and contemplation were as color­ fully vivid to the Puritan as to the Catholic, as full of joy, delight, and ecstasy—devotions fundamentally indistinguishable in New England from their practice in medieval Europe and the primitive Christian church. Taylor's best service to his faith may, indeed, lie just in this correction of our view of Puritan­ ism: he casts the color and light of devotional tradition over the historical gloomy face of early New England.

Despite the humane efforts of such scholars as Norman Grabo to 21 recover the poet and the Puritans from a legend of religious austerity, the literary sensibilities of both are still too often the property of a gloomy past that continues to provide refuge for our cultural dumping grounds. The more recently promoted Puritan joie de vivre is now an 6

historical truth but still less a fact of Puritan life and literature.

The picture of the American Puritan remains for many today not alto- 2: gether different from those distortions visited upon him in the 1920's.

As a result, many are doubtful about literary influences which appear august for New England Puritan taste, or too urbane for a band of

provincials who smothered in their own fanaticism. Others have accepted a corrected view of the Puritan but are continuing to discuss the 23 poetry of Edward Taylor solely in a Puritan context.

It is not, then, an encouraging task to attempt to apply the

tradition of Platonic love to one whose principal claim to attention 2^ is that he is the most colorful spokesman for a colorless crusade.

To examine any of the Puritans as members of a vibrant tradition of worship and Taylor as proof that Puritanism itself contained "values 25 that only the artist could express” requires a suspension of the more comforting prejudices toward history and the Puritans. Otherwise, a thesis of Platonic love in the poetry of a Puritan parson will resemble dressing a dandelion salad with Roquefort.

First, where the Puritans are concerned, Napoleon was correct when he was reputed to have said that history is the fable agreed upon.

While the Puritans had more perversions than even their most romantic admirers give them credit for, the process by which the continuing purge of Puritan repressiveness becomes the means whereby our own is surrogated must cease. Frederick Hoffman is correct in writing that 26 with the 1920 s "Repression became the American illness," but to dwell on Puritan repressiveness today is to imply that our own complex civilization frustrates even more of our instinctual needs. This 7

primitivism is pernicious, if not pathological. Assuming, then, that

we do not all suffer from a societal neurosis, it can be objectively-

remembered that this nation took its first breath as Puritan, In

recalling the decision to choose the Puritans as the starting point

for his own studies (even at the risk of throwing away his career),

Perry Miller writes, "but what I wanted was a coherence with which I 27 could coherently begin."

While it is doubtful whether the Puritans themselves are aware

of the measure of their indebtedness to Perry Miller for his decision,

he has called for a tolerance toward the Puritans which is helpful in

reinstating them to their rightful place as carriers of one civiliza­

tion and harbingers of another. It is more significant, however, that

he should suggest such a task. In "The Puritan Legacy," Kenneth Murdock agrees that "there are traces of Puritanism" in "America’s total cul­

tural heritage and the complex of qualities which make up the ’American

character”’; however, he expresses difficulty in discerning them—not

only because "Puritanism” has been "often misunderstood or falsely defined" but also because "the continuing influence in intellectual 28 history of any past 'state of mind' is always hard to assess."

Others have attempted to assess the Puritan legacy in its most basic terms. For example, in "The Necessity of Virtue" Katherine Hoskins finds the principal characteristics of the legacy to be the abstract 29 and the subjective. She says of them: "We may take it as no accident that this is the concern and these the outstanding qualities of Puri­ tanism, For as much as we mock, revile, reverse it in licentiousness and try in other ways to pluck it from our bosom, we remain a Puritan 8

30 nation,' Her assertion is important to our cognizance of Puritanism;

for unlike Granville Hicks, who dates the "collapse of Puritan dogma- 31 tism" at the Civil War, or Charles Beard, who minimizes the impor- 32 tance of the Puritan "quaking bog," Hoskins regards Puritanism as a

Great Tradition which is the original and on-going response to a

European heritage and a new start in the New World: "Crabbed and mean

in mediocre hands, noble in gifted, filled with the essence of Puri­

tanism, this tradition should continue for a long time to provide us

with interpretations and responses for what mystery and terror, for 33 what wonders we may encounter,"

The state of Puritan historical scholarship, however, is of

little direct concern here except as its anachronisms confound a thesis

of Platonic love. While enlightened criticism has loosened the grip of

the Freudians, it is not yet passe to dispel any lingering misconceptions

about the Puritans themselves. However, whether we are Puritan, anti-

Puritan, post-Puritan, or a-Puritan is the subject of another study; and even that opportunity might prove it futile to reason any man out

of a thing he was never reasoned into. Of more concern to a study of

Platonic love, is that secondary and subsidiary argument: that Puritan moralism, not a literary aesthetic, is what regulated (and hence the means by which we should judge) the creative acts of the Puritan artist. 34- The problem has been alluded to,^ but the questions posed here, however, deals with potential objections within the more general context of

Puritan literature.

Aside from the abundant diaries, journals, sermons, (and some poems) which have been entered as evidence for the Puritan need to 9

35 record the sacred drama of history, the interests of the Puritans are

largely assumed to lie in matters other than belles-lettres. and there

is much to persuade us that Puritan art was directed toward religious

duties and the practical necessities. The familiar image of John Alden

approaching Priscilla's cabin to hear her singing the Hundredth Psalm

while she spun industriously is an object lesson on the Puritan concept

of beauty often repeated in American literary criticism. The function­

alism of Puritan literature is nowhere more apparent than in the "plain

style" of the weekly sermon which, as described by Perry Miller, "appears

on the printed page more like a lawyer's brief than a work of art"

when compared to the metaphysical, ornate, style of the Anglican sermon.

Yet, the appearance of a large "body of writing greater in quantity and 37 quality than that of any other colonial community in modern history1

and instances of real literary merit (evidenced chiefly by Taylor

himself) shroud questions concerning Puritan orthodoxy in a paradox.

Whether the problem exists as a fact of Puritan culture or whether

it is a paradox in the minds of critics is a question to be aired but

to be answered here only in terms of Edward Taylor, Moses Coit Tyler

gave early scholarly impetus to the problem by writing on the one hand:

The New-Englander of the seventeenth century was indeed a typical Puritan; and it will hardly be said that any typical Puritan of that century was a poetical personage. In proportion to his devotion to the ideas that won for him the derisive honor of his name, was he at war with every form of the beautiful. He himself believed that there was an inappeasable feud between religion and art; and hence, the duty of suppressing art was bound up in his soul with the master-purpose of promoting religion,3° and on the other hand, that "the Puritan did not succeed in eradica­ ting poetry from his nature." "Poetry," Tyler continues, "was planted there too deep even for his theological grub-hooks to root it out. 10

Though denied expression in one way, the poetry that was in him forced

itself into utterance in another," Although the Puritan's "supreme

thought was given to theology,” the poetry, according to Tyler, 39

It is, in a sense, fortunate for Taylor that Tyler wrote prior

to the discovery of the poetry, for the tenor of his remarks could only

further stigmatize Taylor's achievement. Whatever might be said of

/lA Tyler's general approach to literature, the most apparent shortcoming

of his book insofar as the Puritans are concerned is a lack of famili­

arity with modern literary, psychological, and social theory which con­

temporary readers expect. Recent scholarship, too, often stresses a

symbiotic relationship between the poet's art and other pastimes, but,

with a greater appreciation for the ontological value of poetry than

Tyler, it tends to be more critical of the poetry itself while, at

the same time, more sensitive to the plight of the poet who produced

it. With regard to Taylor, Roy Harvey Pearce and S, E. Lind have both

attributed the lack of greatness in the verse to his station in life as

a Puritan parson, not necessarily to deficiencies in the poet's sensi-

bilities. Taylor is caught up in the indictment of long standing

that American literature, and Puritan literature in particular, suffer

from a want of self-reliance, a lack of originality which leads to a

stifling of creativity. In The Continuity of American Poetry Pearce writes of the American poet's "compulsion (or obligation) again and bo again to justify his experience as a poet," Of the Puritans he writes that their artists existed "in a world dedicated to the proposition that men could really 'make nothing.'" J 11

The quandary is familiar to students of the Puritans and is

never more poignant than in the instance of Edward Taylor where, as it

has already been submitted, discussions often proceed on an assumption 2j2j. of literary unusualness. While the paradox, particularly with

regard to Taylor, continues to enjoy prominence, there have been

efforts to resolve the uncertainty. Among them are those who propose

Puritan moralism as the matrix of the literature. Lying across the literature of the century like a giant watershed, the moralism of

Puritans on both sides of the Atlantic is the criterion by which a portion of the century's literature is segregated to be examined as 45 Puritan literature. The result, as Ralph Barton Perry points out, is that scholars react to the moral content of Puritanism either as "enemies" or as "friendly critics," and, in doing so, demonstrate "the tendency of critics, victims of their own wit or eloquence, to take the easy way of ridicule or adulation."^

Scholars of Puritan New England literature, while careful often not to defend or apologiz® for the failings of that literature, do proceed, nevertheless, on a Puritan premise in the literature, Murdock, in Literature and Theology in Colonial New England, "attempts to outline the relation between the New England Puritans' fundamental theological 47 ideas and their literary theory and practice." Frequently, however, such a thesis lacks the means for evaluating an individual artist's creative integrity, particularly in discussions of literary merit. The problem is most acute in the instances of real literary merit such as

Edward Taylor, where scholars find themselves in the role of literary handicappers. The more Puritan literature is examined, Kenneth Murdock 12

writes, "in the light of the handicaps the colonists faced and the stan 48 dards they set for themselves, the more impressive it becomes."

In describing Puritan literature, scholars recognize the extent

of Puritan participation in the Renaissance as a whole, but they are

careful to take exception in discussions of the literature, Puritanism

is presented as a subculture of homogeneous texture with universals

binding upon the artist. Roy Harvey Pearce, who argues the containing 49 powers of Puritanism even through the time of Taylor, suggests that

"The Puritan had never hated literature—or, for that matter, the arts

in general. Rather, he feared that he might like them too much and

that he might therefore veer from the strait path he knew he must 50 follow," "The Puritan," Murdock wrote in 1927, "was not hostile to art, but he was relatively indifferent to it,” The arts in general,

Murdock wrote, "were well enough in their way, but for him, higher than any other reward was the beauty of holiness, the reward of a patient search for God's will and a diligent effort to perform it unflaggingly and with self-forgetful sacrifice. This attitude thrusts the arts into the realm of pastimes, and the Puritan's adventure with God was so thrilling, and,to him so beautiful, that there were few hours left 51 for pastime."

The monolithic purposefulness attributed to the Puritan commun­ ity, and particularly its arts and industries, has survived to this day as a condition for any comprehensive discussion of Puritan literature,

Puritan asceticism (which in the words of Ralph Barton Perry is "only 52 another name for moral athleticism") is the pulse of Puritan litera­ ture. Twenty-two years after suggesting that the Puritans were "rela- 13

tively indifferent" to the arts, he maintains that "The work of the

best writers in colonial New England shows that they wanted to write

well as one way of serving God, and reflects both their zeal and

concern for fundamental stylistic values.” Although more sensitive

to the role of art in the Puritan community than he was in 192?,

Murdock still affirms a cultural context for the literature:

There is an ancient heresy to the effect that the Puritan was "hostile” to art and that one form of this hostility was an indifference to all matters of literary style. Actually, although there is in Puritan literature little formal literary criticism, and little discussion of the aesthetic aspects of writing, there are many passages which show that the Puritan thought long and hard about the problems of prose style and tried consciously to discover for himself a system of rules for giving adequate expression to his ideas and beliefs,53

Most critics, then, assume the importance of what David Daiches 54 calls "the cultural context”^ in discussions of Puritan literature,

and, in describing the appearance of a Puritan literature, scholars

may be distinguished by the extent to which they recognize the specific

cultural alternatives, as well as the universals, which apply to the'-»

Puritans or any other culture, However, the Puritan premise in the

literature is most meaningful when presented as a theory of culture 55 which is sensitive to the dynamics of probability and relativity.

All individuals of a culture, as Clyde KLuckhohn writes, are familiar with some of its traits and "they constitute a set of standards against which he judges himself,"-7 The degree to which a blueprint of Puritan culture is effective in describing the conditions for literature (and the likelihood of accounting for Taylor) depends upon the strength of the alternatives presented.

Scholars have spoken less generally of a prolonged Puritan 14

insularity and comprehensive literary aesthetic. They have reasonably

suggested the co-existence of dominant and recessive characteristics

by admitting differences toward literature grounded in varying atti­

tudes accompanying the phases of Puritanism as well as the levels of

Puritan society. Kenneth Murdock's familiar distinction between the

earlier Puritan "nonconformists” and their "conformist" descendants

contrasts the "pioneers of colonial New England" who "wrote of sin, of

death, of divine love, and of the miraculous stirrings of grace in the

hearts of the regenerate, not as a literary exercise or a polite gesture

of empty conformity but with the full fervor of passionate faith in a

theology and in the grandeur and beauty of the God it exalted" with

the "more complacently orthodox successors" who "had lost the authentic

faith and had substituted for the excitements of a perilous personal

quest for salvation the tamer satisfactions of a decorous acceptance 57 of a creed and polity sanctioned rather by convention than conviction,"

Another explanation proposed by Bernard Smith is premised upon

the distinctions among the functional relationships of literature,

social history, and criticism at a given time. Although published

nearly thirty years ago and Marxist in orientation, Smith's belief that

literary criticism is a reflection of the milieu rather than the litera­ ture itself;-^ still true. Smith suggests that "Puritanism" is abused

as a "label that has often been applied to the dogma that art should 59 be judged in terms of morality." The usage, Smith admits, is a mis­

appropriation of the term,for moralistic criticism predates the Puritans and, in fact, was an instrument of Greek criticism. Because this is true, Smith continues, care should be taken to distinguish between two 15

conflicting groups of Puritans: 1) those who "were opposed, at least

in theory, to every kind of imaginative writing, rather than being 6j advocates of one kind" and, thus, were "not literary moralists at all";

and 2) another social class, the scholarly and cultivated, who "had no

such antagonism to belles-lettres" and who "were bitterly antagonistic 62 to the group that wanted to suppress esthetic pursuits." This group,

he maintains, was "much closer in spirit to the aristocratic merchants and intellectuals whom Milton represented in England than to the

struggling, maligned, barely literate craftsmen and farmers who formed 63 the rank and file of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.” Under these

circumstances, it is conceivable that poetry was not only tolerated, 64 but encouraged.

It would be inconsistent with the narrower purpose here to pursue 65 further this critical question concerning Puritan literature. Such a purpose is, again, outside the limits of this study except as the general concerns of Puritan literature may affect a study of Platonic love in Taylor. Nor would it yet be appropriate to attempt to relate

Taylor to these concerns. That must await the proofs of this study.

What is urged, however, is a rethinking of Taylor’s imaginative relationship to his religion, his station in life, his culture, and the American experience. It is the implied purpose here to prove that such a relationship exists and that it was, in fact, inevitable for a man of Taylor's poetic sensibilities. It will be demonstrated also that the result may be viewed as the understandable combination of his classical training, his humanistic orientation as a Puritan, and his private response as a poet to the possibilities for literature in

Westfield. 16

It is to be determined specifically that Taylor may be examined

as one who sought full creative expression through his poetry, which is

the proper source, after all, of the poet's artistry. Further, whether

Taylor's artistic expressions threaten the narrower limits of Puritan

faith or his personal orthodoxy is a question which arises only after

an examination of Taylor's application of the Platonic love tradition.

It is, therefore, suspended until the conclusion and Taylor's doctrinal

obligations, or the context in which he understood them, is of secon­

dary importance. They are to be studied in light of Taylor's literary

directions rather than as conditions for discussion.

While a restrictive position on Puritanism is at issue rather

than Taylor's possible transgression beyond limits set by an austere

code, the primary interest lies with the verse of Taylor, The study

offers its proof as evidence against what Hofflnan called the "gross

misappropriation of historical truth" which made the Puritan an "unhistorical victim and villain"&& and which has frequently clouded

literary expectations of the Puritan. The final end here, however,

is not more evidence for considering Taylor a mere literary phenom­

enon and, hence, the greatest victim of Puritan life and literature;

rather, it is an expanded appreciation of Puritanism itself. Yet, a

broader understanding of Puritanism itself is intended less than the correction of a Puritan moralism which is repeatedly imposed on literary judgments of Taylor. In addition to rejecting attempts to lock Taylor irrevocably in Puritan moralism, the premise here also disagrees with discussions of Taylor predisposed by the apparent geographical and chronological isolationism which has been grounds for 17

literary provincialism.

As Robert Spiller suggests, it is no longer profitable to allow

Puritan "scruples" to "get in the way of our appreciation of Taylor's

imaginative power and dramatic skill. His emotions may have been too

strong for the tightest bonds of Puritan theory, but he adroitly used

some Puritan literary conventions to give contrast and dramatic tension to his work."6? While it is still useful for purposes of comparison

to examine Taylor in light of the creeds shared by Ann Bradstreet and

Michael Wigglesworth, it is also desirable, if Taylor's measure as a 68 poet is to be taken, to suggest other kinships. It is relevant to ask why scholars have failed to suit the frog to the pond; why, instead

of seeking those clues which unite him with a common American experi­

ence, they have sought those which separate him from that experience.

Specifically, it could be asked why Taylor has not been touched by the nativist schools of criticism which have gradually affected most

American authors, and why, instead, he continues to be judged as if by standards from a life and times which are themselves misappropriated.

On the other hand, Taylor may (to borrow Richard Chase's meta- 69 phor) complete the literary circuit between the old world and the new. 7

The limits are potentially greater than has been suggested, Within

Robert Spiller's thesis ("Taylor at his best writes poems so vivid in emotional evocation that they attain an artistic immortality quite 70 independent of their doctrine,") and Grabo's contention that the

Puritans participated in a rich and vital religious tradition, is the downbeat of Taylor scholarship. The various literary techniques, when understood as more than devices, and the ritualistic imagery, whether 18

viewed as a lexicon of imagery or mere liturgical nudity, are contin­

uing responses by western poets, British and American, to a common

experience and may eventually provide the basis for Taylor's ties to

other traditions. Thus far, they have not, "Among the earliest tasks

that American critics set for themselves," Philip Rahv writes, "was

that of locating and defining the differences between American and European writing."’^ The lot of the Puritan artist has, however,

in the minds of critics, been the worst of both worlds. Inasmuch as

Taylor and his contemporaries imitated English literary masters (as

well as ingratiated their god), the Puritans do not point to a separation

between English and American literature. Nor have the Puritans been

assimilated into the ruling dialogues on American culture. It is not

said of Taylor, for instance, as Harvey Cox has said of Boston, the

city to which Taylor migrated, "Boston is at once the oldest city in

America and the newest."' What is needed, then, is a fresh clearing in the grass if a fuller appreciation of Taylor's poetry and his achievement is not to remain forever out of sight. For all the appar­ ent variety of Taylor criticism, it has already begun to exhaust the familiar approaches. 19

CHAPTER II

THE KNEAD IN THE LOAF

In speaking of love in The Waste Land, Tiresias claims to have

"Perceived the scene and foretold the rest—" The history of Platonic

love is as protracted and crowded with religious postures as the heri­

tage of love known to Tiresias by experience. In presenting Platonic

love, a method is required which substitutes for prophetic omniscience.

For example, logic and necessity led me to recognize but dismiss the

detailed history and substance of Platonic love. Finding the "knead

in this loafe"(to borrow a figure from Taylor) is sufficient—searching

the tradition for contributions to the poetry of Edward Taylor, and,

while selecting, to remember that the theory and imagery of Platonic

love comprise a continuous heritage in western culture,

This discussion of method has three objectives: 1) to consider

the methodological shortcomings of Taylor criticism briefly, 2) to

explore possible relationships between an artist and a cultural tradi­

tion which might explain Taylor’s assimilation of Platonic love, and

3) to identify and define Platonic love so that Taylor's use of the

tradition may be clarified,

Studies of Taylor's achievement have commonly proceeded with one purpose: to place him in a generalized heritage of religious love.

The most productive efforts have examined Taylor in one of three ways:

1) by reinforcing his indebtedness to metaphysical progenitors, 2) by accepting the metaphysical manner as a convenient medium for a Puritan poet's acts of meditation, or 3) by acknowledging the form but dismiss­ 20

ing it for the purpose of reaffirming the doctrinal intent. Taylor,

scholars agree, assimilated a complex but familiar religious tradition

which can be profitably discussed as Puritanism, and, like the meta­

physical poets with whom he is frequently compared, utilized a manner

in verse which displays meditation to advantage.

While it is useful to seek first a comprehensive picture of a

culture and then determine an author’s sphere of reference, this pro­

cedure, as suggested in Chapter I, provides an invaluable cultural

setting but raises two questions for a study of Taylor, First, to what

extent is the present understanding of Puritan culture an inclusive

context for discussion, and, second, to what extent can Taylor’s poetry

stand solely as a derivative of the particular cultural composite? The

argument for a Platonic element in Taylor’s verse lies not with the

formulation of a cultural profile, because Platonism itself is not a

literary but a cultural form.l Rather, the difference lies with a

profile which, whether insensitive to the process of creativity or sim­

ply unexploited, has failed to capture Taylor's Platonism, The question

is, in short, "Can this poet's world of vision, or any poet's, be sacri­

ficed to a scheme of reality particularly if, as argued in Chapter I,

the scheme and the poet's precise relationship are less than certain?"

If the Puritan intent has exceeded its purpose by locking Taylor

irrevocably in Puritan moralism, the antithesis, a textual view, achieves

no more by yoking him to a form. The New Critics welcomed Taylor's attitude and style when criticism demanded not order in art, but order

to the second and third powers. Consequently, Taylor's place was fixed by some as that of a minor metaphysical when it appeared America had 21

2 none. While making Taylor an instrument of their success, the New

Critics rewarded him for his failures as a metaphysical by raising him

from obscurity to relegate him to inferiority.

Each view furthers our understanding of Taylor's accomplish­

ment and must remain as a permanent criterion for evaluating Taylor's

importance. The very success of that commentary as an attempt to find

literary, historical, and critical coordinates for a lately discovered

and conspicuously articulate poet has tended to hide his relevance to

other traditions. It can be asked if the touchstones for exploration

have not delimited the range of Taylor's achievement between his meta- 3 physical models and doctrinal obligations. Both fail to account for

the dilemma of Puritan criticism most apparent in Taylor and expressed in part by Norman Grabo:

This picture of Taylor, a rara avis singing solitary in the New England wilderness, hardly squares with the common picture of stern Calvinists preaching the depravity of man in a world where moral gloom has overpowered all systematic gaiety. In Taylor there is no stench of sulphur and fiery burning brimstone, no bleak fatalism. Instead there is honor, pride, sensual and erotic delight, and almost arrogant confidence. Taylor undoubtedly was a rare bird; and, consequently, he has confused critical readers who find him drastically at odds with most evaluations of seventeenth-century Puritanism.4

Post-Hegelians are accustomed to a dialectical analysis of every problem. Yet, rising from the antithesis of form and doctrine is a resolution in Platonic love which can be discussed as either. The resolution clarifies Taylor's achievement inasmuch as it shows the alleged confusion surrounding Taylor to be in the minds of the critics where, as Grabo suggests, the confusion begins. Allen Tate has written

"Great poetry needs no special features of difficulty to make it mysterious. When it has them, the reputation of the poet is likely to 22

5 remain uncertain." Any search for greatness in Taylor must look beyond form and doctrine for a resolution in the imagery; and, as I have sug­ gested at the outset in Chapter I, the imagery of Christian mystical love presents the opportunity.

Unlike the Puritan intent, for instance, which, in its narrowest sense, limited the scope of the Puritan as artist, the hazard in apply­ ing the Platonic tradition is a failure to recognize the "knead." If that tradition is not, again, to become a set of limitations, there must be a receptivity to the possibility on the part of the poet as an artist. This is the opportunity to penetrate a poet's cultural orien­ tation to seek the range of his vision, and it is the safeguard against the fluted rationalizations which have largely supported Taylor's achievement.

While maintaining a distinction between the cultural materials which furnish a poet's vision and the imagination itself (which accord­ ing to Elizabeth Drew rises from a "compulsion to make things of beauty out of his own experience, which embody his consciousness in some more enduring form"^), in no sense does the distinction infer that cultural materials carry biases binding on the imagination. Rather, the questions raised in Chapter I suggest that just as cultural considerations limit our understanding of the poetry, so they provide still less access to 7 the imaginative process,'

Those who regard Taylor as a poet consciously exhibiting ideas or forms are evaluating symbols, for instance, as impersonal, doctrinal representations. Realistic artifacts (such as those in "The Preface" chosen from man's industries to compare with God's handiwork) are seen 23

as chosen by the poet from immediate experience to substantiate a meta- g physical analogy. Herein lies the principal contribution of Roy Harvey

Pearce to Taylor criticism. Pearce has shown that to the extent that

Taylor is not a metaphysical he is capable of poetic revelation as a

Puritan.But whereas Pearce adheres stringently to the Puritan view, Norman Grabo not only broadens Taylor's cultural base^ but considers his symbols

as manifestations of artistic and personal as well as religious revelation:

. . . his inward exploration of soul led him, deserving and fortu­ nate, as Conrad would say, to speak like other artists "to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surroun­ ding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation. ..." Taylor's theology, his intense faith, and the American spiritual community in which he lived, combined to give a structure or form to his rapturous experience of reality; they also provided a way of talking about it that is as valid now as it was for Taylor or for Plato. . . . Unlike Milton, he could not have written poetry left-handed for fifteen years; for his poetry was to him a living act, his most prom­ inent sign of the unitive life attained over a half century of painful endeavor and devotion. From time to time his writing moved him to think of himself soaring above the stars to stand at heaven's door, 1

Grabo corrects this principal failing of Taylor criticism.

Scholars have out-rationalized the Puritans; and, in doing so they have

demanded a harsh obedience to a single point of view that they would

deny in themselves. They have often assumed as in the publication 12 controversy a posture of heresy for Taylor largely because it is a

convenient argument for which there is no logical alternative. In a

study of Taylor's use of Platonic love, however, it is not a question of his right to believe or disbelieve^ but of his inclination as an artist to explore freely any relationship that may exist between

the raw materials of his art (the subject matter) and an artistic

tradition. The distinction is between what Otto Rank calls the

"Art-Form and Idealogy," on the one hand, and "The Artist's Fight 24

14 with Art” on the other. To recognize the distinction is to view

Taylor’s symbolism as a poet's struggle for expression as well as

experience, and the chance to find in cultural symbols the power for

personal revelation and artistic fulfillment.

Because the distinction seems to place the sovereignty of the

imaginative impulse beyond the consious faculties, and hence beyond

artistic analysis, the way is not open, as it is logical to suggest,

for an analysis of creativity in psychological terms.Such an inter­

pretation, in addition to exceeding the scope of the present study,

ultimately relies on judgments relevant to a psychological definition

of social norms, or more tragically, deviations from these norms.

Because all psychological theories of personality used by critics are based upon Freud's attempt to describe the tensions between social and 17 anti-social impulses, it is not fair to the purposes of the artist s vision, as Elizabeth Drew has stated them, to obligate the poet's sensibilities to something which, in turn, renders him suspect for his deviations.

The psychological question is relevant inasmuch as it affects two assumptions about Taylor's assimilation of Platonic love. First, the emphasis upon the importance of the imagery on the level of private meaning raises the problem of its relationship to the imaginative process whether the images are products of conscious or unconscious manipula­ tion. Second, beyond the importance of the images as a means of per­ sonal revelation for Taylor is their sensual, erotic rapture which furnishes the controversy over Taylor's orthodoxy and which requires reconciliation in terms of the poet's obligation to the Puritan commun­ ity. 25

While Chapter I considered the psychological view of the

Puritans, it did not do so with regard to the assumptions which govern

Taylor's use of Platonic love. Yet, the importance which Trilling, for

instance, attaches to the creative imagination means that although it

is possible to contend, as Trilling does, that there are parallels

between Freudian psychoanalysis and literature, it is also true, as

Trilling concedes, that Freud’s method is "outside the process of litera­

ture," In discussing the creative imagination, the scientist cannot 18 "imagine the process" or "the feel of the thing." A psychological

study requires formalization in psychological terms; and, when the critic

attempts to psychoanalyze the author or reconstruct the imaginative

process, he fails from a literary point of view by separating and

recording the process of the imagination at work instead of providing

a sense of- organ.i c purpose. 19

The second assumption concerns the need to answer the psycholog­

ical criticism which affects the Puritans. The suggestion thus far is

that the most prominent assertions about Taylor have centered upon his

uniqueness as a Puritan, It was suggested, for instance, that Taylor 20 is best when he departs from Puritan taste and that he may have avoided persecution by not publishing his poetry. Although Taylor has been spared psychological excavation, the reason advanced is that the discovery of his poetry followed a period of interest in psychological

criticism. That he was appreciated for reasons promoted by the New

Critics is less because of his differences from other Puritans than from the fickleness of criticism. Yet, because he is a Puritan who wrote in the sensual imagery of Platonic love, Taylor stands tall as 26 a potential victim of the debate which divides artists into either creators or conformists.

The method must avoid a second dilemma, a second set of "twin 21 fanaticisms" as restrictive as those described by Kazin. Mark

Linenthal observes, "Writing poetry, like any human activity, is an art of self-expression. But it is still an art too, and any adequate theory of the sources of poetry must somehow combine automatic psychological activity and conscious manipulation. Theorists have often emphasized 22 one or the other." The purpose of the method is to consider Platonic love in Taylor by avoiding these perils. As much as a Platonic approach would at first appear to classify the artist as a creator among con­ formists, the method seeks a middle way.

It attempts to provide a basis for discussion of Taylor without relying exclusively on his Puritanism, his dependence upon a literary form, one whose contact with Platonic love invites what Mark Linenthal 23 calls "expectations of divine madness," J or worst of all, simple madness

Recognizing, as R. P, Blackmur does, that "Any insight is good only 24 at and up to a certain point of development and not beyond," the view offered by Platonic love is promising. It overcomes the disad­ vantages Taylor suffers as a poet dislocated by geography and confined by dogma to assume that Platonism is as indigenous to his Puritan verse as it is to the tradition of religious love which inspired Taylor and the Puritans. Further, the approach is fairer to the intentions of the poet by focusing on his aesthetics, not Puritan ascetics. To the extent that Platonism is an aesthetic view, it disarms those who depict

Taylor as an erotic anomaly who opposed an ingrained Puritan repressive- 27

ness; and, to the extent that it is a cultural view, it offers an

alternative to the opinion that to dilute form with content is to

misunderstand literature.

In a larger sense, Platonic love makes such arguments appear

irrelevant to Taylor, for it cannot be assumed that every member of

any movement constantly stands at the center of that movement or even

speaks consistently to its center. Rather, it can be assumed, as

Perry Miller has shown of the Puritan heritage, that one profits, 25 "sometimes deliberately, sometimes unwittingly," from a framework

of thought which serves as a breeding ground for many departures in

thought while providing safe passage for others. As Alfred Kazin writes

"Every culture is a precipitate of history. In more than one sense,

/It is7 a sieve. Every culture embraces those aspects of the past

which, usually in altered form with altered meanings, live on in the

present." Therefore, it is likely that Taylor, who speaks in the

language of religious love, assimilated the Christian humanist tradi­

tion which included the Platonic in some form. This richness accounts

for the similarities and differences between Taylor and his contem­

poraries .

It is possible to assume, further, that a continuous heritage

provides numerous points of contact for a man of Taylor's temperament.

In a literary study making use of a broad cultural background, it is

nbt necessary to find incontrovertible evidence proving the manner of an artist's exposure to an idea or to assume a stance of relativism by presuming that even the most curious of oddities by one standard find congeniality somewhere within the variety of human culture. The 28 method goes beyond the history of an idea, particularly the idea of 27 Platonic love, to suggest that human cultures rely on a sort of cultural memory bank which, in some little understood way, provides its trustees, among them generations of artists, with the means of 28 processing information and storing it for later re-use.

The importance of such a storehouse lies not in the need to prove its existence or a poet's personal access to its riches. Its persis­ tence can be demonstrated in the writings of individual men or, as

R. W. B. Lewis suggests, in terms of a culture's "articulate thinkers 29 and conscious artists." The method assumes an objective sensibility which evokes a communal response. It is not my intent to speak of the 30 response in Jungian terms (what Rank calls "the psychic life" ). The method assumes a psychology of myth on a collective level and deals with the history of the idea as background manifest in patterns of images.

The method also assumes the author's awareness of our disposition to think in categories of special kinds of images.

That an idea can be discussed without reference to its psychology has been demonstrated by American myth critics, who have shown that a concept need not be verbalized frequently or even forcefully. Yet, it registers its presence through a number of correspondences between the author's cultural background, his thinking, and his writings.

Although we are accustomed to Platonic "myths," this method attempts to show that Taylor's use of Platonism parallels nativist studies in two ways. First, Platonism is a fluid cultural background which responds to changes in historical thought. Further, it presents a complex of cultural symbols—symbols having meaning to a culture as a whole. Second 29

Platonic love is characterized by a crucial debate or tension which

is exhibited in Taylor as the duality of body and soul. Last, like

the Adamic myth or the Virgilian mode, Platonic love is not uniquely

American but is an adaptation of a metaphor from the broader context of 31 western culture.

Because Platonic love is a complex of ideas and images which

can exist as a system unto itself, it has lent itself frequently to

historical analysis as well as to popular, contemporary usage. A

method is required which breaks Platonic love into component parts for

its own purposes. The accumulated understandings of the term appear

to follow a law of irrevocability—that once an idea has evolved from

a past form, it is difficult to return to the original, Herein is the

difficulty of defining Platonic love for Taylor, It is useful, there­

fore, to define Platonic love briefly in terms of what it is not.

Although the identity of the tradition would seem to have remained intact over the centuries, scholars maintain that its unity, if not its 32 integrity, has not. While it is generally agreed that Platonic love has always been a theory of ideal love, the term is also used to describe a condition of love in modern society. It is tempting to pursue the relationship between a term which is both a household word and a theory of love by a Greek, particularly at a time when even the intellectual community welcomes each book depicting man as a predatory aggressor.

The answer lies with the two uses of "Platonic love"—one belonging to mass culture and the other to students of culture. The popular conception of Platonic love may be described as a condition widely familiar either in conversation or through its infusion into the media.

So conditioned are we to "Platonic love" as a backdrop for mawkish 30

commercialism (when appeals to erotic or perverse love seem inappro­

priate) that Platonic love has come to mean a heterosexual relation- 33 ship lacking sexual motivation. To a culture obsessed with its own

ideas about love, Platonic love is not love at all; and, if the advice

of syndicated columnists is to be believed, a curse upon any relation­

ship.

This usage of "Platonic love" as a term pejorated and special-

ized ("an appalling degradation" according to Thomas Gould) represents

an evolution from centuries of use; and, in a general sense, its history

is quite obvious. Its present meaning, however, is not what Plato

intended; nor is it the definition intended here. Yet both usages are

parts of the same tradition as Thomas Gould points out in writing about

the differences between the two conceptions:

And yet, there is just a shadow of the original idea in the vulgar phrase: Plato was indeed talking about the attraction which people have for one another, and he did most certainly deny that desire for sexual gratification was the most direct or informative explanation for this phenomenon. But he was not talking about one kind of love; he was presenting a theory of all love. As for sexuality, it is, Plato maintained, a perfectly natural, but somewhat unimaginative, manifestation of love correctly understood.35

Gould's distinction between two phases of the tradition is in­ dicative of a need not only to recover the term from popular usage but to discriminate for the modern between Hellenistic, Christian,

Romantic and Freudian strains, or (to borrow Gould's words), "The 37 complex of ideas which make up our own attitudes," However, the desire to recapture the essence of Platonic love, although complicated by the eclecticism of our response, is still rewarding. At a time when most of the traditional restrictions on sexual expression are denounced, 31

Platonism has kept its hold on the creative imagination. The reason

is clear; Platonic love, in some sense, has described a ruling passion,

since Plato expanded the definition of erotic love to include "being 38 possessed" as well as "possession,"

The ennobling powers attributed to love by Plato are for artists

and philosophers profound both as to the quality of the experience in

seeking and in the fulfillment. Denis de Rougemont maintains that what

the western world has preserved of Plato is,

...’a divine delirium’, a transport of soul, a madness and supreme sanity both. A lover with his beloved becomes ’as if in heaven*; for love is the way that ascends by degrees of ecstasy to the one source of all that exists, remote from bodies and matter, remote from what divides and distinguishes and beyond the misfortune of being a self and even in love itself a pair.39

As a tradition in its own right, Platonism, including its finer

expressions in particular images of love, has been authoritatively

established by such scholars as John Smith Harrison. It has also been

shown that Platonic love endured through the time of Taylor’s contem­ poraries in England,^® and that it persisted in spite of a revolt against

its conventions by the School of Donne (even if, as Harrison suggests, only "according to the prevailing manner of the time”^). The tradi­

tion originates with the Symposium and the Phaedrus where love is justi- 42 fied philosophically. Also, in these dialogues, as it shall be seen,

discussions of Platonic love are formalized by the use of certain

images. The Symposium, as Paul Elmer More suggests, "bring Ideas into

life as an ethical force by exhibiting the love and desire they excite 43 in the soul by the attraction of their beauty." In the Symposium,

Plato considers the relationship between the love and the object by por­ traying the lover’s lack as the source of love for the object. The

Symposium is, as Robert S. Brumbaugh points out, "Plato's sustained 32

attempt to share his vision of the forms and of the tension between

ideal and actual that we feel as 'love' and'desire.

The Phaedrus can be viewed as a preface to the Symposium. Whereas,

according to More, the Symposium brings ideas into life, the Phaedrus "places Ideas in a mythical supercelestial sphere."^ And whereas the

Symposium speaks of the motivation of love as the need to overcome

inadequate love, the Phaedrus emphasizes the quality of seeking, which

is the love of beauty. As Broadbent points out, Plato "described the 46 sensations of being in love with fascinating accuracy." In the Sym­

posium there is a love which, in A. E. Taylor’s words, "has left sexuality

far behind, an amor mysticus which finds its nearest modern counterpart in the writers who have employed the imagery of Canticles to set forth 47 the love of the soul for its Creator."

The tradition was redefined when its assumptions were Christian­ ized by Ficino and made metaphysical by Plotinus, Under the influence of Ficino, "whose commentary four centuries ago spread the gospel of 48 Platonic love throughout Europe," an attempt was made to synthesize

Hellenism and Christianity as a universal religion. The result, accord­ ing to Frederick Mayer, is "a spiritual and transcendent love, in which 49 the influence of Plato is only too evident." Plotinus, although immersed in Plato, turned from Plato’s social concerns to point the tradition toward a preoccupation with the transcendence of the Soul, the One Mind,^ His theory of emanationism (the idea that being emanates from and returns to the One) is reflected in his concept of love. He writes of love in the Enneads;

It is in the world above that dwells the celestial Aphrodite, while here below resides the vulgar Aphrodite who is similar to a concubine. ... As long as the soul remains faithful to 33

her nature, she loves the divinity and desires to be united'with it. , . . Only in the world.beyond is the real object of our love, the only one with which we can unite ourselves, which we can have part of, and which we can intimately possess without being separated by the barrier of flesh.-*1

Also important to the tradition are such Renaissance courtesy

books as The Courtier, where Platonic love is again justified philo­

sophically. Book IV of The Courtier is valuable as an explanation of

Neo-Platonic doctrines of love, as a manual of exacting rules for grace

and ease, and as the principal example of a tendency to think in certain

images. The images which support a love motif in Plato also support the religious love motif in Plotinus, The Courtier, and Taylor,-’2 Those

images which have antecedents in Plato and maintain their vitality

through the Neo-Platonic interpretation of Plato and which are finally

passed on to Taylor, are considered as images of Platonic love, whether

or not the images survive the centuries of meditation tradition to which

Taylor also belongs.

Finally, the scope of the tradition is extended to the poets

of the sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries who, in addition to

providing the most likely source for Taylor's manner of expression,

furnish additional evidence for the application of the tradition to

poetry. It could be argued that Taylor would have resisted Platonic love because his early seventeenth century models did so and that the thesis, therefore, is adventuresome. The basis for the objection lies in the scholarship of seventeenth century English poetry. Scholars often characterize that poetry as a revolt against Platonic love con­ ventions. F. W. Moorman feels that the body of poetry which followed the Petrarchans evinces "warefare waged with the cherished ideal of the Petrarchan school of lyricists."53 The reaction against Platonic &

love was led by two groups of poets. The first and most famous, the

School of Donne, led a revolution in attitude and style. The second, 54 the Tribe of Ben, sought a revitalized classicism. Platonic love

was represented in the seventeenth century by the Carolinians. To the

circles of Donne and Jonson, this echo of an earlier style appeared

decadent.

Of the three groups of poets, Taylor is most closely associated with the meta physicals. Certainly, the metaphysical style, as it arose

in English verse, could be viewed as a revolt against Platonic notions

of love, John Smith Harrison, although he is able to find evidence of

Platonic love in selected poems from the metaphysicals, writes that its presence "is no testimony whatsoever that it is colored by any

strain of Platonism, but merely signifies that at one time in his

career the poet wrote lyrics according to the prevailing manner of the 55 time," To the extent that Taylor was inspired by the metaphysicals, he could be expected to share these antipathies. There is ample evidence that Taylor subscribed to the credoes of the metaphysicals, and it has already been suggested that numerous studies reaffirm Taylor’s allegi­ ance to the metaphysicals in matters of theme and prosody.

In answer to the objection that Taylor would have resisted

Platonic love because his models did so, it would be easiest to take at their word those who have questioned Taylor’s stature as a meta­ physical by assuming that, because he manages few of the movement's conventions well, it is unlikely that he observed this one. It is more profitable, however, l) to recall the shortcomings of the purely meta­ physical view of Taylor considered in Chapter I and to remember that 35

the intent of metaphysical poetry need not dictate the use of the meta­

physical conceit, 2) to examine the early seventeenth century English

poetry to understand that, while it may reject the excesses of the

Petrarchans, there are instances where the meta physicals and the Tribe

of Ben utilized the imagery, if not the themes, of Platonic love, even

if only as the instrument of their satire, and 3) to consider Taylor as an imitator who stands not only in relation to a declining tradition

of metaphysical poetry but also as an artist whose creative instincts led him to select and enrich.

Although the period which influenced Taylor may be characterized in part by the absence of a vital tradition of Platonic love imagery, it is the reasons for the absence itself which are important. Whether the revolt against the conventions of Platonic love was indirect, as in the case of the Tribe of Ben; whether it was frontal, as in the case of the school of Donne, or whether, as in the words of one critic, the poetry of the earlier seventeenth century was a "second phase" of

Platonic poetry,Platonism, as an aesthetic as well as a theme, distinguishes the various schools of the century and clarifies Taylor’s relationship to them. 36

CHAPTER III

HEAVENLY LOVE

While it is important in a literary study to recognize the relationship between the creative imagination, the literature itself, and what has occurred outside the literature in the author's milieu and private life, the starting point, for the purposes of discussion, must lie in the formulation of such traditions as Platonic love into positive constructs—in this instance, Platonic images which are cul­ tural symbols, In the absence of incontrovertible evidence linking Taylor to a particular phase of the Platonic tradition,^ attempts to determine the exact means of transmission of the influence to Taylor are vulnerable to the weaknesses of circumstantial evidence. Short of a pyschological analysis of the deepest corridors of the subconscious and a splicing of the conscious process of creation, there is ample precedent in myth criticism, including nativist criticism, for dis­ tinguishing between an author’s penned thoughts and the backwash of emotions and ideas which flow through his mind. It is possible to assume, then, that the poetry of Taylor benefited by considerable ex­ posure to a background in the classics which included the Platonic in various forms.

The Platonic ideal of love is based upon certain familiar philosophical assumptions:

1) The Platonic doctrine of the Ideal which elevates the physical to a higher essence and which does not suffer from the earthly limitations of time and space.

2) The acceptance of this world as a map or shadow of the Ideal world, or world of forms. Whereas the Ideal world is an immaterial reality, the physical world is only an imitation or image of reality. 37

3) A belief in the concept of the Good which Plato compared to the sun inasmuch as it is the source of all being,

4) A tendency to think of the Good as divine since it is above truth and that which it has created,

5) A belief in an immortal soul, which is the principle that directs human attention toward the source of man’s creation,.

These assumptions have been accepted by different schools of

poets over many generations to form a Platonic love tradition in

English poetry which recognized in Platonic dualism and Platonic imagery

the possibilities for heavenly and earthly love. In the poetry of the

Platonic love tradition, love took the form either of an earthly love

for the images of this world or a heavenly love for the invisible real­

ities of an Ideal world. Whether it is to be found in the concept of

courtly love in the Christian poets of the Medieval Ages, in the exposi­

tion of Christian, Chivalric virtue by the poets of the Renaissance,

or in the conventions of gallantry practiced by the Caroline poets,

Platonic love conformed to the dualism explained by Plato in the Sym­

posium. Plato wrote that inasmuch as both worlds are divine in origin,

they deserve our affection. The Ideal world, however, is worthy of

our highest affections.

Plato’s contribution to the complex tradition which bears his

name is this: he makes it possible for the object of passion, whether

heavenly or earthly, to be an object of intellectual contemplation.

He does this by combining a philosophical understanding of love, beauty,

and good with the means of desiring and realizing them through the soul.

It is the purpose of Chapter III to consider what will be called

"heavenly love" by which is meant the source of all love. That love which is not simply understood by man as love, but desired and felt 38

as love in the soul, whether for heavenly.or earthly objects, is dis­

cussed in Chapter IV as earthly love; - r? ■ : A 5: The philosophical basis for love .in’the Symposium or the Phae-

drus, whether heavenly or earthly, is Platonic dualism. The importance

of this dualism to love is articulated in the Symposium by an early

speaker, Pausanias, who discriminates between an heavenly love which

springs from "the heavenly Aphrodite" and a vulgar love:

But the Love who is the son of the common Aphrodite is essentially common, and has no discrimination, being such as the meaner sort of men feel, and is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of the body rather than of the soul—the most foolish beings are the objects of this love which desires only to gain an end, but never thinks of accomplishing the end nobly, and therefore does good and evil quite indiscriminately,

The contrast offered by Pausanias is between the love of Aphro­ dite which deprives men of their intellect and an ideal love of an heavenly goddess who, because she is abstract, commands our love through understanding, Pausanias is an advocate of two manners of loving.

The earthly form is less worthy because it consists of passion which obstructs the intellect, Socrates recognizes in Pausanias* words the emphasis in love to seek the source of our being through the higher love, but he extends the definition of love to include all desire. By focusing upon the desire of love, not its manner, Socrates shows love to be inspired by heaven, since love is a desire to possess the good, and happiness is its reward. Thomas Gould writes that the Symposium is about "the identity of the pursuit of the truly desirable and the comprehension of the truly real—the identity of desire and learning, of love and philosophy, Eros and Socrates,

Neo-Platonism reaffirms the Platonic concept of dual love based 39 upon qualitative and quantitative differences. "Neoplatonism," accord­ ing to William Ralph Inge, "asserts consistently that the world as seen by the spiritual man is a very different world from that which is seen by the carnal man. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned; and the whole world, to him who can see it as it is, is irradiated by 4 Spirit." Like Plato, Plotinus expanded the concept of love to include all desire. Frederick Mayer writes:

In our search for spiritual emancipation, Plotinus declared, we must be moved by love. At first we love sensible things, but finally we come to appreciate the source of all love and thus turn to immaterial essences. Like Plato, Plotinus felt that love refers to a higher level of existence and thus turns us away from transi­ tory things and concentrates upon reality.

Not only did Plotinus maintain Plato’s emphasis upon the connec­ tion between heavenly and earthly beauty, but he also recognized the spiritual significance of the ascent to absolute beauty, According to Diotima,

He who under the influence of true love rising upward from these begins to see that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going or being led by another to the things of love, is to use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts upwards for the sake of that other beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is, °

Plotinus writes:

Which is this higher region? What must be done to reach it? One must be naturally disposed to love and be really from the start a philosopher. In the presence of beauty such a lover feels something similar to the pangs of childbirth; but far from halting at bodily beauty, he rises to the beautiful that is in the soul, in virtue, science, noble occupations, and laws. Then he ascends from there to the cause of this beauty and stops 40

only when he has reached the existence which occupies the first rank, that which is beautiful in and by itself. Then only, and not before, is he free from his pangs. 7

From what has been said about basic principles, it is clear that

Plotinus preserves the Platonic concept of an heavenly love. Moreover,

Plotinus assimilated many of Plato's analogies. In discussing the

duality of love, for instance, Plotinus found Plato's analogy with the

pre-Christian deities powerful enough to repeat: "It is in the world

above that dwells the celestial Aphrodite, while here below resides g the vulgar Aphrodite who is similar to a concubine,"

The relationship of the immortal soul to the carnal, profane

urge is explained by Plato in The Phaedrus. There he uses the analogy

of the chariot to explain the principle of soul which stirs us to

heavenly love. The analogy is consistent with what has been said about

Platonic dualism because it accounts for love as a desire either in

the ideal or intellectual world or in the world of senses. A. E. Taylor

has condensed the myth:

It is like a charioteer with a pair of winged steeds, forming a single living whole. In the case of the gods, driver and horses are all. as good as they can possibly be; in the human soul, the driver has to manage two horses of different strains, and this is what makes his task so difficult. While the horses keep their wings, they travel around the circuit of heaven and the soul "administers" the Cosmos. But they may lose their wings and fall to earth; the soul then acquires an earthly body which seems to be able to move itself (though it is really moved by the soul within it), and it is this complex of body and soul which we call the mortal "animal,"9

The analogy is an organic metaphor; each detail relates to the

comparison between love and the chariot. The driver represents the higher human faculties and the chariot is a vehicle for the soul, perhaps the human body. The reins are like the will and as the chariot 41

ascends it relates man to both heaven and earth. The horses are the

life forces, Robert S, Brumbaugh identifies the forces as ambition

and appetite: "In general, it is the dark horse of passion which causes

trouble; on seeing anything beautiful, he tries to resist the driver 10 and drag the chariot to immediate gratification."

Poets and philosophers have utilized Plato’s analogy to explain

the duality of love. Because the analogy is rich in imagery, it has

appealed to Christian theologians who wrote like poets as well as

those who wrote poetry as if they were philosophers. In the transition

from pre-Christian origins to Christian Platonism, the analogy changed

in two respects which affect Taylor’s understanding of heavenly love

and, subsequently, his use of the chariot image. First, it has already

been pointed out that Platonism provided Christian love with an intel­

lectual priniple. The eroticism of Christian love, however, turned

the analogy toward its own ends. To the Platonic idea that heavenly

love brings fuller participation in the ideal world, Christianity added the notion of a confrontation with the divine which makes him apparent through his physical presence. The personification of Christ

is discussed in Chapter V, In the understanding of heavenly love, however, the change is of little significance inasmuch as it does not alter the importance of Platonic dualism to love. In discussing the importance of the erotic motif to Christian love, Anders Nygren accounts for the change:

The importance of symbols as means of campaign and conquest cannot be overrated. Theoretical discussions and doctrines are more difficult to grasp, and even when understood they often leave the personal life untouched, whereas an appropriate symbol can immediately grip and convince without any proof. It is easily 42

grasped and remembered, and even if its exact meaning is not fully comprehended, it still has remarkable power to fire the imagination and engage the will, H

The second change in the Christian use of the analogy was a

de-emphasis upon most of the details of the figure to concentrate upon

the wings of the soul. The change resulted from the Christian objection

to the Platonic concept of the soul’s migration and from an emphasis 12 upon salvation of the mortal soul. Although each of the images of

Plato’s analogy appears in the Bible, none retain the full power of

the chariot image. The images of wings, chariot, horses, and others are scattered throughout the Bible and frequently occur in a literal, narrative context; they are not assembled to suggest figuratively that the mortal body is being consumed by fire in the service of the soul.

As a poet and theologian Taylor appreciated both the power of the image to evoke an emotional response and its importance to Christian

Platonism. The combination of both perspectives can be shown in a sequence of poems illustrating l) Taylor’s awareness of the duality of love based upon the control of sensual love, and 2) his use of the chariot as a metaphor for the participation in heavenly love.

In a poem from Gods Determinations, "The Accusation of the

Inward Man," Taylor warns of the blindness of the appetites. Although

Gods Determinations is, as Nathalia Wright points out, "an avowed exposition of Covenant tenets,the doctrinal elements are frequently subordinated to discussions of the soul's duty, "The Accusation of the Inward Man," while containing references neither to Puritanism nor

Plato, is closer to the latter's concern for the rational faculties and the need to rein in the darker horse of passion. As Donald Stanford 43

suggests, the notions are similar to those of Lorenzo Scupoli’s The

Spiritual Conflict or Shakespeare’s phrase that "Reason panders 14 will":

The Understandings dark, and therfore Will Account of Ill for Good, and Good for ill. As to a Purblinde man men oft appeare Like Walking Trees within the Hemisphere. So in the judgment Carnall things Excell: Pleasures and Profits beare away the Bell. The Will is hereupon perverted so, It laquyes after ill, doth good foregoe. The Reasonable Soule doth much delight A Pickpack t’ride o’th'Sensuall Appitite. And hence the heart is hardened and toyes,, - With Love, Delight, and Joy, yea Vanities,

Because Christianity is disposed to personification, not ab­ straction, its lore embodied the vanities in Satan who, although he is a Christian metaphor, resembles the fifteenth mystery of the Tarot pack l6 and, before that, the Greek sphinx. As the antagonist in Christian myth, Satan represents the appetites which prevent the mortal soul from enjoying the infinite love of God. In "The Effect of this Reply with a fresh Assault from Satan," the poet repeats the dangers of beguiled senses using the Christian image of Satan:

So doth this speech the Drooping Soul availe. How doth this Answer Mercies Captives Cheer? Yet those whom Justice took still Drooping were, And in this nick of time the Foe through spite Doth like a glorious Angell seem of Light. Yet though he painteth o're his Velvet smut. He cannot yet Conceal his Cloven foot. Hence in their joy he straweth poyson on, Those Objects that their senses feed upon. By some odde straggling throught up poyson flies Into the heart: and through the Eares, and Eyes. Which sick, lies gasping: Other thoughts then high To hold its head; and Venom'd are thereby. Hence they are influenc’t to selfe Ends: these darts Strike secret swelling Pride up in their hearts. The which he fosters till the bladder flies In pieces; then joy lies agast and dies. (pp, 282-3) 44

Although by personifying evil as Satan Taylor reflects Christian

imagery, the conception of Satan, as well as Taylor’s picture of man's

irrational nature, is Platonic. First, the Christian myth of Satan

is an adaptation of the Socratic paradox, the belief that evil actions

are involuntary because no man would knowingly commit them. Rather, a

man chooses evil because he is mistakenly led to think that it is

good. Secondly, man’s irrational nature remains as Plato described

it, a lower ignoble self. Whereas the good soul is beautiful, the

other nature, the bad, is ugly. In the Timaeus Plato thinks of space or formlessness as evil,^ and in the Parmenides he states that there

19 cannot be Ideas for certain ugly physical objects as "mud,” Third,

the poem utilizes Platonic imagery. Not only is Satan’s vague form

depicted by such images as "mud" and disease but the appetite is

described by imagery associated with digestion and elimination, The

will is associated with heart imagery.

Whereas the Platonist thought of evil as the result of form­

lessness, the Christian associated evil not only with the amorphous

but with a poison which enters the universe and threatens the divine

purpose. The realization that the universe, as man pretends to understand it, is not the only universe led him to seek the invisible

realities. To the Platonist and the Neo-platonist the other world, 2 although created by a divine force, represented an evolutionary process.

It was conceivable to philosophers of both schools that the presence of evil was the result of a step in the process which permitted moral

freedom. The immoral exercise of this freedom interfered with the beneficence of divine love on two levels: 1) the world of formlessness 45

(Satan) which hid its malicious intent, and 2) the world of people

who are the agents of evil intent. In "The Soul accused in its

Serving God," Satan rebukes the souls of the first rank for loving 21 Christ for self-seeking reasons, hot unearthly ones:

For in Gods worship still thy heart doth cling Unto and follows toyish Earthly things. And what thou offer’st God his Holy Eye Sees, is an Offering of Hypocrisy. And if thou saw’st no hell, nor heaven; I see, My Soule for thine, thy Soule and mine agree. What then’s thy Love to God, and Piety? Is it not selfish? And Comes in by th’by? For selfe is all thine aim; not God thine end: And what Delight hath he in such a friend? Lip Love is little else, but such a ly, As makes the matter but Hypocrisy. (p. 288)

The besieged soul can offer no defense against the charges of

Satan by means of an earthly love. On the other hand, the soul can

refute Satan’s assault by realizing the principle of heavenly love.

In "The Souls Groan to Christ for Succour," the mortal soul contrasts

the two kinds of love:

Good Lord, behold this Dreadfull Enemy Who makes me tremble with his fierce assaults, I dare not trust, yet feare to give the ly, For in my soul, my soul finds many faults. And though I justify myselfe to’s face: I do Condemn myselfe before thy Grace, (p, 289)

The final poem in the sequence, "An Extasy of Joy let in by this Reply returnd in Admiration," is, as Grabo points out, "a series of contrasts 22 between what the soul can do and what to Christ is due":

Had I ten thousand times ten thousand hearts: And Every Heart ten thousand Tongues; To praise, I should but stut odd parts Of what to thee belongs. (p. 294)

Although the contrast is garbed in Christian theology, it is, neverthe­ less, a restatement of the Platonic dialogue between the body and soul. 46

The discussion of an earthly concept of Platonic love and the accom­

panying imagery is reserved for Chapter IV. However, in ’’The Soule

Bemoning Sorrow rowling upon a resolution to seek Advice of Gods

people,” the debate between the body and soul contains two references

to heavenly love in the first two stanzas. The first, "Breath," is 23 Platonic, and the second, "Pearle," is Christians

Alasi my Soule, product of Breath Divine, For to illuminate a Lump of Slime. Sad Providence1 Must thou below thus tent, In such a Cote as strangles with ill sent? Or in such sensuall Organs make thy stay Which from thy noble end do make thee stray? My nobler part, why dost thou laquy to The Carnall Whynings of my senses so? What? thou become a Page, a Peasant, nay, A Slave unto a Durty Clod of Clay! Why should the Kirnell bring such Cankers forth To please the shell, as will devour them both? Why didst thou thus thy Milkwhite Robes defile With Crimson spots of scarlet sins most vile?

My Muddy Tent, Why hast thou done so ill To Court, and kiss my Soule, yet kissing kill? Why didst thou Whyning, egg her thus away Thy sensuall Appetite to satisfy? Art thou so safe, and firm a Cabinet As though thou soaking lie in nasty wet, And in all filthy Puddles: yet though thin Can ne’re drench through to stain the Pearle within? (pp. 306-7)

Taylor’s use of the chariot as an analogy for his participation

in divine love is best illustrated in Meditation 1.20, The poem, in

Donald Stanford's words, "provides the ’heavenly doctrine’ — the

glorification of the man-God Christ and through Christ of the elect 24 and of the poet himself." "The theme," Stanford continues, "is stated

in the paradox of the fifth line: 'A Mortall Clod immortalized.' To

clarify the theme, Taylor draws upon the composite figure made up of a charioteer, chariot, wings, and feathers. In the first two lines, 47

the poet clamors for the attention of heaven's relations:

View all ye eyes above, this sight which flings Seraphick Phancies in Chill Raptures high, (p, 34)

In the remaining lines of the stanza, Taylor imagines himself partici­

pating in heaven’s activities:

A Turffe of Clay, and yet bright Glories King From dust to Glory Angell-like to fly. A Mortall Clod immortalizde, behold, Flyes through the Skies swifter than Angells could. (p, 34)

At this point, Taylor has not introduced the image of the

chariot; nor does his vision specify an abstraction or a godhead. His

search for the pure, eternal beauty does suggest something about his relation to heaven and heaven's activities. In the Phaedrus, Plato explains that the soul's chief property is motion. "That which is 26 moved from within," he writes, "has a soul." For Plato and Plotinus, movement is initiated in the mortal soul when the heavenly soul loses 27 its feathers and falls to earth to attach itself to the body. While on earth, however, even the lesser mortal soul seeks to return to its source and is always responsive to the sights of heaven. Love for Taylor, as for Plato, is an inspired passion of the heavenly soul which yearns for heavenly beauty, Taylor explains the relationship between the mortal and immortal soul by two images, "Clay" which is also a frequent biblical image and "Clod" which suggests the Platonic image of "mud,"

("Clod" appears in the Bible in this sense once. See Job 21: 33»)

In the second stanza Taylor describes Christ’s ascension, intro­ ducing the image, "Wings," and substituting Winde" for horses. In

Plato, and in myth generally as J. E. Cirlot notes, the horse can stand for the wind because he is thought to be fleet. Taylor reinforces 48

this association by referring to Christ as "The Prince o’th' Aire."

In ancient cosmologies, air was thought to be the most important of

the four elements, and in Chapter IV its use as the breath of life is

demonstrated in connection with earthly love:

Upon the Wings he of the Winde rode in His Bright Sedan, through all the Silver Skies And made the Azure Cloud his Charriot bring Him to the Mountain of Celestial joyes. The Prince o'th’Aire durst not an Arrow spend While through his Realm his Charriot did ascend. (p. 34)

In the second stanza, Taylor uses two Christian symbols of love. The ascent of the mountain, as Anders Nygren notes, is biblical and was 29 first used as a symbol of erotic Christian love by Gregory of Nyssa.

The second, the arrow, represents power in Greek mythology and is

closely associated with light and, hence, the illumination spoken of by Plato and Plotinus. The arrow was used as a symbol of love by 30 / Gregory although its use in the Bible is varied but not erotic (see

I. Sa. 20; 37; II Ki. 13« 17). In the Bible, Christ is the divine archer who wounds with Agape,or the human soul is shot to heaven like an arrow. In Meditation 2.112, Taylor departs from this use of the arrow as a symbol for Agape to introduce an erotic situation:

Oht Good, Good, Good, my Lord. What more Love yet. Thou dy for meet What, am I dead in thee? What did Deaths arrow shot at me thee hit? Didst slip between that flying shaft and mee? Didst make thyselfe Deaths marke shot at for mee? So that her Shaft shall fly no far than thee? (p. 252)

Throughout the remainder of the poem, the poet attempts to understand the meaning of Christ’s death. The loss is described as erotic and sensual:

Di'dst dy for mee indeed, and in thy Death Take in thy Dying thus my death the Cause? And lay I dying in thy Dying breath, (p. 252) 49

and;

How sweet is this: my Death lies buried Within thy Grave, my Lord, deep under ground, It is unskin'd, as Carrion rotten Dead. (p. 253)

In the third stanza of Meditation 1.20, Taylor extends the

image of the chariot and combines it with two other images of Platonic

love. The first, the ladder, appears once in the Bible (Gen, 28: 12),

The ladder appears in the literature of Christian love which followed

the Bible, but, as a symbol of love for Luther and Calvin, it repre­

sented a self-love which was not conducive to the piety which springs

from understanding God's will on earth. In the climactic exposition in the Symposium. Plato compares love to a ladder. Taylor, like Plato,

envisions the ladder as a metaphor for God's emanating love and heavenly beauty as something which surpasses gold. Finally, Taylor's reference to the steps which lead to heaven suggests less a biblical or Puritan influence than the influence of Plato's speech or the literature of the Christian mystics who were directly influenced by

Hellenistic ideas of love. When the poet exclaims that he did not ascend like Elias (Elias is the Greek word for Elijah), he is rejecting the Christian use of the chariot image in the Bible (II. Ki, 2: 11) for the Platonic image of the ladder:

He did not in a Fiery Charriot's Shine, And Whirlewinde, like Elias upward goe. But th'golden Ladders Jasper rounds did climbe Unto the Heavens high from Earth below. Each step trod on a Golden Stepping Stone Of Deity unto his very Throne. (p. 34)

Although the images of the poem are largely scriptural, they, like the chariot image, represent a Christian adaptation of Platonic images of love. The reference to a "Fiery" chariot, while biblical, 50

is also a statement of divine illumination, and the use of fire in this

manner remained unchanged from Plato to Plotinus, Plotinus stated

that illumination stems from above, and, just as a flame reaches 31 upward when it burns, the fire within the souls point upward. In

escaping the mortal state by ascending with the soul's wings, the soul

approaches the source of the illumination and. burns with an intensity

which heats the chariot. In the final two stanzas, Taylor resolves

the theme of the mortal-immortal through the images of the wings and

feathers which are given by God. Both recall that part of the Platonic 32 analogy repeated by Plotinus which describes the fall of the wings

to earth. Taylor’s use of feathers in the last line suggests the myth

although the use of feathers as an image in the Bible does not (see

Job 39: 13! Ps. 68: 13; 91« 4; Eze. 39« 17; Dan. 4: 33)«

Art thou ascended up on high, my Lord, And must I be without thee here below? Art thou the sweetest Joy the Heavens afford? Oht that I with thee wast what shall I do? Should I pluck Feathers from an Angells Wings, They could not waft me up to thee my King.

Lend me thy Wings, my Lord, I’st fly apace. My Soules Arms stud with thy strong Quills, true Faith, My Quills then Feather with thy Saving Grace, My Wings will take the Winde thy word displai’th. Then I shall fly up to thy glorious Throne With my strong Wings whose Feathers are thine own. (p. 35)

The end of the soul's journey according to Plato in the Phaedrus was heaven, the home of the gods, where Zeus and the lesser deities ranged the heavens in winged chariots. In Meditation 2,92, Taylor visualizes heaven both as the plane of reality which is the source of universal order and as the region where God’s chariot rides in complete glory waiting to descend for man: 51

What is thy Humane Coach thy Soule rides in, Bathing in Bright, Heart ravishing glory all In Gods Celestiall splendent Palace trim, Full of it’s Fulgient Glory of that hall? And wilt thou from this glorious Palace come Again to us on earth, where Sinners throng? (p, 219)

In Meditation 1.33, Taylor refers again to man’s fallen state but longs for that time before the fall of man when all life was animated by soul. The memory of a "Royall Coach" which rides in glory recalls the image in The Phaedrus where Plato describes Zeus’ chariot as the lead chariot in the heavenly procession:

Glory lin’de out a Paradise in Power Where e'ry seed a Royall Coach became For Life to ride in, to each shining Flower, And made mans Flower with glory all ore flame. Hells Inkfac’de Elfe black Venom spat upon The same, and kill'd it. So that Life is gone, (p. 53)

In the succeeding stanza, Taylor accepts man's fallen condition and substitutes the biblical image of the ark for a chariot:

Life thus abusde fled to the golden Arke, Lay lockt up there in Mercie's seate inclosed: Which did incorporate it whence its Sparke Enlivens all things in this Arke inclosed. Oh, glorious Arkel Life's Store-House full of Gleet Shall not my Love safe lockt up ly in thee? (pp, 53-4)

Taylor's joy at the Elect's ability to ascend to the regions of heaven is reflected in "The Joy of Church Fellowship rightly attended," The poet's use of the coach as a substitute for the chariot (the image of the coach is not biblical) is clearest when man is able to rise above the realm of earthy concern to catch a glimpse of heaven. Unlike the biblical image of Moses, for instance, who climbed the mount, Taylor's saints "to Glory ride": 52

In Heaven soaring up, I dropt an Eare On Earth: and oht sweet Melody: And listening, found it was the Saints who were Encoacht for Heaven that sang for Joy, For in Christs Coach they sweetly sing: As they to Glory ride therein. (p, 334)

The chief difference between the concept of love as it was

understood by Plato and Plotinus is the influence of Christianity,

Platonism turned man's capacity for heavenly love toward the source of

his creation and well-being, both products of divine love. In speaking

of the gods in the Symposium, Plato wrote, "Thus numerous are the

witnesses which acknowledge Love to the eldest of the gods. And not

only is he the eldest, he is also the source of the greatest benefits 33 to us."^7 Christianity, on the other hand, focused Platonic love by

personifying the abstraction as a godhead.

Platonism made two contributions to the Christian concept of

heavenly love. One conceived of the highest reality as beautiful and

the other as good. Together, they offered a rational explanation of

God's love as revealed in the creation. Of the first, beauty, John

Smith Harrison writes:

In the "Symposium" Plato had taught that love was a desire of birth in beauty, and that the highest love was a desire of birth in beauty absolute, the ultimate principle of all beauty, Christianity, on the other hand, had taught that God is love. By identifying the absolute beauty of Plato with God, and by applying the Platonic conception of the birth of love to this Christian conception of God as love, God himself was understood as enjoying his own beauty, thus begetting beings like to it in fairness. 34

In Meditation 1.1, Taylor acknowledges love as the principal attribute of God, By using two vague images, "Infinity" and "Finity," and figures of language and speech, Taylor conveys the paradoxical 53

nature of God’s love, its shape defying vastness and its purposefulness

What Love is this of thine, that Cannot bee In thine Infinity, 0 Lord, Confinde, Unless it in thy very Person see, Infinity, and Finity Conjoyn'd? What hath thy God head, as not satisfide Marri'de our Manhood, making it its Bride? (p. 5)

A reading for how the stanza means as well as what it means reveals

again that Taylor is not only capable of an exposition of Christian

love in the imagery of his faith but also that he restores the images

of the Platonic dialogues to much of their original vitality. The

elements of Christian faith and imagery begin with the apostrophe in line two, and the personification of God’s love as well as the metaphor

of the marital union are frequent Christian metaphors, J. B. Broadbent writes that "Christianity is a unifying religion; its God is the father

of a family, the Church is the bride of Christ, its adherents are 35 members one of another."^

The Platonic imagery is contained in the rhetorical question which ends with the paradox: "Unless it in thy very Person see,/

Infinity, and Finity Conjoy’d?" According to Plato, finiteness was the sign of divine purposefulness. The classical mind envisioned a closed universe as proof of perfect intelligence. Lacking the modern understanding of matter and space as cohabitants of the universe, the classicist reasoned that a finite universe could not contain matter and void simultaneously. As Robert S. Brumbaugh points out, "Cos­ mology is for Timaeus the study of an organized closed system, where the ideals of simplicity and order are clearly evident in the laws of nature."36

In the second stanza of the meditation, Taylor repeats the theme 5^ of God as love by using a concrete image. That image is the vessel filled with liquid, one which Plato uses in the Symposium to explain the transfer of wisdom between men:

How I wish, said Socrates, taking his place as he was desired, that wisdom could be infused through the medium of touch, out of the full into the empty man, like the water which the wool sucks out of the full vessel into an empty one; in that case how much I should prize sitting by youJ For you would have filled me full of gifts of wisdom, plenteous and fair,3?

In addition to using the image to signify the love between men who share a desire for heavenly knowledge, Plato also used the image of liquid as libations to god as the participants in the Symposium poured oQ drops of grace as libations to the gods. The vessel filled with liquid is a frequent image of Christian love, but its use in the Bible, for instance, lacks the philosophical scaffolding given it by Plotinus,

In the Bible, the vessel is usually the cup of salvation or friendship

("my cup runneth over"), but in Plotinus the image is used with an awareness of Plato: "Plato further speaks of the ’father of the cause,'

By cause he means Intelligence; for to Plato Intelligence is the demiurge. Plato adds that it is this power 'that forms the soul in the cup.The image, as first used by Plato and throughout the Christian tradition, lent itself in Taylor's poetry as well to the personification of a God who lives in love and who has created man out of love:

Oh, Matchless Lovel filling Heaven to the briml O're running it: all running o're beside This WorldI Nay Overflowing Hell; wherein For thine Elect, there rose a mighty Tide! That there our Veans might through thy person bleed, To quench those flames, that else would on us feed, (p, 5)

In Meditation 1.7, Taylor refines the analogy between God's love and liquid, Grace, the form of that love, is "graciously distilld" by 55

"Glowing heate," the metaphor for God's love:

Thy Humane Frame, my Glorious Lord, I spy, A Golden Still with Heavenly Choice drugs filld; Thy Holy Love, the Glowing heate whereby, The Spirit of Grace is graciously distilld. Thy Mouth the Neck through which these spirits still. My Soul thy Violl make, and therewith fill, (p, 17)

As in the other poems examined, Taylor satisfies the Christian expres­

sion of erotic love as well as the Platonic requirement of an intellec

tual love expressed through particular images. The personified God

pours the liquid into the human soul through the lips, and God's

physical presence is sensed by the poet's use of a figure of speech, apostrophe. The metaphor of the deity as a chemist intellectualizes

the quality of love felt, and God is imagined by Taylor in this 40 meditation as He is in the Timaeus as the soul's druggist. The reference in line one to God's "Humane Frame" echoes the Renaissance concept of the body as the house for the soul, but Taylor's choice of the word "Frame" is closer to the Timaeus where the "frame" is the 41 "vehicle" of the soul.

In numerous other poems Taylor conceives of God as living in beauty and, hence, love. In Meditation 1,8, Taylor again reveals the tendency to think of God's love in terms of the heavenly wonders which surround him.

I kening through Astronomy Divine The Worlds bright Battlement, wherein I spy A Golden Path my Pensill cannot line, From that bright Throne unto my Threshold ly. And while my puzzled thoughts about it pore I finde the Bread of Life in't at my doore. (p. 18)

In each of the poems cited, Taylor conceives of God as love. According to Christianized Platonic love, God was imagined to be loving as well 56

as living in love. When Taylor describes divine love, it is for the

purpose of celebrating God for begetting man out of love. In Medita­

tion 1.8, the imagery is characteristically Christian, The bird, a

universal image for souls, is closely associated with the Tree of

Life, The Platonic conception of the soul's infusion into the mortal

soul is cloaked in doctrine, Austin Warren writes, "the soul is

bird of Paradise in a double sense—child of heaven and heir of

Eden's Adam, who was put in the 'cage' of the Garden as the soul has

been put into that of the Body, to sing God's praises, but who (like 42 his descendant soul) has instead eaten of the forbidden fruit,"

In Meditation 1.1, Taylor joins opposites ("Infinity" and "Finity")

and concludes the stanza by marrying finite man to God. God, who

lives in love, makes His state the means by which He is joined with

His creations

What hath thy Godhead, as not satisfide Marri'de our Manhood, making it its Bride? (p. 5)

In Meditation 1.7, love, in the form of distilled liquid, is poured

into vials representing man's souls

Thy Mouth the Neck through which these spirits still. My Soul thy violl make, and therewith fill. (p. 17)

In Meditation 1,8, the "Golden Path" is an umbilical linking God's

firmament to man's and sustaining its

And while ray puzzled thoughts about it pore I finde the Breade of Life in't at my doore. (p, 18)

For Plato and Plotinus, the power of divine love lay in its

desire to issue beauty, Plotinus speaks of the power as potentiality:

"The One must not exist alone; for then all things would have remained unrealized, because in the One there is no differentiation of forms. 57

43 No beings would exist if the One remained fixed in itself." Christian

theology, as exemplified by the Bible and Calvin, accepted the Platonic teaching that God’s motive in creating the universe was goodness. Both traditions accepted the creation as a mirror of divine wisdom and power, but the Christian tradition elevated the importance of man in the creation whereas Platonism extended providence to all things, making all living creatures, according to the Timaeus, of identical order and nature. In Meditation 2,42, Taylor is consistent with the Calvinist emphasis on the Platonic foundation of Christian theology. The universe is not only created for man but, Taylor like Calvin, acknowledges two states of man—his condition both before and after the fall:

Thou for this end, a Body hadst preparde, Where Sin ne'er set a foot, nor shewd its head But ev'ry grace was in it, and Well far'de. Whose fruite, Lord, let into my heart be shed. Then grace shall grace my Soule, my Soule shall thee Begrace, and shall thy gracefull ffclace bee.

Thy Body is a Building all like mine, In Matter, Form, in Essence, Properties. Yet Sin ne’er toucht it, Grace ne'er ceast in't*shine. It, though not Godded, next to th*Godhead lies. This honour have I, more than th'Angells bright. Thy Person, and my Nature do Unite. (p. 154)

For a poet who personified Platonic teachings in the imagery of

Christian faith, the greatest proof of God's love was the Son:

Oh Lovely One! how doth thy Loveliness Beam through the Chrystall Casements of the Eyes Of Saints, and Angells sparkling Flakes of Fresh Heart Ravishing Beauty, filling up their joyes? And th'Divells too; if Envies Pupills stood Not peeping there these sparkling Rayes t'exclude? (pp. 48-9)

The excellence of the Son is also known to man by His power to raise man's estate. Meditation 2.11, combines the Platonic conception of love with the Christian personification of that love in Christ: 58

Eternall Love burnisht in Glory thick, Doth butt, and Center in thee, Lord, my joy, Thou portrai’d art in Colours bright, that stick Their Glory on the Choicest Saints, Whereby They are thy Pictures made, (p, 99)

In Meditation 1.12, Taylor describes Christ as the instrument of divine love on earth:

Pluck back the Curtains, back the Window Shutts: Through Zions Agate Window take a view; How Christ in Pinckted Robes from Bozrah puts Comes Glorious in’s Apparell forth to Wooe, OhI if his Glory ever kiss thine Eye, Thy Love will soon enchanted bee thereby. (p, 24) and;

See, how he from the Counthouse shining went, In Flashing Folds of Burnisht Glory, and Dasht out all Curses from the Covenant Hath Justices Acquittance in his hand Pluckt out Deaths Sting, the Serpents Head did mall The Bars and Gates of Hell he brake down all. (p. 33)

The second conception of the highest reality as the Good may be used to explain the rationale evident in both the visible and invisible creation. Love is good because it is total and perfect.

It is superior to beauty because it creates and sustains beauty. In the Timaeus, Plato explains why the creator made the world out of goodness:

He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testi­ mony of wise men; God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest; and the creator, reflecting on the things which 59

are by nature visible, found, that no unintelligent creature taken as a whole was fairer than the intelligent taken as a whole; and that intelligence could not be present in anything which was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he was fram­ ing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest and best. Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God,44

The relationship between God’s love and the understanding of

order in the universe as proof of His goodness is an assumption which

is reflected in the Renaissance state of mind. The shaping power of

divine love is a recurrent theme in Renaissance cosmologies, histories

and poetry. The New England Puritan's belief in divine beneficence in

the form of universal stability is borne out by Covenant theology,

which included covenants with God, the visible church, and the civil

authority. To the extent that the Puritans were rationalists they could

express confidence in a cosmology which, while characteristically

Renaissance, originated with Plato and was amplified by the synthesizers

of Christianity and Platonism, The Puritan confidence in a stable

universe was reflected in the organization of human institutions, For

Taylor the conditions of a Puritan theocracy reflected a human depen- 4 dency upon divine models, and the authority for human imitation was

the ecclesiastics who superseded the authority of the magistrates. In

Meditation 1.38, Taylor reflects the concern for the power of universal

love to command mortal lives. Like Plato in The Laws, Taylor uses

jurisprudence as the metaphor for clarifying divine goodness and order.

For Plato and Taylor, the life of earthly goodness stems from the realization that human codes of morality are an extension of divine 45 law which illustrates law in the highest degree: 60

Oht What a thing is Man? Lord, Who am I? That thou shouldst give him Law (Ohl golden Line) To regulate his Thoughts, Words, Life thereby. And judge him Wilt thereby too in thy time, A Court of Justice thou in heaven holdst To try his Case while he's here housd on mould, (p, 6l)

From Plato to Plotinus, the concept of goodness remained un­

changed, and, in spite of the Christian insistence upon the militancy

of evil, the creation was the evidence for God's perfection and charity,

Plotinus wrote that divine providence "directs its glance downward" to 46 this world, and the perfection observable in this world is the proof:

"What would be the nature of a world better than the present one if

such were possible? The present one is already a faithful image of

the intelligible world. It exists necessarily and there is no better 47 world," The principal manifestation of goodness lay in the order

given the universe upon its inception. Echoing the emphasis upon the

shaping power of the demiurge prevalent in Plato, Plotinus writes,

In the universe there are indeed two kinds of providence. The first providence is directed to the whole and regulates everything in the manner of kings by giving orders to be executed by others. The second is concerned with the details and engages in direct action, adapting the agent and that which is enacted upon to each other. Now the divine soul always administers the whole world in the first way, enthroning herself above the world by virtue of her superior part, while she injects into the world only her lowest power,

It was natural, then, that man should feel obliged to acknowledge the proof of this love and goodness as well as the divine claims upon the human estate.

In "The Preface" to Gods Determinations, Taylor depicts God in

Platonic terms as the father who gave the universe life and as the craftsman who gave it form. While it is customary to note Taylor's use of ingenious conceits, the governing metaphor (human craft/divine art) 61

is interesting for what it means in addition to how it means. Through­

out the poem, Taylor's analogy between human industry and the creation

contains ideas which, while not inconsistent with the biblical account

of the creation, recall the Platonic conception of goodness as a mani­

festation of love.

The opening lines echo the Platonic conception of universal

space. Taylor modifies the concept, however, with an orthodox

Christian understanding of the creation which, as Robert S, Brumbaugh

points out, "holds that God is all-powerful and that He created the world 'out of nothing,' so that matter did not exist independent of 49 creation, and was brought into being as a result of Divine decision,"

In spite of this orthodoxy, Taylor's philosophical interest is closer to the Timaeus than the biblical account of creation in "Genesis":

Infinity, when all things it beheld In Nothing, and of Nothing all did build, (p, 263)

The second Platonic influence in the contrast between man's finite handicrafts and the goodness of divine art is the personifica­ tion of God as a craftsman. In the Timaeus, Plato considers the handiwork of the heavens and earth to be the result of craft of the highest sort. The description of God as an artisan is often associated with those philosophers and poets through the centuries who are re­ garded as Classical, and the image of God as a father is biblical.

Plato, however, emphasizes both concepts of God by referring to Him as "The maker and father of this universe.While there are numerous passages in the Bible depicting God as a father, there are only scattered references to craftsmanship and these largely designate human crafts or 62

behavior. None conveys the full sense of Platonic perfection in

divine workmanship. In the remainder of the first half of "The Preface,"

Taylor’s conceits attribute to God the rule of maker, and, in doing so,

Taylor capitalizes upon primitive Puritan industry rather than the

allegorical account of the creation found in "Genesis":

Upon what Base was fixt the Lath, wherein He turn'd this Globe, and riggalld it so trim? Who blew the Bellows of his Furnace Vast? Or held the Mould wherein the world was Cast? Who laid its Corner Stone? Or whose Command? Where stand the Pillars upon which it stands? Who Lac'de and Fillitted the earth so fine, With Rivers like green Ribbons Smaragdine? Who made the Sea's its Selvedge, and it locks Like a Quilt Ball within a Silver Box? Who Spread its Canopy? Or Curtains Spun? Who in this Bowling Alley bowld the Sun? Who made it always when it rises set To go at once both down, and up to get? Who th'Curtain rods made for this Tapistry? Who hung the twinckling Lanthorns in the Sky? (p. 263)

The tour of the master craftsman's studio ends with a rhetorical question which marks the beginning of the second half of "The Preface": "Who? who did this? or who is he?" The long catalogue of conceits describ­ ing God as a craftsman ends as Taylor leads us to understand the maker as a father:

Why know Its Onely Might Almighty this did doe. His hand hath made this noble worke which Stands His Glorious Handywork not made by hands. Who spake all things from nothing; and with ease Can speake all things to nothing, if he please. Whose Little finger at his pleasure Can Out mete ten thousand worlds with halfe a Span: Whose Might Almighty can by half a looks Root up the rocks and rock the hills by th'roots. Can take this mighty World up in his hande, And shake it like a Squitchen or a Wand. Whose single Frown will make the Heavens shake Like as an aspen leafe the Winde makes quake. 63

OhI what a might is this Whose single frown Doth shake the world as it would shake it down? Which AU from Nothing fet, from Nothing, All: Hath All on Nothing set, lets Nothing fall. Gave All to nothing Man indeed, whereby Through nothing man all might him Glorify. In Nothing them imbosst the brightest Gera More pretious than all pretiousness in them. But Nothing man did throw down all by Sin: And darkened that lightsom Gem in him. That now his Brightest Diamond is grown Darker by far than any Coalpit Stone. (pp. 263-4)

The contrast in "The Preface" between concrete and abstract art

dramatizes the idea of the Good on two levels. Good may be comprehended

either in the world of unseen realities or the map and shadow world

of images. In the Timaeus and the Symposium. Plato maintains that the

creation is an instrument of God’s goodness and that both worlds are

energized with order. In the Timaeus. Plato considers the relationship

between the two worlds which God has created:

Be that as it may, we must go back to this question about the world: After which of the two models did its builder frame it-after that which is always in the same unchanging state, or after that which has come to be? Now if this world is good and its maker is good, clearly he looked to the eternal; on the supposition (which cannot be spoken without blasphemy), to that which has come to be. Everyone, then, must see that he looked to the eternal; for the world is the best of things that have become, and he is the best of causes. Having come to be, then, in this way, the world has been fashioned on the model of that which is comprehensible by rational discourse and understanding and is always in the same state.51

The image of the craftsman links the idea of the Good with the idea of causality in the dialogues. In the Timaeus. Plato distinguishes between causes and conditions, a distinction maintained by Plotinus.

A creative divinity, Plato reasoned, had a reason for making the universe as he did and that reason was to realize the Good, This Good

Plato identified as the "true cause," A. E. Taylor writes of the discourse 64

of Timaeus;

The 'artisan' or 'craftsman' , . , who makes the world thus comes into the story, and it is assumed that this maker is God, Now a craftsman always works with a model or archetype before him, and so we must ask whether the model on which the world has been made is itself something that has 'become' or something eternal. Since the maker is the best of all causes and the thing he makes the best of all effects, clearly the model of which the sensible world is a 'copy' or 'likeness* ... is eternal.52

Although the concluding lines of "The Preface" indicate that Taylor's

concept of a true and good cause is modified by the Puritan conception

of a willful God, the idea of the Good prevailed and ruled out the

petty human attributes such as jealousy which Plato was careful to

exclude. Being free from human frailties, God desired that the things

of His creation should be as much like Himself as possible, Plato

compared the Good with the sun in the visible world for as the sun is

the source of light so the ideal of the good is the source of all being.

Plotinus, who assimilated Plato's metaphor, explained that it was the

rays of light which touched mortal senses and turned human attention

toward the beauty and goodness of the soul above. The goodness of this

source, Plotinus explained, was not only that it created but that in

doing so it did not "begrudge its rays to the things below," In

speaking of the Good, Plotinus explains that it is first recognized

in the form of Intelligence. "It," Plotinus writes, "is the most beautiful of things, It is illuminated by a pure light and shines with a pure splendor; it contains the intelligible beings of which our world, in spite of its beauty, is but a shadow and an image, This

Intelligence for Plotinus, as it was for Plato, is the impulse for speculation and wonder and points to a higher principle: ¿5

Who is it that begot such a beautiful son as Intelligence which derives all of its fullness from author? This supreme principle itself is neither Intelligence, nor plenitude, but is superior to them. They come after it because they need both to think and to be filled. They are close to the principle which wants nothing and does not even need to think. Nevertheless Intelligence possesses time plenitude and thought because it immediately participates in the Good. But that which is above Intelligence does not need or possess these things. Other­ wise it would not be the Good.55

The principal image used by Plato and Plotinus is that of the

rays of illuminating light which induce the mortal into an experience

which is appreciated both as feeling and thought. The Soul, Plotinus

writes, is always intensely illuminated and it, in turn, illuminates 56 the things of this world which owe their existence to the Soul. In

the Platonic, Christian tradition of love, rays of light are most

frequently associated with the flame or fire which burns at the Soul's

center. Both traditions associated fire with energy, either on the

level of the spiritual and transcendental or as animal passion. The

difference in the use of the image of fire by the two traditions is

the emphasis. Platonism, it has been suggested, celebrated fire as

the Soul's p»wer, Christianity, particularly Protestant Christianity, associated fire with damnation and divine revenge. The use of fire

or light imagery in the Bible reveals both concepts, In several verses, God appears by fire and in others fire is the instrument of

judgment. As a Puritan, Taylor was aware of fire as a symbol of damnation. In "The Effects of Mans Apostascy," the sinner sights

"th'Infernall burning lake." (p. 265)

Most frequently, however, Taylor used the flame to illustrate the Agape motif combined with the Hellenistic Eros. According to 66

the Platonic concept of Eros, love begins with a feeling, a madness 57 which is desirable and culminates in good, ' In the words of Anders

Nygren:

Eros, the central motif of the Hellenistic theory of salvation is desire, egocentric love, for which man occupies the dominant position as both starting-point and goal. The starting-point is human need, the goal is the satisfaction of this need. It is characteristic of this Way of salvation that the human need is to be raised to the Divine. The human soul is regarded as in essence divine, requiring only to reflect upon its high estate and cease to seek satisfaction in changing and transient things.58

Agape, Christian love, "has nothing to do with desire and longing.

It ‘seeketh not its own,' does not ascent, like Eros, to secure advan­

tages for itself, but consists in sacrifice and self-giving, , , . The

human is not here raised to the Divine, but the Divine, in compassionate love, descends to the human."59

The idea of Christian love through the centuries contains both

the Hellenistic and Christian concepts of heavenly love. To this dual

tradition, Platonism made two lasting contributions. First, it has

been suggested that Platonism provided a philosophical foundation which

neutralized the influence of erotic, mystical love. Second, Platonism provided a rationale for the relationship of the beauty known to the senses and the beauty known to the soul. In Meditation 2.3, Taylor displays the Christian idea of Agape love as that love which comes to him in the form of grace:

When Lord, mine Eye doth spie thy Grace to beame Thy Mediatoriall glory in the shine Out Spouted so from Adams typick streams And Emblemiz’d in Noahs pollisht shrine Thine theirs outshines so far it makes their glory In brightest Colours, seem a smoaky story. 67

But when mine Eye full of these beams, doth cast Its rayes upon my dusty essence thin Impregnate with a Sparke Divine, defacde, All Candid o’re with Leprosie of Sin, Such Influences on my Spirits light, Which them as bitter gall, or Cold ice smite. (p, 86)

In "The Experience," Taylor provides a study in the complex

Christian, Platonic heritage of love as he recreates the holy communion

and emphasizes the divine illumination which engulfs him. Norman Grabo

finds a basis in Richard Baxter for the poem's treatment of man as a

species who is to be honored before the angels, but he finds the , 60 resulting euphoria un-Puritan:

I’le Claim my Right: Give place, ye Angells Bright. Ye further from the Godhead stande than I, My Nature is your Lord; and doth Unite Better than Yours unto the Deity, Gods Throne is first and mine is next: to you Onely the place of Waiting-men is due, (p. 9)

The explanation for the joy felt lies in the application of

Hellenistic love. In the first stanza, Taylor combines the Eros con­

ception of love as a longing or desire with the Christian idea of Agape which calls attention to itself, in this case by the sacraments:

OhJ that I alwayes breath'd in such an aire, As I suckt in, feeding on sweet Contentl Disht up unto my Soul ev'n in that pray're Pour'd out to God over last Sacrament. What Beam of Light wrapt up my sight to finde Me neerer God than ere Came in my minde? (p. 8)

Christian love conceives of God's love as coming to man in the form of

Christ, the Cross, or the Sacraments; its fulfillment does not envisage man's ascent. In the succeeding stanzas of "The Experience," the poet imagines the union with God in heaven. Although the carriage or chariot image is not present, the poet clearly ascends. The flame of Agape, which in the first stanza burns downward in a motion contrary to the 6l nature of flame, inspires in Taylor the flame of Eros which burns upward: 68

Most strange it was1 But yet more strange that shine Which filld my Soul then to the brim to spy My Nature with thy Nature all Divine Together joyn'd in Him thats Thou, and I. Flesh of my Flesh, Bone of my Bone, There’s run Thy Godhead, and my Manhood in thy Son,

OhJ that that Flame which thou didst on my Cast Might me enflame, and Lighten ery where. Then Heaven to me would be less at last So much of heaven I should have while here. Oh! Sweet though Short! lie not forget the same. My neerhess, Lord, to thee did Enflame, (pp. 8-9)

The fire which enflames Taylor’s soul and lifts it above the

angels is the fire that illuminates those things of the lower world,

and they exist through the soul's light. "In a similar way," writes

Plotinus, "a fire heats the objects that surround it, each in proportion

to its nature." In "The Experience," Taylor not only acknowledges

that the soul's light is the source of his own existence but also that it is the means to communion with God, In Meditation 2.44, Taylor again views his ascension above the angels to God. Although the illumination which stires the poet's affections can be assumed to be the Divine

Light which proceeds from God, his description of the heavenly stars as vehicles of soul and his fascination with the pageant of heaven's inhabitants in procession is closer to the Platonic conception of heaven than to the biblical:

You Holy Angels, Morning-Stars, bright Sparks, Give place: and lower your top gallants. Shew Your top-sale Conjures to our slender barkes: The highest honour to our nature's due. Its neerer Godhead by the Godhead made Than yours in you that never from God stray'd, (p. 158)

Taylor frequently extols the efficacy of divine illumination. It is the soul’s illumination which overcomes the distance separating man from his creator, and it is the soul's illumination which returns him 69

to the relationship which he enjoyed with his creator before the fall

and the enshrinement of the angels. What man has done to destroy his

former, special relationship to God is familiar theology. In that

original state, however, the universe was a Platonic-like reflection of

the creation’s first phase. Unlike his Puritan contemporaries, Taylor

is less inclined to disparage man’s new estate than to re-establish

that former relationship which existed between God and all that he has

created. In "The Return," Taylor emphasizes the primacy of the soul

in the relationship with the creator:

Inamoring Rayes, thy Sparkles, Pearle of Price Impearled with Choicest Gems, their beams Display Impoysoning Sin, Guilding ray Soule with Choice Rich Grace, thy Image bright, making me pray, Ohl that thou Wast on Earth below with mee Or that I was in Heaven above with thee, (p, 9)

Taylor’s expression of love for his creator is an outgrowth of

Platonic and Plotinian principles which were abstractions personified

through the Trinity. The attempt to understand heavenly love, however, was the result of a quest which begins with the realization that God’s

goodness is apparent in the visible world and that this world is the

result of divine self-expression. In discussing Taylor's use of the

Platonic conception of heavenly love, the present chapter began by defining love in the Symposium for the purpose of demonstrating that

several centuries of theological writing made a stock of images avail­ able to Taylor. The discussion of love was presented in terms of the good and the beautiful. These two fundamental concepts of Platonic love form the basis for western love. Their relationship to Taylor, however, explains his assimilation of images more commonly associated with Hellenistic and Renaissance Platonism than New England Puritanism. 70

Further, a consideration of the Platonic concept of heavenly love suggests a study of earthly love. For instance, a discussion of heavenly love as good directed attention to the image of light which illuminates not only the world of unseen realities but the visible creation as well. Chapter IV discusses Platonic love in Taylor as an earthly concept which values the objects of this world not only as models of the intelligible world but also as the instruments which commit our attention to another world. 71

CHAPTER IV

EARTHLY LOVE: NATURAL SYMBOLS

The Garden of the World: Puritan and Platonic

The fundamental contribution of Platonism to Taylor's poetic vision was the philosophical dualism which explained the goodness revealed in this world. The search for goodness, the evidence for divine love, included the aspiration to know and love not only the world of heavenly realities but also the objects and events of this world. The breadth of the Platonic concept of earthly love, which was both intellectual and emotional, gave rise to two practices of devotion and two distinct attitudes toward the worldly realm. That closest to the longing described by Plato in the Phaedrus emphasized the desire for a divine encounter commonly associated with mysticism,

A. E, Taylor notes that Socrates speaks of "an inspired ’frenzy’ which is productive of good we could not equally obtain in a state of sanity and control of ourselves." That feeling, Taylor continues, is like the lover’s madness and "is so much wiser than the wisdom of the world.The Christianized Platonism of the Medieval period was tempered by Aristotelian logic and, unlike Socrates, Medievalists envisioned a sublime universal order which was breached by temperate love and a ritualistic observance of the hierarchy of creation.

The principle which unified both the Platonic and Christian dualisms was love. The Christian accepted this world as the product of divine love and energy. This world resembled a divine prototype 72

because the world, after all, was fashioned in God's image. In the

final analysis, however, the good in this world represented only an

artifact, because much of the good to be known in this world through

the senses had been despoiled by the spell of evil, The Platonist was

concerned with knowing the good, and he emphasized the divinity

reflected on earth from a heavenly source, Plato himself taught

that the earthly divinity could be unlocked and inebriated. Earthly

objects for him were trustworthy and more than a mere means for

grasping the rationale for the whole. Feeling was sought because it

was appropriate and, as Socrates explains, if the emotion resembled

the madness of the lover consider it "the special gift of heaven, and 2 the source of the chiefest blessings among men," As Perry Miller

writes of Emerson, the exponent of American Platonism, he went to

nature in love "convinced that in man there is a spontaneous correla- 3 tion with the received impressions,"

To the extent that the Puritans were rationalists, they were

also medieval. They considered the phenomena of this world as more

evidence for what they already knew: the universe consisted of

immutable spheres of creation placing man closer to his animal kin

than to the angels. In the words of Perry Miller, contrasting Emer­

son with Jonathan Edwards, who "went to nature, in all passionate love, convinced that men could receive from it impressions which he 4 must then try to interpret," Although Edwards sensed nature s magic and felt the ardor of supernatural grace in Personal Narrative, the empiricism.of the Puritan approach to objects of this world and a rationalized conception of the whole identifies them more with 73

Aristotle’s metaphysics than Plato’s.

The Puritans are commonly thought to have regarded the world

as the laboratory for studying the true nature of divine goodness.

They examined the visible phenomena to validate the axiom of creation.

The method substantiated a foregone conclusion about the nature of

reality, but it satisfied the Puritan desire to know the source of

good in God. The method satisfied because it was the child of a strong

faith about the nature of reality. In short, the study of earthly

phenomena did not prove the Puritan assumption about reality because

it did not need to. All that the Puritan required was additional

evidence from the natural world, and each inspection of the microcosm

furthered the analogy of faith with the whole,

Taylor accepted the Calvinist premise that the world was a

product of heavenly love, and he believed that it was created in the

heavenly image. But his poetry reveals the Platonic longing for a

visible world which affords a glimpse of the ideal. By looking beyond

the tangible nature of the sensed world, Taylor made it the vehicle

for a mystical experience which first aroused his desire to know absolute beauty and then drew him into the reality of God. His love

for earthly things exceeded the usual Puritan necessity to validate a concept of creation. The love for earthly objects grew from a mere

physical attraction to a deep revelation that their external beauty is but a reflection of an inner and, ultimately, a heavenly beauty.

More than simply accepting worldly phenomena as axiomatic proof of

God's beneficence, and even more than grasping the congruence between the heavenly and earthly worlds, Taylor intuited in the images of this 74 world intelligibility itself. For this reason, Taylor, like the

Platonist, believed that the divinity of this world was to be sensed, unlocked, and inebriated. E, M. W. Tillyard writes that the Platonic

emphasis consists of "This giving a soul to nature—nature, that is, in the sense of natura naturans, the creative force, not of natura na tura ta, the natural creation,"'7

Endowing nature first with form and then with soul has implica­ tions that go beyond merely the potential divinity of earthly things.

The first implication is the place of man in such a world, since it is he who stands first among the creations of goodness. Edward Taylor was a Puritan because he believed that the weight of mortal sin was the first condition of human experience. The Puritans did look to heaven to study the likenesses of their own nature to God's, but they could more comfortably understand their human condition and lament the guilt which separated them from their creator. But, rather than begrudge his human status or accept the visible world and his own form as a physical token of divine love, Taylor refused to be irrevocably locked into the world of physical inages and laws. He nurtured a religious idealism, however heretical by Puritan standards, which recognized the essence of his own divinity and lifted him above the angels to a vision of the heavenly world and, finally, to a union with its creator.

If Taylor dutifully remembered an earthly existence that was totally depraved, he never forgot that he was potentially divine. He accepted man’s depraved condition but only as a temporary state subject to a momentary reversal. There can be little question of the importance 75

which Taylor attached to man’s role on earth in Meditation 1,41:

A Clew of Wonders! Clusterd Miracles! Angells, come whet your sight hereon, Here’s ground. Sharpen your Phansies here, ye Saints in Spiricles, Here is enough in Wonderment to drownd’s. Make here the Shining dark or White on which Let all your Wondring Contemplations pitch.

The Magnet of all Admiration's here. Your tumbling thoughts turn here. Here is Gods Son, Wove in a Web of Flesh, and Bloode rich geere. Eternall Wisdoms Huswifry well spun. Which through the Laws pure Fulling mills did pass. And so went home the Wealthy’st Web that was. (p, 6?)

The second implication of a physical world alive with soul goes

beyond the place of man in such a scheme of nature to consider the power

of heightened consciousness. The conscious link between heavenly and

earthly love was man himself. It was he who stood at the center of

nature and surveyed the earthly wonders. Because the world represented

to Taylor more than simply an empirical certainty otherwise inaccessible

to man, the world became for Taylor, the poet, God’s garden on earth.

Of special importance is the effect of earthly love upon the poetry.

The attainment of the heavenly vision grew out of earthly love, and

Taylor’s universe was not ordered by the fixed, medieval system of

creation, Taylor’s reference to angels, for instance, is like Plato's in that it suggests not the trappings of a Medieval universe but one which was figuratively ascendable, consisting of levels of creation, all reproduced ideally in Platonic fashion. In Meditation 2.44,

Taylor joins the finite and infinite, the mortal and divine person, in Christ:

The Godhead personated in Gods Son Assum'd the Manhood to its Person known, When that the Manhoods essence first begun 76

That it did never Humane person own. Each natures Essence; e're abides the same. In person joynd, one person each do claim.

Ohl Dignifide Humanity indeed* Divinely person’d; almost Deifide, (p. 157)

and;

This bit of Humane Flesh Divinizd in The Person of the Son of God; (p,l4l)

and;

Yet so God sayes, His Son to Dignify In manhood, said, sit at my right hand. The manhood thus a brighter Honour bears By Deity than Deity ere wares. (p, 204)

Unlike the Medieval ascension, Taylor’s was not a journey of many

steps. Taylor inverted the universal hierarchy of creation so that

man himself stood at the center and, thus, closest to God: "Come

down, bright Angells, Now I claim my place. / My nature hath more

Honour due, than yours." (p. 204) Taylor’s espousal of human

divinity went beyond the Incarnation to displace even the foremost

creation of heaven:

You Holy Angells, Morning-Stars, bright Sparks, Give place: and lower your top gallants. Shew Your top-saile Conjues to our slender barkes: The highest honour to our nature’s due. Its neerer Godhead by the Godhead made Than yours in you that never from God stray’d, (p. 158)

From his place in the center of the garden of the world, man was raised to the source of all reality, God, The- first stirrings of con­

sciousness, although concluded by a mystical union with God, began in the garden of the world, Taylor perceived in visible objects more than external beauty to be relished sensually for its own sake. He

saw beyond visible shapes to perceive in form intelligibility itself. 77

Like the Hellenistic and Renaissance Platonists, he particularly-

emphasized two images who symbolized the human perception of form.

The first was the symbol for visible reality, the sun's rays or

beams. The second was the mind's eye (Taylor frequently referred to

his "mentall Eye.") which perceived light and, thus, form,

Taylor's examination of the earthly world may begin with the

awareness that the mortal soul is limited by its existence in the

shadow world, and, like the Platonist, he found in this world the means

not only to gather a sense of the correspondence between the microcosm

and the whole, but also the idealism to grasp the oneness of both worlds and the divinity of each. To the extent that he did so, Taylor's

Puritan concept of this world was influenced by Platonic as well as medieval concepts of love, and, in the trek from Edwards to Emerson as logged by Perry Miller,Taylor's sense for the spontaneous unity between the heavenly and earthly worlds makes him an important first

step toward Emerson.

Furthermore, just as the chariot, for instance, was a Platonic symbol for the traverse of the heavens and the attainment of heavenly love, particular symbols of earthly love appear in Taylor's poetry which also originate in the dialogues. These are images which either are not found in the Bible or which appear without Platonic vitality, and, like the images of heavenly love, are more closely associated with the literature of Hellenistic and Renaissance Platonism than medieval

Christianity. These images, first used in the Phaedrus, occur in

Taylor's poetry to assist in describing both the love felt by the poet and his expressions of love toward the goodness about him. The images 78

vital to the spirit of Platonism, like those of Christianity, arise

from the dialogues but retain their essential Platonic flavor. As a

group, they depict the world as a garden and express man's awareness

of his place in the universal scheme. Man's soul is nourished in

a pre-Edenic garden. Unlike the "Bird of Paradise," who, in Meditation

1,8 (p, 18) "Had peckt the Fruite forbad" and was "put in/This Wicker

Cage (my Corps) to tweedle praise," the pre-Edenic soul is sustained

by a protective environment, not trapped, and is free to praise and

fly. Like the Christian images, the Platonic images are also organic, but they tend to be bolder, more unusual, and to convey a sense of man's

organic kinship to creation, his aspiring consciousness, and his expansive place in the scheme of things.

First, however, a distinction must be made between those images which, while assimilated into Christianity from Platonism, are commonly regarded as Christian rather than Platonic. The example is the tree in the garden, an image found in the Phaedrus but one which is also central to the Christian understanding of reality in this world. Of primary interest is the manner in which Taylor restores to the image of the tree the vitality which it lost upon becoming a symbol of doctrinal Christianity.

The Tree

The source of both traditions of tree imagery can be found in the dialogues where Plato explained how, philosophically, dualism is unified symbolically through raanfe capacity for love. Plato argues in the Phaedrus that earthly love is the first principle of unification.

As in the Symposium and the Timaeus, where Plato emphasized images of 79

setting to dramatize the source of heavenly love, so in the Phaedrus

he used particular images from nature by calling attention to the

earthly setting, first as a mirror of a higher plane of reality and

then as the vehicle by which the temporal and intangible worlds

become one. The scene of the Phaedrus is chosen with care along the

banks of the Ilissus under a plane-tree. Objects of earthly love are

emphasized because the sojourn outside Athens is rare for Socrates,

who preferred the teachers of the cities to the trees of nature. On

this occasion, however, Socrates admits to Phaedrus that he has been 7 lured by discourse to admire the beauties of nature. The scene is

the likely source of the garden imagery prevalent throughout the

Platonic, Christian tradition, Plato's description contributed to

this dual heritage a lasting attitude of love and reverence for nature and embodied this feeling in particular organic symbols. The

Timaeus provided the Platonic archetype which measured the human city as a replica of the mythical Atlantis; in the Phaedrus, Socrates carries with him into the country certain analogies which will serve his appreciation of natural beauty. On the other hand, the setting is a microcosm of all natural beauty and hence God’s garden of the world.

As such, the garden is symbolic because it reveals the nature of man's heightened consciousness of this world and love for it. Because

Platonism provided a rationale for either reason or feeling, the natural symbols from the garden assist an understanding of the madness which is a divine blessing, and it is the enjoyment of the divinity revealed in nature which gives the tree a vitality it lacks in the books of Genesis and Revelation. 80

Socrates is charmed by the sights, sounds and fragrances about

him and compliments Phaedrus for selecting a retreat fit for nymphs.

But the tree is the dominant fixture in the garden, and rising above

the surroundings to point to heaven. Reaching as it does from its

roots in the ground to the branches which brush the skies, the tree

is a symbol connecting both worlds and establishing the relatedness

of the earthly world to the world of heavenly realities. Among the

symbols of natural reality, the tree is basic, and its multiplicity

of geometric forms and prominence on the landscape represent in

nature the vitality which Socrates admired in the city. J. E. Cirlot

suggests that, "In its most general sense, the symbolism of the tree

denotes the life of the cosmos: its consistence, growth, proliferation, g generative and regenerative processes,” But more important than its

power as an organic symbol is its suggestion of heavenly love on earth.

It is related to such symbols of heavenly love as the cosmic ladder,

discussed in Chapter III, but it also serves as the pivotal symbol

in the Platonic and Christian traditions of earthly love,

Christians also regard the tree as a symbol for reality in this world, Christian literature emphasizes many symbols for doctrinal

purposes which were reinforced by the mystical poets of the medieval

church. However, among the symbols of earthly love derived from

Platonism, Christianity has focused upon the tree as a symbol of doctrinal reality. As a result, the Christian symbol has lost its organic luxuriance to take on specialized meanings—that of representing knowledge of good and evil, or that of corresponding in shape to the

Cross of Redemption. Whereas the tree on the banks of the Illissus was 81

representative in the sense that it embodied the divinity dispersed

throughout nature, the tree in the Garden of Eden was unique. Its

supernatural powers were not duplicated anywhere else in this world.

The biblical tree (there were, in fact, two trees—a tree of life

and a tree of knowledge) represented doctrinal reality, not reality

itself or absolute reality, The tree was an artifact of this world

in the sense that it symbolized for man the doctrine which separated

him from his creator. Any further powers which it might have possessed

before the expulsion have long ceased to exist for man.

The importance of these divergent understandings of the tree

image to Taylor's poetry has been discussed by Cecelia Halbert, She

writes that Taylor's use of the Tree of Life image reflects a tradi­

tion in the broadest sense:

This idea of life-giving vegetation, which is granted usually as a reward, pervades Near Eastern religion, from which the tree was probably assimilated into Hebrew scripture. The relevant and essential difference, however, between the Hebrew concept of the tree and that of other religions is that in Hebrew scripture the tree loses its magical qualities, its efficacy in insuring life. It is, then, because Adam's Fall was caused only symbolically by his loss of the tree that Edward Taylor is able to use the tree of life metaphorically in his poetry,

Miss Halbert recognizes that the tree is a common image in myth

and religion. She demonstrates, however, that Taylor's development

of the Tree of Life image exceeds its biblical implications primarily

because of the influence of such Renaissance poets as Francis Quarles,

While Miss Halbert regards Taylor as a poet whose enthusiasm for the

tree image results from a fascination with extended figures, it can

be shown that his use of the metaphor is consistent with the magic and vitality Taylor found in the garden of the world. 82

Like Plato's tree, Taylor's Tree of Life is not limited as a

symbol of doctrine. The tree illustrates the potential divinity of

this world by using the tree as a symbol for the unity of both worlds.

The identity of nature and soul is apparent in "The Effects of Man’s

Apostasy" where the poet describes the punishment awaiting those who

fail to accept the conditions of divine love, Man, he writes, "in a maze doth stand." (p. 265) Using the labyrinth, a figure of classical

origin, Taylor describes alienation from God as isolation from nature.

But the real force of God's soul on earth is sensed in Meditation 1.33 where the tree emerges in the final stanzas as a symbol of man's relationship to creation. In the first stanza, the poet states the paradox of the human condition in the form of another paradox:

My Lord my life, can Envy ever bee A Golden Vertue? Then would God I were Top full thereof untill it colours mee With yellow streaks for thy Deare sake most Deare, Till I be Envious made by't at myselfe, As scarcely loving thee my Life, my Health, (p. 53)

In the second stanza, Taylor pauses momentarily to reconsider the implications of a love which in fulfillment raises man to the level of God:

Ohl what strange Charm enrampt my Heart with spite Making my Love gleame out upon a Toy? Lay out Cart-Loads of Love upon a mite? . Scarce lay a mite of Love on thee, my Joy? Oh, Lovely thou? Shalt not thou loved bee? Shall I ashame thee thus? Ohl shame for meel (p, 53)

In the third stanza, the poet overcomes a necessity to feel contrite and returns to the paradox stated initially in the first stanza. In pointing to a solution to the seeming contradiction, the poet personi­ fies nature’s soul as it tells him that life and love are one: 83

Nature’s amaz'de, Oh monstrous thing Quoth shee, Not Love my Life? What Violence doth split True Love, and Life, that they should sunder'd bee? She doth not lay such Eggs, nor on them sit. How do I sever then my Heart with all Its Powers whose Love scarce to my Life doth crawle. (p, 53)

Throughout the remainder of Meditation 1.33» Taylor reconciles his

confidence in the divinity with the limitations of his own faith.

Having identified life as love, he compares an organic symbol from the

garden of the world, the "seed," with the chariot, an image of

heavenly love:

Glory lin'de out a Paradise in Power Where e'ry seed a Royall Coach became For Life to ride in, to each shining Flower, And made mans Flower with glory all ore flame. (p, 53)

In the remaining lines of the stanza, Taylor turns specifically to man's

present state by alluding to the Fall, but, in the next two stanzas,

he introduces the ark which becomes a substitute for the chariot, The

"Sparke/Enlivens all things in this Arke inclosed," (p, 53) and the

soul boat promises to restore "what once I did destroy." (p. 54) In

the last stanza, the poet intensifies his plea and introduces the

tree which restores to the soul its former divinity:

Oht Graft me in this Tree of Life within The Paradise of God, that I may live. Thy Life make live in mee; I'le then begin To bear thy Living Fruits, and them forth give. Give mee my Life this way; and I'le bestow My Love on thee my Life, and it shall grow. (p. 54)

In Meditation 1.29, where the tree is the governing metaphor, the divinity of the life force and man himself is shown in the poet's anticipated union with God. In the first stanza, the poet describes an imagined encounter with a golden tree in the garden: 84

My shattred Phancy stole away from mee, (Wits run a Wooling over Edens Parke) And in Gods Garden saw a golden Tree, Whose Heart was All Divine, and gold its barke. Whose glorious limbs and fruitfull branches strong With Saints, and Angells bright are richly hung. (pp. 46-7)

The allusions to the biblical garden and a divine hierarchy of

creation with saints and angels suggests a universe based upon the

medieval scheme. It is also significant, however, that Taylor omits

the expected reference to man’s expulsion from the garden to dwell

upon his return. Thus, it appears that Taylor's garden is an amalga­

mation of Plato and the Bible. The poet longs for a pre-Edenic

garden. The reference to the poet's "shattred Phancy" suggests that

his imagination, in the form of his spirit, has stolen away to view

the tree which, as Taylor suggests in line four, is a symbol for God and, hence, absolute reality in the form of life on earth. Taylor,

then, has already exceeded the biblical limitations of the tree. First

he has been overcome by imagination, not reasoned contriteness, and

Taylor regards this as good. Secondly, the vision of the tree is the result of following the senses, not the result of their willful denial.

The third and most curious aspect of Taylor's vision is that it exists not as an empirical certainty nor as a doctrine of biblical revelation. Rather, the tree is for Taylor a memory on the order of an innate Platonic idea.

In the second stanza, Taylor develops the central idea of the poem—the potential unity of both worlds and, more importantly, his own unification with God, In terms of the poem's theme, the stanza is a watershed; it states the paradox which finds Taylor both mortal and divine, Taylor begins by developing what was only implied in 85

the first stanza—his own lowly place in the universe. The contrast

is presented in the first four lines:

Thoul thoul my Deare-Deare Lord, art this rich Tree The Tree of Life Within Gods Paradise, I am a Withred Twig, dri’de fit to bee A Ghat Cast in thy fire, Writh off by Vice, (p. 47)

Yet, the tree with members that embody all levels of creation and

with God's heart at its center holds the hope for spiritual regen­

eration through a graft. Taylor anticipates his annexation to the

tree as God comes to him as if courting the mortal soul. Joined with

God on the most erotic terms, Taylor imagines himself a member of the

tree's life sustaining stock:

Yet if thy Milke white-Gracious Hand will take mee And grafft mee in this golden stock, thou'lt make mee. (p. 47)

Taylor has already imagined the unity of both worlds through

a personal encounter with God, and he has asserted his potential

divinity over his unconditional depravity. The nature of the regen­

eration is emphasized in the third stanza, a richly organic symbol

representing reality in the form of God Himself. Taylor expands upon his latent divinity by imagining himself as the tree's richest and most durable fruit, thus displacing that which was ordained to be super­ ior in order:

Thou’lt make me then its Fruite, and Branch to spring. And though a nipping Eastwinde blow, and all Hells Nymps with spite their Dog's sticks thereat ding To Dash the Grafft off, and it's fruits to fall, Yet I shall stand thy Grafft, and Fruits that are Fruits of the Tree of Life thy Grafft shall beare. (p. 47)

Throughout the remainder of the poem, Taylor's relationship to the tree intensifies, and it could be asked if he ever seriously be­ lieved that he was newly freed from a condemned soul. Attached perma­ 86

nently to the tree, Taylor is nourished by its divine sustenance.

The "shattred Phancy" which stole away in line one now proves its

divinity by sharing sustenance with the source of all life. The

poet imagines an omniscient, productive role in the family of creation.

In addition to a Platonic imagination, the poet acquires the gift of

prophecy mentioned by Socrates in the Phaedrus as a principal

blessing of divine love:

I being grafft in thee there up do stand In us Relations all that mutuall are. I am thy Patient, Pupill, Servant, and Thy Sister, Mother, Doove, Spouse, Son, and Heire, Thou are my Priest, Physician, Prophet, King, Lord, Brother, Bridegroom, Father, Ev'ry thing,

I being grafft in thee am graffted here Into thy Family, and kindred Claim To all in Heaven, God, Saints, and Angells there. I thy Relations isy Relations name. Thy Father's mine, thy God my God, and I With Saints, and Angells draw Affinity. (p. 47)

In the last two stanzas, the poet senses the implications of his vision and professes humility. At the same time, however, he senses the reality of God's love and its power as he becomes the initiate whose soul is about to be overwhelmed by divine overtures. In the last two stanzas of Meditation 1.29, the poet anticipates a union with

God that fulfills his vision's fondest hopes:

My Lord, what is it that thou dost bestow? The Praise on this account fills up, and throngs Eternity brimfull, doth overflow The Heavens vast with rich Angelick Songs. How should I blush? how Tremble at this thing, Not having yet my Gam-Ut, learnd to sing.

But, Lord, as burnish't Sun Beams forth out fly Let Angell-Shine forth in my Life out flame, That I may grace thy gracefull Family And not to thy Relations be a Shame. 87

Make nee thy Grafft, be thou my Golden Stock. Thy Glory then I'le make my fruits and Crop. (pp. 47-8)

From the first line of Meditation 1,29, Taylor’s use of the

tree image suggests that his goal was a mystical religious experience

closer in quality to a Platonic flight than the Augustinian ascent.

The poet refers in the first stanza to the distance which separates

him from his creator, but it is the measure of difference which turns

human thought toward heaven in all religion. The distinction between

authoritarian and liberal religious thought is the extent to which

distance remains after the religious experience, Taylor's lowly status

in the first two stanzas places him no farther from the object of his

divine affections than Socrates was from the Platonic archetype.

Further, Taylor ascends without a painful expurgation of the soul. As

in the Phaedrus. the tree embodies both heavenly and earthly love and

represents the divinity to be intuited by the sensitive soul. That

divinity for Taylor was God himself. The centrality of the tree in

the garden is underscored by Taylor’s description. The tree has not lost its supernatural powers or luxuriance, and its visitation upon

the imagination is strong enough to inspire the imagination of the

Platonic poet. The mystical flight begins with an innate idea of the tree inspired by the poet’s memory of a childlike run through a garden.

The poet spots the tree accidentally and, like the memory of his intrusion into the garden, his encounter with the tree retains the quality of a pre-existent memory of innocence. As the focus for the divinity dispersed throughout this world, the tree provides the basis in metaphor for a flight which begins with a recognition of the love which inspired the things of good and beauty about us. The flight 88

represents a progression from earthly love to heavenly initiation.

The flight begins with an aesthetic experience, not a conquest of the

will, and moves to a vision of the tree's divinity. The culmination

occurs unassisted by saving Grace and leaves the soul able to con­

template the whole and merged with its source in the heavenly family,

The Circle

More revealing than Taylor's adaptation of a biblical image is

his use of images of divine love on earth closely associated with

Hellenistic and Renaissance Platonism. The most inclusive symbol of

love to the Platonist was the circle which represented a complicated

pattern of heavenly and earthly, religious and secular love. The

circle had lost its pagan implications by the time Christianity and

Platonism were synthesized in the dialogues of The Courtier, but the

analogy intuited between the temporal and intelligible worlds through

the symbol of the circle continued to provide for a revealed love

unencumbered by doctrine. As a result, earthly symbols of circularity were elevated in importance to express an inspired revelation of love

of soul. Taylor's use of the circle, like his use of the tree, aided

his belief in the poetry that man was innately good. By sensing the

circular nature of his own soul as well as that of the beauties about him, Taylor perceived their divinity, thus making them worthy of the poet's highest affections and the medium for a union of man and God.

The circle is also related to the image of the garden of the world. As a natural symbol, it may be distinguished from such man-made symbols as the square and the triangle. Like the biblical tree, the 89

circle is a symbol of divine definition and represents the circular

and eternal nature of the soul. The rationale for the circle as the

symbol of the special regard which God has for the soul of man remained

essentially unchanged from the time of Plato. In the cosmologies of

Plato, Plotinus, and, even later, in Renaissance philosophers, the

circle represented circumference and symbolized the orbital, hence,

eternal vitality of the soul. In the dialogues of Plato, the circle

embodied perfection whether expressed in the visible design of the

universe or in the intangible world of heavenly beauty. The circle,

then, implies motion, definition, finiteness and divine purpose. The

absence of circularity, on the other hand, denotes discontinuity,

plurality, and chaos. In the Phaedrus. the circle is the symbol for

all that is encompassed by the heavenly vision. The climax of the

soul’s journey through the heavens is revealed by circularity:

For the immortal souls, when they are at the end of their course, go out and stand upon the back of heaven, and the revolution of the spheres carries them round, and they behold the world beyond. Now of the heaven which is above the heavens, no earthly poet has sung or ever will sing in a worthy manner. But I must tell, for I am bound to speak truly when speaking of the truth. The colorless and formless and intangible essence is visible to the mind, which is the only lord of the soul. Circling around this in the region above the heavens is the place of true knowledge. And as the divine intelligence, and that of every other soul which is rightly nourished, is fed upon mind and pure knowledge, such an intelligent soul is glad at once more beholding being; and feeding on the sight of truth is replenished, until the revolution of the worlds brings her round again to the same place. During the revolution she beholds justice, temperance, and knowledge absolute, not in the form of generation or of relation, which men call existence, but knowledge absolute in existence absolute.I®

In discussing cosmic order, Plotinus repeats the image of the circle as a metaphor for the order to be found in both worlds: 90

What would be the nature of a world better than the present one if such were possible? The present one is already a faithful image of the intelligible world. It exists necessarily and there is no better world, . , . Why should the stars in the highest region and those in the lower spheres not be divinities, in view of their regular motion and their orderly circular paths?"

Plotinus preserves the Platonic concept of an orbital world and adopted

the Platonic notion of a plurality of spheres or concentric circles.

Unlike Plato, however, Plotinus imagined a universe of "spheres," a

familiar Renaissance world view. In the Timaeus Plato referred to

"orbits" and "circles."

The image of the circle remained intact as a symbol of heavenly

love from Plato to Plotinus. To the poets of the Renaissance, the

circle became, in addition, a symbol for the earthly love which men felt

either for their mistress or their maker. The power of the symbol as an image of earthly love lay in its ability to represent on earth the perfection of the real world of intangibles. The Puritans were un- 12 doubtedly familiar with the circle as a symbol of love, but it is also 13 true that they were known to have resisted it. It is not possible for the Bible to be considered as the source of circle imagery, since the "circle" is mentioned only once, (Is. 40:22) Further images of circularity such as "spheres" are absent, and the ring is largely associated with civil or familial authority, wealth, and rank. It is to the Platonic tradition of circle imagery that we must look to as the source of the circle as an image of love.

The fullest explanation of the symbol can be found in Book IV of The Courtier, an exposition of Neo-Platonic doctrines of love. In

Book IV, Master Peter Bembo's speech to the lords and ladies of court defines the assumptions of Platonic love on an earthly scale—the basis for gestures of love throughout Renaissance poetry: 91

I say that beautie commeth of God, and is like a circle, the goodness whereof is the Centre. And therefore, as there can be no circle without a centre, no more can beautie be without goodnesse.

Whereupon doth very seldom an ill soule dwell in a beautiful! bodie. And therefore is the outwarde beautie a true signe of the inwarde goodnesse, and in bodies this comelinesis im­ printed more and lesse (as it were) for a marke of the soule, whereby she is outwardly knowne: as in trees, in which the beautie of the buddes giveth a testimonie of the goodnesse of the fruite. 4

The first assumption ("that beautie commeth of God") has been

discussed in Chapter III in connection with the proof of God's

creation as evidence for his love. The assumption combines Platonic

dualism with the Christian belief in a single god who is the one from

whom all being and thus all goodness emanates. Like other poets of

the seventeenth century, Taylor combined the imagery and themes of

Platonic love with the feeling of love felt by a mortal for others as well as his maker. Most frequently, Taylor's use of the circle as an image centers upon religious love. For this reason, his use of the

symbol reflects less a pagan influence than that of the classical revival evident in the poetry of the Tribe of Ben, for instance, which also relies upon the circle but which amplifies many of the themes found in the Greek Anthology.

The significance which Taylor attached to the circle in the realm of human love and goodness, in his love for others, and wonder at the physical world may be seen in two figures of Renaissance

Platonism. E. M. W. Tillyard writes, "It was mainly the Platonists who made less tidy and more picturesque a world in which the medieval view had been given a mathematical neatness."15 one vivid adaptation of the circle use by Renaissance painters and writers viewed the world 92

as a nut, oyster or egg shell. The shell symbolized many things.

An open shell signified the birth of beauty of the soul while the

closed shell represented the circular envelop which gives the world

form and marks the boundary of God’s heaven.

In Meditation 2,34, Taylor uses the nut as an analogy:

Suppose this Earthly globe a Cocoe Nut Whose Shell most bright, and hard out challenge should The richest Carbunckle in gold ring put How rich would proove the kirnell it should hold? But be it so, who then could breake this Shell, To pick the kirnell, walld within this Cell?

Should I, my Lord, call thee this nut, I should Debase thy Worth, and of thee basely stut. Thou dost its worth as far excell as would Make it to thine worse than a worm eat nut. Were all the World a sparkling pearle, 't would bee Worse than a dot of Dung if weighd with thee. (p. 140)

In a succeeding stanza, Taylor focuses upon the pearl within the oyster:

To finde a Pearle in Oister Shells*s not strange: For in such rugged bulwarks such abound. But this Rich Gem in Humane Natures grange So bright could by none Eye but thine be found. (p. 141)

In Meditation 1.36, the poet asks, "What rocky heart is mine?" (p. 57) and in the concluding stanza he affirms "that there is a Crevice for one hope/To creep in, and this Message to Convay/That I am thine,"(p, 59)

The world itself, however, is described as contained in a "Cockle Shell," an object familiar to Taylor as an adornment on the Puritan hat but also suggestive of the depth of one’s feelings,

Taylor frequently combines the shell with the image of the gar­ den as in Meditation 2,18 where man’s condition since the Fall is described by images of waste from the agrarian cycle:

A Bran, a Chaff, a very Barly yawn, An Husk, a Shell, a Nothing, nay yet Worse, A Thistle, Bryer prickle, pricking Thorn (p. Ill) 93

In Meditation 2.63, the poet longs to visit "in thy Nutmeg Garden,

Lord, thy Bower." (p. 185) Within the garden, "The Nut of evry kinde

is found to grow big," (p. 186) and the poet seeks entry: "mee entrance

give/And in thy Nut tree garden make me live." (p. 187)

The image of the circle, as used by Master Peter, may be seen

first in the realm of human love in a verse figure to Elizabeth Fitch,

the poet’s intended wife. As described by Thomas H. Johnson, the

manuscript shows a circle drawn inside a triangle: "The lines and

letters are so arranged that those in the triangle spell out":

The ring of love my pleasant heart must bee Truely confin’d within the Trinitie while those within the circle;

Lovs Ring I send That hath no end

The poem is a playful visualization of a metaphor, and it is character­ istic of the acrostic verse associated with the Greek and Latin poets and with the metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century. However, the compactness of the poem is misleading; Taylor also reveals a familiarity with the circle as a symbol of love as well as a means of graphic organization. Taylor’s use of the circle suggests not only an image that may be concretized as the flawlessly round wedding band which might have symbolized his love for Elizabeth Fitch, but also as a symbol for the circular and, thus, eternal nature of his love for her. The use of the circle as the metaphor for love results, in part, from a metaphysical poet’s analysis of experience and Taylor’s purpose of discovery which provided a self-evident disclosure of love's real basis. 94

As a devotional poet whose understanding of love was that it

is divinely originated, Taylor's primary concern was the exchange of

love between himself and his creator. But as in the case of much

seventeenth-century poetry, the manner of love in poetry toward a

woman is the basis for expressions of love toward God. The first

assumption of Master Peter's speech ("that beautie commeth of God,

and is like a circle") is frequently associated by Taylor with the

source of beauty and love, the presence of God here on earth.

In Meditation 2.127, the poet opens with wonder for the variety

of creation, and he numbers among the properties of creation his own

inclination to love them for the power that is their source and his.

After stating that man was "Shapt most bright/With Properties that

fix on Objects right," Taylor refers to creation's multiplicity in

terms of circles, and, in the third stanza, points to a more encom­

passing source than these:

Of all things in the Orbs of Entity Such as are best deckt up with such attire Do these affections onely satisfy. Whichever to the best of things aspire: Though these things may in some few things here up thrive They're in thee, Lord, Super-superlative,

In addition to establishing the authority and authenticity of circles as objects of love, Taylor depicts their desirability. He does not describe the circular nature of the cosmos solely as spherical, an emphasis which might imply an astronomer's geometrical, analytical use of the circle for its own sake. Rather, he associates the heavenly orbs with divine love in the form of Christ who is associated with the circle. In the next stanza of Meditation 2.127, the poet identifies the orbs by their brightness but contrasts their light with a greater brightness upon which all depends and which is the ultimate source: 95

Some things there bee within this Orb full fine, And be desirable, Yet nothing here Do all desirable, and Lovely shine But all of thee, and thine most Lovely clear For Excellency in thee’s the Foundation That to Desire and Love yieldes firmest Station,

By the circle, Taylor prepares the reader for the songs of praise for

Christ in the succeeding stanzas of Meditation 2,127, Although Taylor

does not invoke the circle again, he does not need to. The poem moves

from a general description of Christ's loveliness to more specific

images of beauty such as the "rose," the "palace," and the divine

"ordinances," Each is an image of discovery but all are images of

praise which depend upon the inclusive circle,

Taylor often uses the circle as a touchstone for other images

of discovery, and the circle provides Taylor's poems with a kind of

order by justifying the praise of Christ which follows. In Meditation

1,41, the poet describes the glory of Christ as "run-ing rounde about,"

(p, 68) and in Meditation 2,101 the glory "round about" (p. 230)

confounds the earth's greatest stars, the sun and moon. Like Plotinus,

Taylor preserves the Platonic concept of revolving heavenly bodies.

Plato wrote in the Phaedrus that "the soul is immortal, for that is

immortal which is ever in motion," and "for the body which is moved from without is soulless; but that which is moved from within has a 17 soul, and this is involved in the nature of soul,"

In Meditation 2,54, the poet combines the cosmic circle moved from within by soul with the Platonic concept of a universe harmonized by God, the director of the heavenly symphony. His mortal instrument, the poet writes, is simply "Untun’de," but contains a potential divin­ ity lacked even by the angels: 96

Angells pipes Are sqeaking things: soon out of breath. Desires Exceed them; yet screwd highst up are but mites To meddle with the Musicking thy glory. What then’s my jews trump meet to tune thy Story? (p. 173)

The second stanza is a plea to God to "File off the rust" from his

wings so that he might assume his place beside God. The final stanza

states the nature of the union ("Crown’d with tweelve Starrs, Moon

under foot to see"), but the poet’s hope for such a union depends

upon his recognition of the circular nature of divinity and the con­

cept of the soul that is moved from within. Although Taylor refers

to three "Suns," the reference to the Trinity does not alter the fact

that they are the three brightest stars in an orbit ascendable by man:

Three Shining Suns rise in the Chrystall Skies Of Mankinds Orbs, and Orbs Angelicall. Whose Rayes out Shine all pimping Stars that rise Within these Spheres and Circuits through them all. These do evigorate all Action done By men and angells right, wherein they run. (p. 173)

Related to the idea of the revolving soul was the Platonic meta phor of the star, particularly the sun as God, Plato himself believed that the stars were divine. In Meditation 2.114, Taylor combines cir­ cularity with divinity in the sun which is Christ:

A Star, Bright Morning Star, the shining Sun Of Righteousness in Heaven Lord, thou art. Thou pilotst us by night, which being run Away, thou bidst all darkness to depart. The Morning Star peeps up an usher gay ■Fore th'Sun of Righteousness to grace the day. (p, 256)

In Meditation 2.21, Taylor reveals the Platonic concept of a divinity which extends to heaven’s lesser stars. Taylor longs to become the moon so that he might circle the heavens nourished by Christ’s light but confident in his vision that he might return light to its source: 97

Make mee thy Lunar Body to be filld In full Conjunction, with thy Shining Selfe The Sun of Righteousness: whose beams let guild My Face turnd up to heaven, on which high Shelfe I shall thy Glorys in my face that shine, Set in Reflected Rayes, Hence thou hast thine, (p. 117)

The importance which Taylor attached to the circular soul moved from within is apparent in other poems of faith. In Meditation 1.12, the light emitted by the sun and shared by the stars is a metaphor for Christ on earth:

One shining sun guilding the skies with Light Benights all Candles with their flaming Blaze So doth the Glory of this Robe benight Ten thousand suns at once ten thousand wayes. For e’ry thrid therein's dy'de with the shine Of AU, and Each the Attributes Divine, (p, 24)

In Meditation 2.73, Taylor employs several images which depict the lavish setting and mood of exultation on the day of Christ’s ascension

In the first two stanzas, the poet describes the ceremonies which accompanied the occasion. The "Glorious Cast" of heaven brightened by the "Croude with all thy Ranks most bright" waited for Christ's arrival in "Honours Palace Hall," (p. 205) In the third stanza, the poet visualizes the character of ¿lory itself by linking the circle with the glory that surrounds Christ's entry into heaven. The circle is first used in the form of an embrace to symbolize the circular and, thus, eternal and perfect nature of divine love. In the fifth line, the circle becomes a cosmic "Sphere" connoting the brightness of the ring of glory:

Glory was never glorifide so much, She ne're receiv’d such glory heretofore. As that that doth Embrace her, (it is such,) As she unto my Lord, doth ope her doore. When he receivd was into glory's Sphere Glory then found her glory brightest were. (p. 205) 98

In Meditation 2,96, the circle helps to symbolize the para­

doxical status of the human soul. The suggestion of the mortal soul’s

passivity when confronted by the wooing Christ and of the attendant darkness is balanced by the description of the soul's circular dance, which suggests the likeness of the human soul to the spheres which are also moved from within by soul,

Christ loves to lay thy Love under Constraint. He therefore lets not's Love her Candle light, To see her Lovely arms that never faint Circle thyself about, with greate Delight. (p, 226)

The use of the circle as an image of embrace and exultation is repeated in Meditation 2,160 where the human soul is seduced by Christ's love:

Ohl what love like this? This comes upon her, hugs her in its arms ,g And warms her spirits. Ohl Celestial charms.

In Meditation 2.19, the poet combines the circle with the image of the table, an image suggesting the last supper and communion. Taylor re­ lates the efficacy of heavenly love on earth in the form of Christ, whose presence at the table imbues the feast with glory. The poet implores his lord to elevate the mortal soul so that it might be worthy of sitting at Christ's table, a "round" and "Circuite" table: (pp. 113-4)

The second assumption contained in Master Peter's speech (that not only is beauty like a circle but that "the goodnesse whereof is the Centre") is evident in Meditation 2.11. Taylor first associates the beauty of divine love with the center of a circle:

Eternali Love burnisht in Glory thick, Both butt, and Center in thee, Lord, my joy. Thou portrai'd art in Colours bright, that stick Their Glory on the Choicest Saints, Whereby They are the Pictures made Samson Exceed Herein thy Type, as he thy foes once queld. (p, 99) 99

In the remaining stanzas, the poet describes the annunciation, the

chief proof of divine love and goodness. In Meditation 2.3, the

poet's hope is: "Is’t possible such glory, Lord, ere should/Center

its Love on me Sins Dunghill else?" (p. 86) In Meditation 2.60,

the poet yearns for the vantage of the center’s vision which he

lacks at the periphery:

An Eye at Centre righter may describe The Worlds Circumferentiall glory vast As in its nutshell bed it snugs fast tide, Than any angells pen can glory Cast (p. 181)

In Meditation 2.102, the poet asks, "What Grace is here?" Grace, a

sacrifice by the willing Christ and not an act of human will, places

the recipient at the center of divine love:

What Grace is here? Looke ery way and see How Grace’s Splendor like the bright Sun, shines Out on my head, and I encentred bee Within the Center of its radien lines. (p, 131)

The House and the Body

The fourth assumption contained in Master Peter's speech grows

out of his previous assertions on the relationships between beauty and

the circle, and the center of a circle and goodness. Master Peter

states that external beauty is a certain sign of inner beauty of the

soul and that the beautiful body is the soul's house: "Whereupon doth very seldom an ill soule dwell in a beautifull bodie. And therefore is the outwarde beautie a true signe of the inwarde goodnesse, and in bodies this comelines is imprinted more and lesse (as it were) for a marke of the soule whereby she is outwardly knowne,"

Master Peter’s speech is directed toward the lords and ladies of a Renaissance Italian court who are primarily interested in learning 100

the true basis for earthly love. Master Peter's position is that an

appreciation of true earthly love rests upon an understanding of its

relationship tb heavenly love. As an exposition of Platonic doctrines

of love, the speech echoes two themes dominant in the dialogues. First

throughout the Symposium ugliness is rejected as unworthy of our

affections and ideal beauty is associated with physical beauty: the

grace, fairness, and delicacy which inspire ideal love. Second, for

both Plato and Master Peter, love is the basis for the rationale which

explained the presence of beauty in the universe, including that to

be found in the human body. Master Peter says:

Thinke now of the shape of man, which may be called a litle world: in whom every parcell of his bodie is seene to be necesarily framed by arte and not by happe, and then the forme altogether most beautifull, so that it were a hard matter to judge, whether the members, as the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the eares, the armes, y® breast, and in like manner the other partes, give either more profit to the countenance and the rest of the bodie, or comeliness. 19

The philosophical theory underlying this assumption is the occasion

of the soul's descent to earth. John Smith Harrison explains what the

English poetry of the seventeenth century preserved of the relationship

between heavenly and earthly love and beauty that was articulated by

Plato:

The Platonic theory of beauty teaches that the beauty of the body is a result of the formative energy of the soul. According to Ficino, the soul was descended from heaven and has framed a body in which to dwell. Before its descent it conceives a certain plan for the forming of a body: and if on earth it finds material favorable for its work and suf­ ficiently plastic, its earthly body is very similar to its celestial one, hence it is beautiful. 20

The house has universally aroused strong associations with the body, like the body, the artful house is thought to embody thought and beauty—it is the synthesis of nature and art. Master Peter 101

explained that an artful building combines the virtues of practicality and beauty: "Pillers, and great beames upholde high buildings and pallaces, and yet are they no lesse pleasurefull unto the eyes of the beholders, than profitable to the buildings.' Taylor often cautiously distinguishes between human art and nature as in Meditation

2.56 where man’s "silver tooles" produces at best "Art, Natures

Ape." (p. 175) Yet, after considering the pyramids, the orchards of

Babylon, the architecture of Rome and other structures by man, Taylor conceded, like Bembo, that although our highest affections are obli­ gated to the divine purpose in art, human art also reflects a beauty:

Nature doth better work than Art: yet thine Out vie both works of nature and of Art. Natures Perfection and the perfect shine Of Grace attend thy deed in ev’ry part. (p. 177)

Furthermore, the levels, rooms and windows of a building provide a series of analogies for human consciousness. The uppermost extremity of the soul’s house was the head, and Taylor associated elevation with the glorious house: "Within the Horizontal! Hemisphere/Of this Blesst

Sun, Lord, let mee Mansion have," (p. 195) Taylor frequently cele­ brated the head as the seat of consciousness and doctrinal authority as in Meditation 2.36 where the head of Christ incarnated is an ornately furnished room which presides over the body of the church:

An Head, my Lord, an honourable piece; Nature's high tower, and wealthy Jewelry; A box of Brains, furld up in reasons fleece: Casement of Senses: Reason’s Chancery: Created Wisdom all and all its Wealths Of Grace are treasur’de in these Tills and Shelfes. (p, 159)

The head of the incarnated Christ was the prototype for the head of man. After praising the divine principle in Christ in Medita­ tion 2.45, Taylor turns to his equally beautiful human aspect: 102

Th*other’s a Locker of a Humane frame With richer than Corinthian Amber tills And Shelves of Emralds. Here to deck the same All Wisdom that's Created comes, and fills. Created Wisdom all and all its Wealths Of Grace are treasur'de in these Tills and Shelfes, (p. 159)

Taylor viewed the head of the incarnated Christ as the example for

nan as in Meditation 2,45 where the human head ("My head, vy Lord,

that ivory Cabinet/ 'S a nest of Brains dust, dry, ne're yet could

Ware/ The Velvet locks of Vertue for its deck") aspires to be like the

head of Christ: "If wisdom in the Socket of my heart/ And Grace within

its Cradle rockt do shine/My head shall ware a frindg of Wisdoms

art." (p, 160)

Like the Platonist who went beyond the incarnation to extend

divine soul to visible phenomena, Taylor laid particular stress upon

the eyes, the symbols of a head-seated consciousness. The eyes, the

symbols for heavenly consciousness, became the divine archetype for

human consciousness:

Oh Lovely One! how doth thy Loveliness Beam through the Chrystall Casements of the Eyes (p, 48)

The Neo-Platonic vision produced an introspection in Taylor which stirred his own inner eye:

My mentall Eye, spying thy sparkling Fold Bedeckt, my Lord, with Glories shine alone, That doth out do all Broideries of Gold: And Pavements of Rich Pearles, and Precious Stone Did double back its Beams to light my Sphere Making an inward Search, for what springs there, (pp, 130-1)

The importance of the house as a symbol for the body was that it assisted the Platonic equation between external beauty and inner soul. By lending itself to the Platonic emphasis upon external beauty the outside of the house became the mask or face of man. The 103

image of the house was also related through genealogy to man in the

garden of the world. Like the artifacts of the natural setting, the

city also corresponded to the symbols of the natural landscape. Its

walls and gates, for instance, were frequently thought to have

supernatural powers, and the city itself was often thought to repre­

sent a divine principle and was presided over by a godess. The con­

cept of the mythical city of Atlantis described by Plato in the Timaeus

and the Christian adaptation of a heavenly city of God peopled by a

divine host are metaphorical extensions of the philosophical dualism

which underlies western thought from Plato through the Renaissance.

The use of celestial or other worldly mansions to represent the home

of the divine soul and houses to symbolize mortal souls laid particular

stress upon the outside of the dwelling which signified its spiritual

face. God’s house is most frequently represented as a palace marked

by the brilliance of its light and the mood is always festive. The

earthly house, by contrast, is a human frame which suffers from the limitations of time and place and is, at best, an imperfect replica.

Like the garden, the house connotes protective enclosure. It is stated in the Phaedrus that Socrates exchanged the walls of the city for the garden, but the scene along the Illissus is close to a 22 house of God, In the Platonic tradition, then, the house is an important image in the natural setting because its form echoes the perfection implicit in nature. Master Peter stated that the house is a functional symbol of the organic relationship between human and natural art: 104

When men began first to builde, in the middle of the temples and houses, they reared the ridge of the roofe, not to make the workes to have a better shew, but because the water might the more commodiously avoide on both sides: yet unto profit there was forthwith adjoyned a faire sightlinesse, so that if under ye skye where there falleth neither haile nor raine a man should builde a Temple without a reared ridge, it is to bee thought, that it coulde have neither a sightly shew nor any beautie. 23

Taylor assimilated the Platonic understanding of the relation­

ship between heavenly and earthly love, and his poetry exhibits the

full spirit of the tradition’s image of the house as the vehicle which

contained the divine and mortal soul. As a metaphysical, Taylor

capitalized upon the organic wholeness of the image in that the parts

of the human anatomy correspond to the various structures of a building,

and the concept of depravity led him to stress the limitations of the

human soul-house when isolated from divine love. Consequently, the

human body is described as the soul’s poorhouse prior to the marriage

with Christ:

A State, a State, Ohl Dungeon State indeed. In which mee headlong, long agoe Sin pitch: (p, 212)

However, at the very moment that the poet’s soul sinks lowest "in this

mire" without "Sweet Aire Brieze," the poet is teased by the thought

of his potential divinity. First, the poet recalls what the soul has

been. As in the Christian and Platonic garden scenes, the soul's

house was located on "the Summit high" while celestial music denoted universal harmony. Secondly, the soul anticipates what it can become again. In the final stanza, the poet looks forward to an escape from

the environment of physical decay as he imagines his soul lifted by

the Neo-Platonic "Chain of Grace" from the "Hellish damps" to "Holy

Aire." (p. 213) 105

The question of the status of the soul in the universal

hierarchy arises from the RLatonic inquiry into the measure of the

soul’s separation from the divine archetype, The question was one

which occupied Renaissance RLatonists and, as E, M. W, Tillyard

points out, placed man in a "doubtful middle state":

In the chain of being the position of man was of paramount interest. Homo est utriusque naturae vinculum. He was the nodal point, and his double nature, though the source of internal conflict, had the unique function of binding together all creation, of bridging the greatest cosmic chasm, that between matter and spirit. During the whole period when the notion of the chain of being was prevalent, from the Pythagorean philosophy to Pope, it was man’s key position in creation—a kind of Clapham Junction where all the tracks converge and cross—that so greatly exercised the human imagination.24

It was this paradox which explains Taylor’s use of the house image.

Although depravity defined the nature of separation from the divine

archetype and although the metaphysical vehicle dramatized the shabbi­

ness of the particular soul, Taylor escaped from the ghetto of his

soul to enjoy the highest aspirations of the Renaissance man, "Divinely

person’d: almost Deifide," (p. 157)

It was the house which assisted the image of man as the micro­

cosm of the universe, but the human soul did not ultimately exist without an awareness of its likenesses to the divine archetype. Often, the poet longed for a house as glorious as God’s and, simultaneously, he anticipated a reconstituted body fit for a divine visit. As God prepared his house for the mortal visitor, Taylor prepared his in images of housekeeping, The doubtful middle state, for Taylor, made possible a heavenly house fit for human needs and an earthly house magnificent enough for a holy temple. Both, however, shared the same properties and one was a Platonic reproduction of the other: 106

Thy Lower House, this World well garnished With richest Furniture of Ev'ry kinde Of Creatures of each Colours varnished Most glorious, a Silver Box of Winde. The Crystall Skies pinkt with Sun, Moon, and Stars Are made its Battlements on azure Spars.

But on these Battlements above, thoust placdst Thy Upper House, that Royall Palace town, In which these Mansions are, that made thou hast. For Saints and Angells Dwellings of renown. Should we suppose these mansions, Chambers neate Like ours, 't would sordid be, not fit this Seate. (p. 221)

In Meditation 2.93, the poet anticipates a visit to an ideal

city which is described in terms of its external luster:

Could but a Glance of that bright City fair, Whose walls are sparkling, Pretious Stones, whose Gates Bright pollisht Splendent Pearls, Whose Porters are Swash Flaming Angells, and Whose Streets rich Plates Of pure transparent Gold, mine Eyes enjoy, My Ravisht heart on Raptures Wings would fly, (p, 220)

In the succeeding stanza, he contrasts the condition of his soul-

house with God's and elaborates upon the differences between the two worlds. In Meditation 1.34, Taylor again employs the image of the divine house. God is seen as a benevolent draftsman as the poet admires heaven's architecture:

The Dantiest Draught thy Pensill ever Drew: The finest vessell, Lord, thy fingers fram'de: The statelist Palace Angells e're did view, Under thy Hatch betwixt Decks here Contain'd Broke, marred, spoild, undone, DefUd doth ly In Rubbish ruinde by thine Enemy, (p. 48)

In the latter half of the stanza, Taylor not only asserts the vantage of the depraved, mortal soul but he contrasts the palace of his lord with his own, humbler shell. In the last line, the poet refers to

God's enemy, the architect of evil in the universe, by images of domestic waste. Although Taylor is painfully sensitive to the inadequacies of his own frame, the analogy of the house and body 107

confirms the fact that his body is an insufficient edition of the

larger and more glorious house of God, Taylor's human frame is

separated from God's by an envelope of air. ("Betwixt Decks" suggests

the impure air out of which evil is formed rather than the power of

ether of which angels are formed.) In the fifth stanza, Taylor conveys

his sense of spiritual inadequacy by images of the shapeless body.

Although the mortal house of the soul bears structural likenesses

to God's palace, it is the properties of the divine house which contain

the "saving grace" that overcomes the deficiencies of the mortal soul.

As a "Flesh and Blood bag," he suffers from the formlessness which

Plato identified as evil, and the images of restoration in line four

symbolize the frame which in the Symposium is associated with form, 25 perfection, and love: J

Thou Rod of Davids Root, Branch of his Bough My Lord, repare thy Palace, Deck thy Place. I'm but a Plesh and Blood bag: Ohl do thou Sill, Plate, Ridge, Rib, and Rafter me with Grace. Renew my Soule, and guild it all within; And hang thy Saving Grace on ery Pin, (p. 49)

In the remaining stanzas of the meditation, the poet seeks the grace of God which will make him a new man. In the sixth stanza, the soul's renovation is described by images of structure:

My Soule, Lord, make thy Shining Temple, pave Its Floore all o're with Orient Grace: thus guild It o're with Heavens gold: Its Cabbins have Thy Treasuries with Choicest thoughts up filld. Pourtray thy Glorious Image round about Upon thy Temple Walls within, and out. (p. 49)

In the final stanza, the governing metaphor of the soul's house is dropped, as the poet pleads to his lord in biblical rhetoric to create him in a "New mould" as a "New Creature." 108

God is invoked in Platonic and biblical fashion as the archi­

tect of the heavenly city and as the renewer of the earthly soul

dwellings, because his own body is a palace of unparalleled spiritu­

ality. Taylor identifies the nature of the divine beauty in Meditation

2.40 in Platonic terms as the human frame. In the succeeding line,

he uses an explicit metaphor to illustrate that God is the source of

beauty for all dwellings, whether heavenly or earthly:

Thy Humane nature so divinely t'de Unto thy Person all Divine's a Spring So high advanc’d, that in it doth reside Preheminence large over ev’ry thing. Thy Humane flesh with its Perfections shine So 'bove all others Beauties in their prime, (p, 151)

In Meditation 2.35» Taylor combines the idea of the divinity of the

Lord's nature with the image of the city. In the first line, he

celebrates his relation with God by using the Neo-Platonic variation

of the golden ladder, the golden link: "My Blessed Lord, that Golden

Linck that joyns/My Soule, and thee." (p. 142) Throughout the remain­

der of the first stanza, the poet employs a series of images to cele­

brate a relationship with God that surpasses "all the Stars that pave

the Heavens Streets." In the second stanza, Taylor substitutes an

urban artifact, the bridge, for the golden link and introduces the

idea of a dwelling in the word, "lodge," which is repeated in the same line. After admiring the beauty of heaven’s "Battlements" in the

third stanza, the poet celebrates the divine personage by images of royalty. In the fourth stanza, he describes God’s lavish, circular

"Golden Palace Walld round," and, in the following stanza, he asso­ ciates the building with the body: 109

Thy Humane frame’s a Curious Palace, raisd Of th'Creame of Natures top Perfection here (p, 143)

Taylor’s belief in the depravity of the mortal soul lasted only

as long as the poet himself was isolated from divine love. His own

condition led him to cherish the Platonic dualism which provided

his faith with a double view of the world, Taylor’s emphasis was

upon the likenesses between his own soul's house and God's, not upon

the differences. In the second stanza of Meditation 2,42, the poet

alludes to the Platonic concept of the soul's flight to earth to find

suitable material for a home: "But oht if thou one Sparke of heavenly

fire/Wilt but drop on my hearth; its holy flame/Will burn my trash up."

(p. 153) In the third stanza, the poet hopes that his soul’s house

might be like that of his maker's. The soul's estate is described

as "Walled round," suggesting not only the Platonic concept of circu­

lar perfection but also the rim of protection from the soul's adver­

saries. In the fourth stanza, the poet implores his Lord to make the

mortal soul an island flourishing with grace, and, in the following

stanza, he asks his maker to purge the soul's domain of sin and to make a mortal body like the heavenly palace. After establishing the metaphorical relationship between the body and a building, Taylor focuses on the paradox that he is both like and unlike God and finds the resolution in supernatural Grace:

Thy Body is a Building all like mine, In Matter, Form, in Essence, Properties. Yet Sin ne'er toucht it, Grace ne’er ceast in't'shine. It, though not Godded, next to th'Godhead lies. This honour have I, more than th'Angells bright. Thy Person, and my Nature do Unite. (p, 154)

In numerous other poems, Taylor uses the image of the soul's 110

house to visualize its relationship to God’s heavenly house. In

Meditation 2,94, Taylor echoes the biblical injunction, "In my

Father's House are Many Mansions," and sustains the metaphor to

depict the hovel which is his own soul:

Celestiall Mansions I Wonder, oh my Soul I Angells Eavillions surely: and no Halls For Mud walld Matter, wherein Vermins rowle, Worm eaten'd ore with Sin, like Wormhold Walls. Shall Earthen Pitchers set be on the Shelfe Of such blesst Mansions Heavenly Plate of Wealth? (p. 222)

In Meditation 2,49, the poet asks God to rekindle the fire that has

"gone t'bed," After realizing the relationship of God's house to

his, the poet dwells on the differences:

Thy Clay, and Mine, out of one pit are dug: Although with Spades of vastest differing kinde, (p. 165)

and:

But ohl alasl mine's Wall is worm-hold, and My House and Household sogd with noisom Sin And no relief can have in Creature's hand While thine all Sparkling Shines without, and in, Fild with all Grace, and Graces Fullness all Adorning of thy Household and thy Hall, (p. 165)

Taylor also uses the image of the soul's dwelling in connection with doctrines of faith. In Meditation 2.37, the poet seeks a spiritual housecleaning as he asks Christ to be the head for his mortal body.

The head, in addition to representing the center of bodily conscious­ ness, also symbolizes the Church or Christ:

Be thou my Head: and of thy Body make mee Thy Influences in my Cue distill. Guild thou my Chamber with thy Grace, and take mee Under thy Rule, and rule mee by thy Will. Be thou my head, and act my tongue whereby Its tittle-tattle may thee glorify. (p. 146)

In Meditation 2.75, Taylor celebrates the power of sanctification to Ill

overcome the vileness of the mortal body, and he expresses the para­

dox of a soul contrite in depravity but expansive in Grace. In the

third stanza, the mortar is shaped by a divine spade:

Here is a Mudwall tent, whose Matters are Dead Elements, which mixt make dirty trade: Which with Life Animall are wrought up faire A Living mudwall by Gods holy Spade. Yet though a Wall alive all spruice, and crouce Its Base, and Vile. And baseness keeps its House. (p. 209)

In the succeeding stanzas, the mortal soul welcomes the saving grace of the divine housekeeper whose spirit "kills the Leprosy that taints the Walls:/And sanctifies the house before it falls." In the final stanza, Taylor brings together the image of the body of the soul's poorhouse and the cleansing power of divine grace:

Ohl make my Body, Lord, Although its vile, Thy Warehouse where Grace doth her treasures lay. And Cleanse the house and ery Room from Soile, Deck all my Rooms with thy rich Grace I pray. If thy free Grace doth my low tent, perfume, I'll sing thy Glorious praise in ery room. (p. 210)

The house as the analogy for the indwelling soul was a diver­ sified metaphor. From the many potential images, however, the Christian and Platonic traditions of love concentrated 1) on those images de­ picting the universe as an organism, and 2) on images of the face, particularly the eyes, mouth and breath. Of the first, Plato explained in the Timaeus that the body is a composite of the four basic elements of the universe, and, that when they are given a shape befitting their natures, they become living beings with souls. In the words of

Plotinus, the universe is a vast but single organism; it is organized around the principle of life’s many forms but characterized by oneness: 112

Or take it another way:—Since in our view this universe stands to that as copy to original, the living total must exist There beforehand; that is the realm of complete Being and everything must exist There. The Sky There must be living and therefore not bare of stars, here known as the heavens—for stars are included in the very meaning of the word. Earth too will be There, and not void but even more intensely living and containing all that lives and moves upon our earth and the plants obviously rooted in life; sea will be There and all waters with the movement of their unending life and all the living things of the water; air too must be a member of that universe with the living things of air as here. The content of that living thing must surely be alive--as in this sphere—and all that lives must of necessity be There, The nature of the major parts determines that of the living forms they comprise; by the being and content of the heaven There are determined all the heavenly forms of life; if those lesser forms were not There, that heaven itself would not be,26

It has already been noted that the Christian preoccupation with heavenly love led man to personify his creator, and Plato’s concern for the human physiology and its latent divinity was a ready basis for the Christianization of God in human terms. But the Platonists remained enthralled by their concept of life in a pre-Edenic state and were more concerned with knowing man’s likenesses to God than his differences. The result was that the Platonist celebrated the corre­ spondences between himself and God, and his increased consciousness of these likenesses was a divine favor to be cherished with enthusiasm in poetry.

Taylor, too, praised the human constitution, and it supplied him with the most vigorous of his images. Particular meditations are filled with simultaneous references to the cosmic, civil and human bodies, a Platonic commonplace reinforced by Renaissance poets. In Medita­ tion 6? JbJ, the poet begins with a series of cosmic references:

"Rising Sun doth Dance," "Sun with its Curld Locks," "golden wings,"

"Suns Eyebright," "sweet medicating rayes," and "Fiery Darts." (pp. 196-7) 113

In the middle stanzas, the poet deals with the state of man. The

images of disease are as vivid as those used by Plato and reflect

both the Renaissance concern for the relationship between the human

body as a house and the well being of the elements of the human

microcosm:

Yea, Lythargy, the Apoplectick Stroke: The Catochee, Soul Blindness, Surdity, Ill Tongue, Mouth Ulcers, Frog, The Quinsie Throate The Palate Fallen, Wheezings, Pleurisy. Heart Ach, the Syncopee, bad stomach tricks Gaul Tumors, Liver grown; spleen evills Cricks.

The Kidny toucht, The Iliak, Colick Griefe The Ricats, Dropsy, Gout, the Scurvy, Sore The Miserere Mei. 0 Reliefe I want and would, and beg it at thy doore. 01 Sun of Righteousness Thy Beams bright, Hot Rafter a Doctors, and a Surgeons Shop. (p. 197)

In the remainder of the meditation, the poet reinforces the relation­

ship between the human and civil bodies ("I ope my Case to thee, my

Lord") and he closes by turning from images of the digestive and

circulatory systems to the senses. In the final stanza, he focuses

on the head which he asks to be adorned with a feather from the wings

of heavenly love:

Lord plaster mee herewith to bring soon down My Swellings. Stick a Feather of thy Wing Within my Cap to Cure my Aching Crown. And with these beams Heale mee of all my Sin. When with these Wings thou dost mee medicine I’st weare the Cure, thou th'glory of this Shine. (p. 198)

Whenever speaking of the life principle, Taylor sustained the analogy between the harmony of bodily functions and the cosmic, civil and religious body:

The Beauty of Humanity Compleate, Where ery organ is adepted right, Wherein such Spirits brisk, do full neate 114

Make Natures operations fully ripe, AU Harmonizing in their actions done That ery twig’s with glorious blossoms hung. (p. 207)

and;

What Wonder's here? Big belli'd Wonders in't (p. 67)

and;

The Soul’s the womb. Christ is the Spermadote And Saving grace the seed cast thereinto; The Life’s the principal in grace’s cloak, Making vitality in all things flow In Heavenly verdure brisking holily With Sharp ey'd peartness of Vivacity.

and;

But doth my sickness want such remedies, As Mummy draind out of that Body spun Out of my bowells first? Must th’Cure arise Out of the Coffin of a pious son? (p. 150)

and;

In this sad state, Gods Tender BoweUs run Out of streams of Grace: (p. 18)

and;

A varnisht pot of putrid excrements, And quickly turns to excrements itselfe, By natures Law: (p. 209)

Among the numerous images of the body, however, the face was

the surest sign of the relationship between external appearance and inward beauty of the soul. The face was the mask for the head, the

seat of human consciousness, whether in authoritarian or natural religion. Just as the heavenly bodies’ control over events on earth was symbolized by their lofty position, so the head, the uppermost extremity of the body, is closest to heaven and the seat of man’s consciousness. Further, the erect human body is like the tree-: in the garden of the world. In speaking of animal forms in the Timaeus, 115

Plato distinguishes between vertical man and the animals, whose con­

cern is not with heaven and whose circular bodies parallel the

ground with the limbs pointing to earth. In the Timaeus, Plato

clarifies the analogy between man and the tree:

Concerning the highest part of the human soul, we should consider that God gave this as a genius to each one, which was to dwell at the extremity of the body, and to raise us like plants, not of an earthly but of a heavenly growth, from earth to our kindred which is in heaven. And this is most true; for the divine power suspended the head and root of us from that place where the generation of the soul first began, and thus made erect the whole body,2'

The relationship between the body and the soul resulted in two

emphases and, hence, two attitudes toward the beauty which appeals to

the senses. The first is commonly associated with medieval,mystical worship. Kenneth B. Murdock writes, "So, in Catholic worship there is an attempt to appeal to the eye, the ear, to all the senses in some measure, and in much Catholic literature a frank use of sensuous material not simply as an illustration of the divine but as valuable 28 in and for itself." The second attitude, that closer to the Platonic idea of love, also delighted in the sensual vision, but it was more concerned with the unity suggested in both worlds through the senses rather than the celebration of that revealed on earth through the limitations of doctrine. John Smith Harrison writes, "Contemplation of Christ’s divine nature as essential beauty is totally absent from this passion, Christ as the object of this love is conceived only as the perfection of physical beauty; and the response within the soul of the lover is that of mere sensuous delight either in the sight of his personal beauties or in the realization of the union with him,"^^

It was possible, then, for Taylor to enjoy the pleasures of the 116

senses. The extent or manner of joy over beauty was grounded in the

principle of Christ’s perfect physical beauty. What mattered was the

application of the senses to the principle of transcendent beauty, a

beauty which God was understood to possess. While the Puritans con­

sidered sensual delight as potentially beguiling, Taylor, who under­

stood the principle of love that pleased both mind and sense, trusted

the senses and celebrated their powers. The sight of God, in his

absolute beauty, was the highest principle and the end of the religious

quest, God according to Taylor was a divine excellence known through

the senses:

Apples of gold, in silver pictures shrin’de Enchant the appetite, make mouths to water. And Loveliness in Lumps, turn’d, and enrin'de In Jasper Cask, when tapt, doth briskly vaper: Brings forth a birth of Keyes t*unlock Loves Chest, That Love, like Birds, may fly to't from its nest.

Such is my Lord, and more. (pp. 68-9)

The senses moved the mind to realize the principle of a higher reality.

More than simply sensing in nature an analogy to be grasped, or the first step in a tortuous journey of purgation, Taylor relished the capacity of the senses to provide a revelation of the whole. The result was a greater confidence in all the conscious faculties. In "The

Experience," the poet focuses on religious feeling. Unlike the narrator in George Herbert’s "Love" the poet does not withdraw from personal inadequacies based upon doctrine ("yet my soul drew back,/Guilty of dust and sinne"), Taylor does not question whether he "lacked anything," and he is less concerned with the extent of God’s mercy or the manner in which it is evidenced than with the quality of feeling which accompanies love and the role of the senses in realizing the higher principle: 117

Oht that I alwayes breath’d in such an aire, As I suckt in, feeding on sweet Content! Disht up unto my Soul ev'n in that pray’re Pour'de out to God over last Sacrament, What Beam of Light wrapt up my sight to finde Me neerer God than ere Came in my minde? (p, 8)

In "The Experience," it is the substance of love, not the sacrament

of communion, which fires the passions within the soul and love is a

sensual knowledge. It is the light, for instance, which causes

Taylor to realize "My Nature with thy Nature all Divine/Together

joyn’d in Him thats Thou, and I." (p. 8) The final two conditions

of Platonic love are that one must relinquish earthly pleasures and

enjoy the new found divinity. In "The Experience" Taylor does both

as he indicates that he can set aside earthly considerations with

speed and realize the ecstasy of the divine vision:

So much of heaven I should have while here. Oht Sweet though Short! lie not forget the same. My neerness, Lord, to thee did me Enflame. (p. 9)

and;

I'le Claim my Right: Give place, ye Angells Bright. Ye further from the Godhead stande than I, My Nature is your Lord; and doth Unite Better than Yours unto the Deity. (p. 9)

Of these facial images in Taylor’s verse identifying him with

mystical poets of the Medieval church, it can be said in general that

they describe the sweetness of Christ’s soul. The images not only

depict the relationship between inner worth and outer appearance but also stress the importance of the appropriate response in the presence

of God. The relationship between Christ’s inner spirituality and

shining face is a biblical adaptation of an emphasis in the Symposium

on the beautiful face—an emphasis sustained by Peter Bembo: "But 118

speaking of the beautie that we meane, which is onely it, that appeareth in bodies, and especially in the face of a man, and moveth 30 this fervent coveting which wee call Love,"

Taylor reflects the Christian, Platonic heritage of imagery by focusing upon the eye and face in describing the sweetness of

Christ, In Meditation 1,30, he refers to God’s loveliness which beams "through the Chrystall Casements of the Eyes/Of Saints," (p. 48) and in Meditation 2,119, the piercing look of the courting Christ promises the soul’s eye a vision of its own ascent upon the Neo-Platonic

"Golden Ladders":

Lord, let these Charming Glancing Eyes of thine Glance on my Soul's bright Eye its amorous beams To fetch as upon golden Ladders fine My Heart and Love to thee in Hottest Steams. Which bosom’d in thy brightest beauty dear, Shall tune the glances of thy Eyes, Sweet Deare.

Generally, the image appears as the soul’s eye. It can be the earthly eye to be innoculated by Christ or the eye of heaven, heaven’s window through which beams the eye of Christ. Of more interest to the Platonic spirit of love, however, is the mouth which serves as the passageway for the soul in the form of breath. For while the soul’s eye, a figure for the conscious faculty, can scan the heavens and alert the soul to the impending divine encounter, it is the breath itself which symbolizes the exchange of soul between man and God or between man and the ob­ jects from the garden of the world.

The symbol of the breath in the form of a kiss as the exchange of souls originates with the legend of Pyramus and Thisbe. As explained by Peter Bembo, the kiss was an ideal and the consummation of love.

Any kiss is important as a physical exchange only because it is an 119

enactment of the principle of the higher love of reason:

Therefore the woman to please her good lover, beside the graunting him mery countenances, familiar and secret talke, jeasting, dalying, hand in hand, may also lawfully and without blame come to kissing: which in sensuall.love according to the Lord Julians rules, is not lawfull. For since a kisse is a knitting together both of bodie and soule, it is to bee feared, lest the sensual lover will be more enclined to the part of the bodie; than of the soul: but the reasonable lover woteth well, that although the mouth be a parcell of the bodie, yet is it an issue for the wordes, that be the interpreters of the soule,and for the inwarde breath, which is also called the soule,*31

The importance of the breath derives from the emphasis by Plato

upon the air. To the Greek, the visible world was known through exam­

ination, and his search for form let him to the conclusion that the

world was composed of a few basic elements. The pre-Socratic

philosophers had believed the world to be composed of one or more

basic elements, and by the time of Socrates and Plato Greek philoso­

phers agreed on earth, air, fire, and water. In the Timaeus we learn

that the world is composed of fire and earth and united by air and water. In its final form, the world, as we have already seen, was

perfectly spherical and unchanging. In its center, too, God put the

soul, which he made from the four elements in perfect stability.

The details of the biblical creation originated in the Timaeus, but it is to the Flatonists that we must also look for the rationale for the elements, particularly the breath. In arguing for the existence of Intelligence, Plotinus writes:

We see that all things that are said to exist are composites. . . . Among the products of nature those that are multiple composites and compounds can be analyzed in terms either of their form or of their elements. So we may, for instance, distinguish, in a man, soul and body, or in his body, four elements. But the elements themselves will be found to be composed of matter and of some principle that gives it form; for the matter of the elements itself is formless. Thus we are led to ask whence matter derives its form, and to seek whether the soul itself is one of the simple beings. Now the soul too is composite, one part of her is analogous to matter and another to form. Intelligence is in the soul in part analogously to the way in which form is in the bronze of a statue, and in part analogously to the way in which the artist produces this form. With regard to the universe at large we will find Intelligence the true maker and demiurge of the world, Thus matter becomes water, air, earth, and fire only by receiving forms. These forms come to it through the mediation of another principle, the soul. The soul gives the four elements their cosmic form, but it is Intelligence that provides her with her forms, just as an artisan receives his instructions from his art as it is handed to him. Intelligence thus in one respect is the "form" of the soul.32

Plotinus reinforces the link in a tradition reaching from Plato to Taylor, The image of God as the master craftsman in the Timaeus and the poetry of Taylor has already been discussed. God, in addition, created fire as the first and most potent of the elements.

The supremacy of fire, it may be recalled, arose from its function as the first cause which lifted the darkness and which combined to ignite the soul. After fire, air is for Taylor the principal symbol for love between the divine and mortal soul. Generally, air takes either the form of the cruder atmosphere or the rarified breath. Only in a general sense might Taylor’s use of the breath be attributed to the

Bible. In Genesis 2:7, God breathed the breath of life into human nostrils, thus begetting soul. Taylor often echoed the biblical epithet, "God’s nostrils," However, Taylor’s use of the breath image in conjunction with fire and the kiss has Platonic implications.

In Meditation 2.82, the breath is combined with fire. Raw air was the envelope separating heaven and earth, but heated, purified air gave form:

*Page number 121 was omitted by mistake. No data is missing. 122

I’l offer on’t my heart to thee. (Ohl take me) And let thy fire calcine mine Altars Wood Then let thy Spirit’s breath, as Bellows blow That the new kindred Life may flame and glow.

In Meditation 1.7, fire and air are again mixed and become a metaphor

for God’s love, God, who is personified as a druggist, pours the

rarified mixture down the neck into the vessel that holds the souls

Thy Holy Love, the Glowing heate whereby, The Spirit of Grace is graciously distilld. Thy Mouth the Neck through which these spirits still. My Soul thy Violl make, and therewith fill. (p. 17)

In "The Experience," where the rite of communion is the occasion for a religious eroticism that brings an understanding superior to the intellect, Taylor observes the hierarchy of the elements. In the first stanza, the poet breathes in the purified air, the atmosphere of the angels, as he prepares to penetrate the same medium to reach his creator:

Ohl that I alwayes breath’d in such an aire, As I suckt in, feeding on sweet content! Disht up unto my Soul ev’n in that pray’re Pour’de out to God over last Sacrament. What Beame of Light wrapt up my sight to finde Me neerer God than ere came in my minde? (p. 8)

In the second stanza, he asserts the superiority of air over earth and water. He explains through imagery of the soul as a vessel filled with liquid that the presence of air activates the soul's cup filling it to the brim;

Most strange it was! But yet more strange that shine Which filld my Soul then to the brim to spy My Nature with thy Nature all Divine Together joyn’d in Him thats Thou, and I, (p. 8)

In the following stanza the poet has transcended the buffer of air to reach God whose love resembles fire: 123

Ohl that that Flame which thou didst on me Cast Might me enflame, and Lighten ery where. Then heaven to me would be less at last So much of heaven I should have while here. Ohl Sweet though ShortI lie not forget the same. My neerness, Lord, to thee did me Enflame. (p. 9)

The symbolic importance of breath may be seen in Meditation 1.39

where the poet contrasts with his own meager, impotent breath the

breath of time which, as its final act, "bloweth out the Sun":

Oh Stupid Heartl What strang-strange thing am I? I many months do drown in Sorrows Spring But hardly raise a Sigh to blow down Sin, (p. 57)

The greatest power of the breath lay in its role in the creation—that

of begetting soul: "Alasl my Soule, product of Breath Divine," (p. 306) and Taylor is alert to temptations in the form of breath, the imitations

of divine breath which robbed man of his former place in the garden and expressed here as the kiss without breath:

My Muddy Tent, Why hast thou done so ill To Court, and kiss my Soule, yet kissing kill? Why didst thou Whyning, egg her thus away Thy sensuall Appetite to satisfy? (p. 307)

The continuing power of the breath is evident in God’s grace, which is inhaled by the mortal soul. In Meditation 2.27, the sanctifying breath of grace is sweetened and concretized as perfume:

And in my hearing, Working, Walking here The Breath of Sanctifying Grace out goes. Perfuming all these Actions, and my life. Ohl Sweetest Sweet, Hence Holiness is rife. (p. 132)

Like the kiss itself, the exchange of breath called attention to the intensified beauty of Christ. The origin of beauty is divine and, although it is diffused into all things, the recognition of its source in Christ is a signal for love on our part. The perfection of the beauty of Christ can be confined to Christ himself or it can 124

be expressed in the quality of the love which is felt for Christ. But

whether the sense of beauty is visible in the lover or the beloved,

its greatest proof is the breath of grace. In Meditation 2.14, the

poet prepares the way for the saving breath of grace by first com­

paring the crippling baseness of depravity to a disease which inhibits

breathing:

Halfe Dead: and rotten at the Coare: My Lord! I am Consumptive: and my Wasted lungs Scarce draw a Breath of aire: my Silver Coard Is loose. My buckles almost have no tongues, (p. 104)

Finally, the poet longs for the sweet and relentless breath of Christ

to enter an empty shell and overwhelm him.

Taylor’s use of perfumed breath in connection with his love for

Christ is most dramatic in the imagery from the garden of the world.

In Meditation 1.27, by identifying the flower with Christ, he suggests

that it should be an object of our highest affections:

This Flower that in his Bosom sticks so fast, Stuck in the Bosom of such stuff as wee That both his Purse, and all his Treasure thus, Should be so full, and freely sent to us. (p. 45)

In Meditation 1.3, the poet employs a series of images which suggest the sweetness of his Lord. The imagery of sweetness arises from a rhetorical question in line on which, for the sake of argument, hypothesizes a rival for the poet’s religious affections:

How sweet a Lord is mine? If any should Guarded, Engarden'd, nay, Imbosomd bee In reechs of Odours, Gales of Spices,, Folds Of Aromaticks, Ohl how sweet was hee? (p. 7)

Taylor is leading to the inevitable conclusion that Christ is the sweetest of all possible gods. More than simply an exercise in

Socratic debate, the closed, circular nature of Taylor’s premise and 125

imagery is augmented by images of security, inebriation and sensuality, and they contribute to the idea of the garden as perfect and eternal.

The final lines of the stanza identify Taylor’s Lord as the

sweetest ("He would be sweet, and yet his sweetest Wave/Compar’de to

thee my Lord, no sweet would have,") In the second stanza, Taylor describes his Lord in terms of the breath which is sweet and relent­ less. Taylor contrasts his god to the imitators by images of freedom and release. The box of ointments in line one breaks, freeing its perfumes, and the "Reech" in line 3 is turned to steam while the vapors rise like a column, suggesting a flight from the garden to the source of love in heaven:

A Box of Ointments, broke; sweetness most sweet. A surge of spices: Odours Common Wealth, A Pillar of Perfume: a steaming Reech Of Aromatick Clouds: All Saving Health. Sweetness itselfe thou art: And I presume In Calling of thee Sweet, who art Perfume. (p. 7)

In the third stanza, the poet is temporarily diverted by odors from the garden which induce a momentary loss of smell. In the fourth stanza the poet pauses to consider the causes for the loss of smell. The images of security now connote containment and are mixed with those of decay:

But Woe is meet who have so quick a Sent To Catch perfumes pufft out from Pincks, and Roses And other Muscadalls, as they get Vent, Out of their Mothers Wombs to bob our noses. And yet thy sweet perfume doth seldom latch My Lord, within my Mammulary Catch,

Am I denos’de? or doth the Worlds ill sents Engarison my nosthrills narrow bore? Or is my smell lost in these Damps it Vents? And shall I never finde it any more? Or is it like the Hawks, or Hownds whose breed Take stincking Carrion for Perfume indeed? (p. 7) 126

The images of detention and decayed sensuality lead the poet to state

the dilemma ("This is my Case. All things smell sweet to me:/Except

thy sweetness"). The poet implores his Lord to "Breake up this

Garison" to allow the cloudlike "Vapours" of Christ to enter his nostrils. In the final lines, the poet envisions the restoration of his aborted sense of smell, and he establishes the superiority of the breath to the milk of the breast.

There are numerous other references to God as the breath of a flower. But in Meditation 2,11, Taylor conceives a natural cycle beginning with divine beneficence in the form of sunlight and ending with the mortal's love of God which is returned to the creator as flowerlike breath:

Let Graces Spouts all run Upon my Soule O’re which thy sunshine lay. And set me in thy Sunshine, make each flower Of Grace in me thy Praise perfum’d out poure, (p. 101)

The image of the flower’s breath is most powerful when a sustained meta­ phor for the exchange of love between man and God. In Meditation 1,4, the poet withholds his affections from earthly objects (a Platonic as well as Puritan restraint) until their release promises an encounter with Christ. The poet asks God to "lead me into this sweet Rosy Bower" to confront the rose, a symbol for the complete Christ. As a symbol for the living and doctrinal Christ, the rose is an object worthy of the soul’s highest affections, which are stirred to a higher principle by the pervading breath:

The Rose of Sharon which with Beauty shines. Her Chest Unlocks; the Sparke of Love out breaths To Court this Rose: and lodgeth in its leaves. (p. 11) 127

Whereas in Meditation 1.4 Taylor found his Rhodora, in Medita­

tion 2,64 he desires the compensation brought only at the altar of

Bacchus:

Ohl that my Chilly Fancy, fluttering soe, Was Elevated with a dram of Wine The Grapes and Pomegranates do yield, that grow Upon thy Gardens Appletrees and Vines. It shouldst have liquour with a flavour fraight To pensil out thy Vines and Pomgranates.

But I, as dry, as is a Chip, scarce get A peep hole through thy garden pales at these, Thy garden plants. (p, I87)

At the poem’s conclusion, the poet seeks the inspiration of the grape

in the garden as a sweetened breath will articulate song:

Make me thy Vine and Pomegranate to be And in thy garden flowrish fruitfully And in their branches bowre, there then to thee In sweetend breath shall come sweet melody. My Spirit then engrapd and pomegranat'de Shall sweetly sing thee o’re thy garden gated. (p. 188)

The level of Taylor’s intoxication with the garden of the world

raises again two questions about the Puritan poet which have been posed

throughout this tudy. It was suggested that Taylor’s poetry is too frequently tied either to Puritanism or to the meditative strain of piety which spawned Puritanism. Less has been said, however, about an attitude toward earthly objects and nature in general which links him to Hellenistic and Renaissance Platonism, A close examination of selected poems, however, reveals that for Taylor, the poet, the senses were not divorced from the spirit. Although as a Puritan he was alert to the dangers of the senses, he was more attuned to the joys of the senses devoutly applied. Further, his special relationship with sensed objects of this world went beyond the limitations of the metaphysical 128

analogy and an acceptance of earthly objects for what they are in

themselves, to catch a sense of the divinity locked within. Earthly

things not only teased the senses; they provided an intellectual vision. The result was that Taylor’s vision of the heavenly world led him to stress a kinship with God, the source of all. The process

of fusion with the divine source was represented metaphorically by a flight into the heavens and by the "mentall Eye" which enabled the poet to see the unity of his kinship with heavenly relations. The process of displacing the envying angels, however, began in the images of the natural world where Taylor saw the forms of intelligibility itself.

The second question raised by his intoxication with earthly things is the role of expansive man who, as the cosmic inebriate, is the arbiter of the worldly domain. As a Puritan settler, Taylor antic­ ipated that understanding of the American setting as a pivotal experi­ ence between the old and the new. Unlike Herodotus who, in searching for his origins in Egypt, was reputed to have said, "There is no country with so many wonders," Taylor drew upon artifacts from the living present as. well as the past. Most importantly, however, he sensed the power of personal renewal in nature’s images, and, in this sense, he stands as more than a curious American original. The poet's heightened consciousness emphasized the power of the regenerated soul, and, by reducing depravity to a transient condition, Taylor implied the poten­ tial elevation of man and a proportionate reduction in status for those creatures which, by order of creation, were superior to man.

The juxtaposing of renewing nature with dogmas from the old 129 world was not solely the concern of Edward Taylor. As nativist critics have pointed out, it was a continuing metaphor for the American experience which, in one form, emerged as the man renewed by nature and more fortunate for his fall from innocence. Although couched in biblical vernacular, the nature of Taylor’s spiritual recovery following depravity and the cleansing immersion in nature was a regeneration of soul so powerful that the poet anticipated his welcome to the universal mind, not as the repatriated soul, but as God’s part­ ner in glory. Taylor, then, is among the earliest of American authors to find in biblical vocabulary the means to express an attitude toward nature which might otherwise have escaped verbalization. 130

CHAPTER V

THE COURTING CHRIST AS PLATONIC LOVER

It is often remarked that there are two traditions of mystical

love. One seeks a complete union of the soul with the divine, and

the other prepares the soul as the bride of Christ for a marriage to

God, The basic difference between the two is that the first achieves

a total fusion between the soul and the divine, whereas the second is

consummated in the sense that there remains after union a distinction

between the creator and the created. The mystical poets of the

Christian church found in courtship and marriage convenient analogies

which illustrated the distinction, God, Christ, or even the church,

was compared to the masculine principle which wooed the human soul,

the female principle, and finally led her to the marriage altar, The

comparison between God’s love and the masculine principle was valuable

because the cultural analogies supplied from earthly, secular love

have characterized western love from the time of Plato to the present.

The degree of spirituality associated with masculine love is a Platonic

commonplace. Even if it is conceded that the spiritual equation in

contemporary masculine love has been replaced by a cultural rationale,

the analogy is not lost. Certainly, the importance of masculinity as

the spiritually active agent in love has implications for the Platonic, biblical and Neo-Platonic creations when God initiated, created and fashioned His beloved, love and loving.

The importance of the masculine principle to English mystical love is apparent as the servile, and sometimes vile, soul of man 131

anticipates reunification with its maker. Percy H. Osmond writes;

The truth that GOD not only created us in love and redeemed us in love, but also longs for us to return His love, is one for which we may be grateful to be reminded. His infinite need of us is a more appealing thought than our infinite need of Him, and in a generous heart it must strike a responsive chord that a more selfish motive might fail to touch. God stands at the door of our hearts and knocks; all the day long He stretches out His hands to us; and yet with many of us religion means no more than a perfunctory attendance at services which are readily dropped if we are "not getting good out of them." The mystics insist on the one hand, that our love for GOD must be disinterested, and, on Jhe other hand, that God has a loving interest in our souls.

However earnestly man sought to be reunited with the source of his

being, he was understood to be responding to divine love. From the

standpoint of Platonism, then, casting man in the role of female

passivity simplified the problem of knowing the good.

While it has been shown in Taylor's relationship to the garden

of the world that his love was, at times, anything but disinterested

and that he was capable of the first kind of mystical union, his aware­

ness of Christ as a doctrinal reality suggests an evaluation of his

relationship to the second kind of union. The application of Platonic love by Taylor was modified by a devotional poet's desire to know and love Christ. The Trinity represented a personification of Platonic idealism and a reduction in the classical plurality of absolutes to three; the Incarnation was the earthly embodiment of these, a dis­ tinction Taylor could be expected to insist upon:

This nail of Steell falls hard upon those foes Of truth, who make the Holy Trinity Into One Person: Arrians too and those Socinians calld, who do Christs Deity Bark out against. But Will they, nill they, they Shall finde this Mall to split their brains away. (p. 84)

For this reason, Taylor accepted the traditional roles of the sexes in 132 2 religious love, as Norman Grabo has pointed out. As the female

soul he submitted to Christ, but Taylor was unwilling to accept the

idea of a passive humanity. When responding to Christ, he sometimes

sustained the paradox of the divine-mortal soul by recalling Christ’s

position as the cosmic primogenitor, as in Meditation 2,2, where the

poet accepted both the preeminence of the incarnated vision and his

own potential station in the masculine line:

Ohl that my Soul was all enamored With this First Bom enough: a Lump of Love Son of Eternall Father, Chambered Once in a Virgins Womb, dropt from above. All Humane royalty hereby Divin’de, The First Born’s Antitype: in whom they're shrin'de.

Make Mee thy Babe, and him my Elder Brother, A Right, Lord grant me in his Birth Right high. (p, 85)

Generally, however, Taylor's Platonism was evident within the conven­

tions of Christian, mystical love. The love directed toward Christ was wholly different from that with objects from the garden of the world, and it is this difference which offers the clearest distinction between

Platonic and Christian mystical love. Whereas the inebriation of a

sweet-smelling flower restored to this world a sense of its Platonic vitality by assisting a spontaneous and complete vision of absolute reality, the offer of salvation through Christ introduced a mediator in the physical Christ, who promised a union with God on an earthly basis, or, at least, in a way that resembled the patterns of human, secular love.

Although Taylor’s delight with the magnificence of nature distinguishes him from the Neo-Platonic and Neo-Classical belief in a fallen or decayed nature, and although the expansive consciousness of man in this world raised him above his fellow Puritans, the acceptance of Christ as

God on earth committed him theologically to Christianity, However 133

far the poet’s intellectual vision carried him into the world of abso­

lute reality and however much this journey quickened Taylor’s confi­

dence in man’s capacities, he yielded to the greater knowledge of God

on earth in the form of Christ and accepted this presence both as

matter for thought and feeling:

Thy sweetest breath, the sweetest Violet Rose, or Carnation ever did gust out Is but a Foist to that Perfume beset In thy Apparell steaming round about: (p. 24)

Christ was for Taylor, as J. B, Broadbent writes of Milton's Christ,

the "theoretical, Platonic Father" who "shines in a Son who is appre- 3 hended by the senses—that is, already incarnate," Taylor frequently addressed God as the immortal mind without measure:

Thou Greate Supream, thou Infinite first One: Thy Being Being gave to all that be Yea to the best of Beings thee alone To serve with Service best for best of fee, (p, 109)

And, as the incarnated Son of God, Christ’s vision was unparalleled in physical and ethereal elegance:

Thou altogether Lovely art, all bright. Thy Loveliness attracks all Love to thee. Yea all of Thee and Thine is fair and White Together or apart in the highest degree. Thy Person, Natures, Properties all thine, Thy Offices and Acts most lovely Shine. (Meditation 2,127)

The Christ who came to earth to love man raised the need for specific rules of love which, although acted out on earth, were sanctioned by the rationale for heavenly love. Rules were needed which not only suited the most glorious union of all, that between man and God, but which satisfied the basis for heavenly love on earth. A rationale was required which explained the interest of Christ in man, a creature of certain beauty, and the cause of love in man for Christ,whose» singular 134

beauty was the result of divine and human form: "Thy Holy Essence,

and its Properties/Divine and Human all this Glory ware," (p, 229)

The rules originated on earth in the minds of men and took the form

of the finest expressions of secular love. Although the codes of

human love were absorbed by and became identified with mystical,

religious love, the rules were an adaptation of the etiquette

first prescribed by Plato, When a religious poet such as Taylor was

confronted by Christ, Christ produced in him a strong sense of being wooed, and, although Taylor’s response to the courting Christ recalls the conventions of mystical love, the response itself was a form of

Platonic love and satisfied its first requirement that the love be a passionate response to what is good. In discussing the male principle, for instance, Master Peter of The Courtier points out that the sweetest voice, facial features and countenance provide a glimpse of the soul so long as they proceed "with the guide of reason."^

Within the framework of Platonic, Christian love was the possi­ bility for an emphasis either upon a sensual or an intellectual love of Christ, The rivalry of mind and sense is a religious and philosoph­ ical commonplace, but the measure of the distance between the most passionate ngrsticism, the rationalism of Neo-Platonism, or the halance of Augustine is Platonism. Taylor's love for the incarnated Christ was shaped by the need to please the mind as well as the senses, and, in this way, the love satisfied the intellectual demands of Platonic love. The Christian mystics of the English church recognized the

Incarnation as the principal doctrine of faith, and as a result they answered Christ's love with human feeling. Just as their need to know 135

and love the earthly world could be satisfied by that which was sensed

rather than that which was perceived as form, they could be contented

with a Christ who pleased the senses. Inasmuch as the senses assisted

a Platonic vision, Taylor was capable of a similar response to the

incarnated Christ, But, insofar as Taylor was able to receive the

courting Christ as a vision which pleased both the mind and the sense,

he satisfied the Platonic emphasis upon what may be known as good,

Taylor’s appreciation of the vision of Christ accepted the instrumen­

tality of the senses in knowing what was good and beautiful, but he

also reached for a quality of perception which surpassed the senses to

join mind and sense as one. The difference between the Christ who is

merely sensed and the Christ who is enjoyed as an intellectual vision

is shown in Meditation 2.96, where the poet realizes that the senses

alone cannot close the distance which lies between the infinite love

offered by Christ and that of the finite soul:

But listen, Soule, here seest thou not a Cheate. Earth is not heaven: Faith not Vision. No. To see the Love of Christ on thee Compleate Would make heavens Rivers of joy, earth overflow. This is the Vale of tears, not mount of joyes. Some Crystal drops while here may well suffice. (p. 226)

The desire by Taylor to perceive the form which accompanied the sensual vision provided the impetus for a Platonic vision of the incarnated

Christ, As John Smith Harrison writes;

Whenever Platonism enters into this tender pasion it always elevates the emotion into a higher region, where the more intellectual or spiritual nature of Christ or God as the object of contemplation; and it does this by affording the poets a conception of the objects of the soul’s highest love, as a philosophical principle, whether of beauty, of good, or of true being.>

The higher philosophical principle for Taylor, as seen in Meditation 136

2,107, was a blend of classical teleology and Christian cosmology.

The Incarnation was man's chief evidence for divine reality on earth,

but it revealed to Taylor evidence for over-all design, a philosoph­

ical understanding which surpassed mechanical processes and doctrinal

laws:

Four Causes do each thing produc’d attend: The End, Efficient, Matter and the Form. These last th'Effieient passt through to the End, And so obtains the same the babe is born. So in this Supper causes foure attend Th’Effieient, Matter, Form, and now the End.

The Primall End whereof is obsignation Unto the Covenant of Grace most sweet. Another is a right Commemoration Of Christs Rich Death upon our hearts to keep And to declare his own till he again Shall come. This Ordinance doth at these aim.

And Secondary Ends were in Christ's Eye In instituting of this Sacrament, As -Union, and Communion Sanctity Held with himselfe by these usd Elements In Union and Communion which are fit, Of Saints Compacted in Church Fellowship. (pp, 242-3)

The adaptation of Platonic love conventions by Taylor to Chris­ tian, devotional love was in keeping with the spirit of Platonic love both as it originated with Plato and as it was Christianized by the court philosophers of the Renaissance. The assignment of the male principle to Christ is consistent with the emphasis upon the superior­ ity of masculinity delineated in Book IV of The Courtier. Further the awareness of the intense spirituality of Christ on earth was consistent with the aura of spirituality required for the consummation of Platonic love on earth between mortals. Both kinds of love depended upon the equation between external, physical attractiveness and inward beauty of the soul, a Platonic precept and convention which Taylor observed 137

throughout the garden of the world (See Chapter IV) and particularly

when confronted by Christ:

Glory, thou Shine of Shining things made fine To fill the Fancy peeping through the Eyes At thee that wantons with thy glittering Shine That onely dances on the Outside guise Yet art the brightest blossom fine things bring To please our Fancies with and make them sing.

But, spare me, Lord, if I while thou dost use This Metaphor to make thyselfe appeare In taking Colours, fancy it to Choose To blandish mine affections with and Cheare Them with thy glory, ever shining best. Thus brought to thee so takingly up dresst.

May I but Eye thy Excellency’s guise From which thy glory flows, all sparkling bright Th'Property of all thy Properties Being both inside, and their Outside Light The flowing flakes of brightest glories flame Would my affections set on fire amain. (p. 229)

Taylor's expression of his love for Christ was, then, simultan

eously sensual and intellectual. The encounter with Christ was, on the one hand, as sensual as the religious love felt by the mystical poets. Norman Grabo has shown that this aspect of Taylor's worship derives from the mystical marriage motif and is not at odds with his

Puritan faith, Grabo demonstrates the mystical marriage sequence by revealing a Christ who teases the mortal soul, who overpowers her until she yields as the bride of Christ and who joins with her at the marriage altar to celebrate in song. A Platonic view supplements

Grabo's discussion in two ways. First, as seen in the previous chapters, it explains the extraordinary range of Taylor's imagery of love and provides a rationale for even the most sensual of images.

Working with a principle of love based upon medieval mystical love,

Grabo concludes: 138

Taylor carries the sexual implications of the spiritual marriage considerably further than most writers who use it; and he does so consciously, for he takes full advantage of the conventional Christian ways of talking about the regeneration of the spirit, the birth of the New Man.?

It has been the thesis of this study from the start that the "full advantage" spoken of by Grabo is an expanded mystical love which included Hellenistic and Renaissance imagery from the Platonic tradi­ tion. Further, as it has been continually suggested, even the most sensual of imagery is consistent with Platonic love, if it passes from the senses to seek the reality of love on a higher plane. The attempt by Taylor to realize an elevated love carried over from his experience in the garden of the world to his confrontations with Christ:

If that my Power was answerable to My minde, my Lord, my little mite would rise With something in its hand of Worth to ’stow And send to thee through the bright azure Skies. For next unto Infinity, I finde Its Love unto thyselfe of boundless kinde, (p. 147)

Secondly, just as Taylor’s concept of heavenly, earthly and incarnated love identified him with the Platonic strain of imagery in the Christian love tradition, so his attitude toward the courting

Christ reveals patterns of Platonic love. Although the basis for these conventions was partially absorbed by mystical Christianity and although the relationship between the two traditions was revaluated by the

Florentine philosophers, the Platonic substance, as a result, not only remained intact but was reasserted during the Renaissance, Thus, from an historical view it should not surprise that the influence was 8 prominent in the religious love poetry of Edward Taylor. Taylor's rapport with what is beautiful in the form of Christ circumvented the most tortuous demands of the mystical experience, but it did not 139

evade the rituals of courtship as they were set forth first by Plato

and, then, by a religious tradition which resurrected Platonism during

the Renaissance.

In answer to the question of whether Taylor’s response to

Christ was mystical or Platonic or whether, in fact, the distinction

is imperceptible, it can be shown that for Taylor the love of Christ was the ultimate proof of the intellectual vision. Taylor’s court­

ship with Christ reveals a dual tradition: 1) the Incarnation which reflects the influence of the English meditative tradition, and 2) the courting ritual of Platonic love both in terms of its philo­ sophical rationale and in the fashionable patterns of courtship which finally became its substance during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The unmistakable posture of the courting Christ precluded mystical awareness, self-awakening, illumination, and rapture, and was, then, a kind of fortunate determinism which was quite con­ sistent with the general Puritan attitude toward God’s grace. The reality of Christ produced in Taylor a fusion of mind and sense and was one more form of a prelude to union with the immortal mind.

The basis for a courtship based upon reason and sense, a delightful vision of the mind, was refined in Christian terms in Book

IV of The Courtier. As John Smith Harrison suggests, the synthesis was natural: "Platonism, then, came as a direct appeal to the religious mind of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which was so constituted that the element of philosophic revery was blended most naturally with Q a strain of pure devotional love." As practiced by the poets of the period, Platonic love was an heavenly and an earthly principle, and even the most conventionalized of earthly manners were unmistakable 140

evidence for the existence of heavenly love on earth.

The specific conventions of Platonic love in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries are familiar inasmuch as they are the substance

of the Petrarchan tradition of poetry. But it is convenient to review

them in order, first,to evaluate Taylor's relationship to a tradition

which had risen and fallen between the time of Taylor and that of his

mystical models from the English church and, second, to study Taylor’s

use of conventions which are commonly associated with Hellenism and

Neo-Platonism rather than the medievalism which spawned Puritan thought.

The Platonic poets of the Renaissance and the seventeenth century

relied upon hyperbolic definitions of their loves, and these excesses

were aided by elaborate Petrarchan conceits. Even the most artificial

and ornate of comparisons were based in Platonic dualism. The earthly

whims of the poet had cosmic implications and were enforced by the

Platonic fusion of mind and sense. The poet's tongue strained to

describe his love's thousand idealistic perfections; his sighs of

admiration resembled storms, and his disappointments in love rained

tears as plentiful as a shower. Because the poet attempted to idealize his lady's features, they appeared stereotyped and generalized,

and the reader knows that the poet is celebrating a soul of great

beauty whose inner qualities took the form of opulent ornaments. The

poet was sensitive to the whims of his lady, and, although he might

have known her through the senses, he was not ultimately interested

in her solely as a flesh-and-blood woman. The poet knew her beauty

of soul through a certain comliness, and he described her moods by

the angle of her brow, her eyes of lightning brightness (capable of 141

piercing the eye of an admirer with a dart), her milk-white skin, and

her teeth and lips, which together radiated a rosy pearl. In her

face the poet read the range of nature, where could be found the

morning dew, the evening's blackest clouds, and the seasons of the

year.

According to the conventions of Platonic love, the poet freely

confessed his own unworthiness as well as his beloved’s disdain. This

painful agonizing and self-deprecation, although highly formalized and directed toward court ladies, resembled in intensity the physical purgation of the soul prior to the mystical union with Christ. Master

Peter described the symptoms:

And hence come the teares, sighes, vexations, and torments of lovers: because the soule is alwaies in affliction and travell and (in-a manner) waxeth woode, until the beloved beautie commeth before her once againe, and then is she immediatly pacified and taketh breath, and throughly bent to it, is nourished with most daintie food, and by her will, would never depart from so sweet a sight.-*-0

And he described the source of the soul's agony:

The cause therefore of this wretchednesse in mens mindes, is principally Sense, which in youthfull age beareth most sway, because the lustinesse of the flesh and of the bloud, in that season addeth unto him even so much force, as it withdraweth for reason. 3!

For both the Platonic lover and the meditative poet, the end was love of the beautiful, and the rationale for both the religious and secular purge of the soul was philosophical Platonism. It explained the desire for the beautiful soul and its existence on earth, Harrison writes, "By applying the doctrines of Platonism to this conventional manner, a way was found to explain upon a seemingly philosophic basis the power of the lover's passion and of beauty as its exciting cause," 142

The full range of Petrarchan attitudes from the Renaissance

through the seventeenth century have a basis in the discourses of

Master Peter. The Petrarchanism he exemplified regarded the extrav­

agant praise of a beloved as appropriate because a comely physical

shape was a sign of an inward beauty of the soul. The second phase

of Platonism, that represented by the Petrarchans of the seventeenth

century, saw equal justification in elaborate praise of the beloved,

but it focused upon the lover’s ornamentation as the illusion which

preceded the reality of love. It doubted no less the equation of the

beautiful body and the heavenly soul, but it ? saw in supreme beauty

the power of arbitration over love. In the main, the later Petrarchans

echoed an adversary of Master Peter’s, Master Morello: "But I remember

rather that I have seene many beautifull women of a most ill inclina­

tion, cruell, and spitefull, and it seemeth that (in a manner) it

happeneth alwaies so, for beauty maketh them proud: and pride, cruel." 13

The position of Master Morello, while commonly associated with decadent

Platonic love, was, according to Master Peter, the result of love mis­

understood. Yet, the importance of the sentiment as a refinement of

the passivity of the female response to love lies in its analogy to

the condition of the human soul when approached by the wooing Christ.

Although the soul’s love was fair, she could be as cruel as she was fair, and when (as Master Peter explains) the senses dominated

the intellectual vision, the result was that the soul’s love conferred

her honied favors with gall, pride and despair. The illusion of spring's

jeweled tenderness usually concealed a heart as cold as stone in winter.

The beloved’s most sought-after virtue, then, was her charity. Because it held the only promise of love, it was praised as earnestly as beauty 143

itself. If any poet was better for having loved and lost, the

Petrarchan was no better for falsely loving the senses.

The relevant difference between the Petrarchans and the meta­

physical poets is that the latter wrote with an awareness of the

philosophical and psychological dimensions of love. Philosophically,

however, their love was just as firmly rooted in Platonism, and their

revolt was against Petrarchan shallowness, not Platonic dualism. Thus,

the metaphysical poets often perpetuated Petrarchan conceits and

sentimentality to aid their satire, but, because they understood and

accepted the Platonic principle in love, they were also capable of

the fullest spirit of the Petrarchan conventions and formalized con­

ceits, More frequently, however, the metaphysical poets chose to

revitalize Platonic love by inventing figures, but their products

differed because they were more original and imaginative, more scholarly

and scientific, not because they were any less ornate or contrived or

because there was any question about the philosophical substance of

ELatonic love.

Like the metaphysical poets with whom he is often compared,

Taylor’s attitude toward Petrarchanism can be shown as a revolt against a form rather than a substance. His use of original figures, vivid

conceits and rugged syntax suggests that he should be numbered among the poets who represent a reaction against the triteness of the Petrar­ chan body of lyrics. But his attitude toward the visible Christ and the quality expressed toward His person revealed another side of the poet, disposed toward the phraseology, indirectness, lavishness and even sentimentality of the Petrarchans, With regard to sound and color, for instance, it may be difficult to imagine that the same poet 144

composed both of the following. In the first, Taylor speaks of his

sins as "Cursed Dregs" (p. 63) in a manner which invites comparison

with the metaphysical style and tone:

I cannot kill nor Coop them up: my Curb ‘Sless then a Snaffle in their mouth: my Rains They as a twine thrid, snap: by hell they’re spurd: And load my Soule with swagging loads of pains. Black Imps, young Divells, snap, bite drag to bring And pick mee headlong hells dread Whirle Poole in. (p. 63)

In Meditation 2.97, Taylor writes in a tone which reveals the influence

of a sophisticated love tradition:

Then let thy Loveliness, Lord touch ray heart. And let my heart imbrace thy loveliness: That my small mite of Love might on thee dart, And thy great selfe might my poor love possess. My little mite of Love shall musick sweet Tune forth on thee, its harp, that heaven shall greet, (pp. 228-9)

Taylor observed the masculine principle. He depicted his own

soul as feminine and the object of his soul’s love, Christ, as the

epitome of all that is masculine. In Meditation 2,l60, Christ seduces the poet’s soul who, like the female, is willing to surrender her physical charms in exchange for love. Christ's love is identified as the circular hug which signals its perfection:

Ohl what love like this? This comes upon her, hugs her in its arms And warms her spirits. Oht Celestial charms,

Further, Taylor’s soul establishes a rapport with the masculine wooer that is not entirely unlike that between the Petrarchan and his intended.

Whereas the Petrarchan attempted to win his beloved by appealing to her charity, Taylor’s soul finally succumbs to appeals of charity in the form of divine grace. The theme is, perhaps, the most singular in Taylor’s poetry. In Meditation 2.54, Taylor first imagines himself

"reconcild to God" (p. 174) by a beam of sunlight which "’Twill fill 145

my Spirits Eye with light to see." (p. 1?4) In the final stanza,

Taylor both anticipates and senses fulfillment as the rhetorical question evokes a vision of the union in Platonic images:

My Gracious-Glorious Lord, shall I be thine? Wilt thou be mine? Then happy, happy meel I shall then cloath’d be with the Sun, and shine, Crown'd with tweelve Starrs, Moon under foot too see. (p. 1?4)

After a brief courtship, Christ overwhelms the poet’s soul and

she submits to His love. The divine lover not only reveals proofs of His love but He accepts the female as an equal. Heavenly love, like earthly love, requires consummation if there is to be a release from the pain of love's anticipation. Unlike the lover in the

Petrarchan lyric who pines eternally, neither the poet nor Christ are doomed to permanent separation. The lover is spared the suffering which overcomes those who, as Master Peter suggests, are unlucky enough to fall victim to a sensual love. Such a love is faulty, he writes, because it fails to subordinate all secondary senses to the power of sight, the queen of the senses:

And as a man heareth not with his mouth, nor smelleth with his eares: no more can he also in any manner wise enjoy beautie, nor satisfie the desire that she stirreth up in our mindes, with feeling, but with the sense, unto whom beautie is the very butte to level at: namely, the vertue of seeing.^5

However intense the love may be, the lovers are united. Beneath the play of courtship runs the anticipation of fulfillment, so that although the poet’s expectation and Christ's efforts at wooing are increased by the appeal of love prior to consummation, neither faces the permanent prospect of unrequited love.

When describing the approach of Christ, Taylor’s soul was seduced by the qualities evident to the sight but admired by the 146;

courtier as signals of vital spirituality—comely shape, a noble birth

a certain grace, and the wit of an immortal mind. The essence of form

on earth as the power of divine attraction (discussed in Chapter IV)

was extended by Platonists to include human form. This relationship

was reasserted during the Renaissance by Master Peter:

Thinke now of the shape of man, which may be called a litle world: in whom every parcell of his bodie is seene to be necessarily framed by arte and not by happe, and then the forme altogether most beautifull, so that it were a hard matter to judge, whether the members, as the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the eares, the armies, y® breast, and in like manner the other partes, give either more profit to the countenance and the rest of the bodie, or comeliness

AU of these qualities made the beloved desirable to behold at first

sight, and they illustrated Master Peter’s injunction that "Love is 17 nothing else but a certaine coveting to enjoy beautie." ' It was the

influence of Platonism which provided the basis for a vision guided by reason and which led Taylor to sketch in miniature an understanding

of cosmic order:

Necessity doth in the middle stand La yes hands on both: constrains the body to The head and head unto the body's band. The Head, and Body both together goe. The Head Compleats the body as its such: The Body doth Compleate the Head, as much. (p. 169)

It was with this understanding that Taylor turned to the eye imagery which embellishes the incarnated Christ in the Bible. In

Meditation 2,74, the poet pleads with his soul to recognize his lover:

"Oh! Glorious Body! PuU my eye lids ope:/Make my quick Eye, Lord, thy brisk Glory greet,/Whose rapid flames when they my heart revoke/

From other Beauties, make't for thee more sweet." (p, 208) The sense of sight, having distinguished between mind and sense, combined both 14?

to produce the delightful vision of the mind: "To heate my Eyes and

make the Sight the Quicker." (p, 198) The poet saw in Christ’s sweet

countenance a cosmic greatness, a sense that, as Master Peter wrote,

"the body, where that beautie shineth, is not the fountaine from 18 whence beautie springeth," This realization came chiefly through

the eyes, which served as the windows of the soul: ”0h Lovely Onei how doth thy Loveliness/Beam through the Chrystall Casements of the

Eyes." (p. 48)

One of the signals of beauty was a good name, a princely lineage, which, according to Master Peter, was sent by God: "There’s none like him./Born heir of th’Vastest Realms," (p. 241) But, he also realized that the quality of beauty preceded physical comliness:

But, Lord, art thou deckt up in glory thus? And dost thou in this Glory come and Wooe To bring our hearts to thee compelling us With such bright arguments of Glories hew? (p. 230) and;

It grieves mee, Lord, to thinke thy famous Name Should not be guilded ore with my bright Love. (p. 145)

In Meditation 2.38, the poet repeats the importance of reputation and dwells on another frequent theme—-Christ*s wisdom and high birth.

Although the intent of Taylor’s imagery is vividly Christian, Christ approaches no less as a wooing lover charming because he represents the mind as well as the Trinity:

Thou Wisdom art, Wisdom's the heads Chiefe thing, Thou the Beginning art of Gods Creation, And therefore art of Excellence the Spring And the Beginning of all Holy Station, (p. 147) and; 148

Thou the Beginning art of Order, and Art Head of Principalities and Power Archont of Kings, (p. 148)

Further, Christ’s person was adorned by the brilliance of

sunbeams and the richest golds, jewels, and flowers. As images of

comeliness, all are closely associated both with Platonic and Christian

mystical love, and their frequency in Taylor's poetry reflects his

more immediate heritage of medieval worship. But, as Platonism ele­

vated the most erotic Christian love by ensouling it, so the imagery

was liberated from sensuality. Love was dignified as a spiritual

passion which aroused the desire for the enjoyment of beauty. An image

used often by the Platonic poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen­

turies was Christ's whiteness. When Taylor associated whiteness with

religious doctrine, he was penetrating the world of abstractions: "Come

Eate thy fill of this thy Gods White Loafe?" (p. 19); "Out Rampant

Justice steps in Sparkling White,” (p. 27); 'Siilkwhite Righteousness,"

(p. 30); "Loves Milke white hand," (p. 141), But Taylor also asso­

ciated whiteness with divine comeliness in the form of Christ who had

come to woo. These descriptions made Christ the object of Neo-Platonic

contemplation. Sometimes Christ radiated beams of holiness, and occasionally he embodied the principles of changeless and eternal art, refined into purity: "Christ cloath'd in human flesh pure White, all fair," (p. 123); "Pure, Cleane, and bright, Whiter than whitest Snow/

Better refin'd than most refined Gold," (p, 129)

By contrast, the complexion of the human soul prior to the union with Christ was always "wan," Bembo had distinguished between the beautiful face and the ugly one: "The soule therefore for the most 149

part bee also evil, and y& beautifull good. Therefore it may be said

that beautie is a face pleasant, merrie, comely, and to be desired

for goodnesse: and foulenesse a face darke, uglesome, unpleasant, 19 and to bee shunned for ill," Taylor’s initial contact with Christ's

most excellent guise was spoiled by the unworthiness of his own soul,

a "sickness," Taylor suggested, which is "mortality," (p, 179) Yet,

Taylor’s tortured condition is expressed in contrasts of light and

dark which cover the face:

Thou art Bright Sun Glorie the Beams our Eyes Are gilded with which from its body are, (p, 230)

and;

My onely Lord, when with no muddy Sight, Mine Eyes behold that ardent Flame of Love, (p. 227)

Taylor assimilated other images of Platonic love which are con­

ventional when describing the approaching lover. Among the most common,

the Neo-Platonic chain and the piercing darts from the eyes of the lover

have already been discussed in connection with heavenly and earthly

love: "But yet, my Lord, thy golden Chain of Grace/Thou canst let

down, and draw mee up into/Thy Holy Aire, and Glory’s Happy Place"

(p. 213); and, "Lord, let these barbed Arrows from thy bow/Fly through

mine Eyes," (p. 145) According to the conventions of Platonic love,

ihe beloved’s eyes were lighted by dart-like brightness which pierced

the eye of the beholder. The dart which struck the eye was an adapta­

tion of the arrow of heavenly love to the mind’s eye or what Taylor

called the "mentall Eye," Master Peter also spoke of the eye in this way: "to beholde the beautie that is seene with the eyes of the minde, which then begin to be sharpe and throughly seeing, when the eyes of 150

20 the bodie lose the floure of their sightlinesse." It is the senses,

according to Master Peter which guide the lover to beauty:

. . . thereinto it distilleth it selfe and appeareth most welfavored, and decketh out and lightneth the subject where it shineth with a marvellous grace and glistering (like the sunne beames that strike against beautifull plate of fine golde wrought and set with precious jewels). So that it draweth unto it mens eyes with pleasure, and pearcing through them, imprinteth himselfe in the soule, and with an unwonted sweetnesse all to stirreth her and deliteth, and setting her on fire maketh her to covet him,

Taylor is continually overcome by the shining excellence of his lover:

’’Ohl Brightl Bright thingl I fain would something say,” (p. 35) His attention is captured by the "Bright Beams" which "do strike mine Eye,"

(p, 36) Taylor frequently exploited the image of darting eyes as when

he wrote with metaphysical pungence of beams which "enoculate within mine Eye/Thy image bright." (p. I78; see p, 203)

Most prominent among numerous other images of Platonic love are the heart of stone and the mirror. The mirror has been a basic symbol of the soul’s beauty since antiquity, and its importance to Platonic love lay in the fact that a reflected image represented both inner and physical beauty. Like the eye, the mirror holds the image of perfect creation. Just as this world reflects the ideal and is, therefore, good and beautiful, so man views this beauty as God viewed His artistry in the Platonic and biblical creations. As a simple glass, the mirror exhibited the beauty within. Taylor spoke of the heavenly vision and the beautiful soul as perfect in clarity, transparency and refinement,

"like to transparent Glass." (p. 38) Of the meager attempts by the inadequate souls to look within, he wrote, they "don't Suit; Sighs

Soile the Glass," (p. 36) The glass in the form of a mirror repre­ sented composite beauty. If broken into a thousand pieces, each still 151

contained a part of the total perfection, just as the many pens of

the Platonic poet each described a part, of his beloved’d whole

beauty, Taylor often made elaborate use of the mirror image:

"Christs Looking Glass that on his Camp gives Shine," (p, 178) and

"Lord, let thy Dazzling Shine refracted fan’de/ln this bright Looking

Glass," (p, 95) In short, his use of the mirror represented more than

the assimilation of a common image from a religious tradition. In the

fullest sense, the mirror was a shining glass wherein beauty, some­

times in the form of grace, could be seen.

More conclusive than a catalogue of Platonic conceits is the manner in which Taylor used the images in the playful courtship which preceded the union with Christ. Love was cherished because it existed in a state of unfulfillment, and the lover desired a release from his pangs which only union can bring. When the lover anticipates fulfill­ ment, he rejoices, but when relief seems unattainable, he pines away.

A hasty union contracted by the senses would condone the baseness which originally resulted in man’s fall from grace, but the conscious­ ness of love evident in courtship implies that man is a reasoning creature activated by the power of mind. Taylor’s love for Christ was nurtured by the belief that union was inevitable because of the saving power of divine grace. To think otherwise was not simply more painful to the soul than the anticipation of love, it was a denial of all that

Taylor thought possible between man and God.

In numerous poems, Taylor succumbed to the beauty of Christ but only after consciously acknowledging the intitial impact of the senses. The elevation of love into the realm of reason and the observa­ tion of the dichotomy between mind and sense was the most basic influence 152

of Platonism upon Christian love and, hence, the love of Taylor for

Christ, The treatment of passion as a spiritual matter and the senses

as the enemy of reason is clarified by Bembo, who contrasts the love

of youth with that of their elders. While the love of youth is wrapt

in sensuality and insensitive to the world of the spirit, the love of

the aged is liberated from a sensuous passion and ensouled in the

realm of spirit:

Therefore doth it easily traine the soule to follow appetite or longing, for when she seeth her selfe drowned in the earthly prison, because she is set in the office to governe the bodie, she can not of her selfe understand plainly at the first the truth of spiritual! beholding. Wherefore to compasse the understanding of thinges, she must goe begge the beginning at the senses, and therefore she believeth them, and giveth eare to them, and is contented to be lead by them, especially when they have so much courage, that (in a manner) they enforce her. And because they bee deceitful!, they fill her with errours and false opinions. Whereupon most commonly it happeneth, that yong men be wrapped in this sensual! love, which is a very rebel against reason, and therefore they make themselves unworthie to enjoy the favors and benefits which love bestoweth upon his true subjects, neither in love feele they any other pleasures, than what beastes without reason doe, but much more grievious afflictions, 2

Although Taylor was able to progress from the senses to a higher

love, he was initially as vulnerable to the senses as the most de­

bauched mystic. The awareness of beauty’s physical attractiveness

produced in Taylor a pain so intense that;

Thy Spouse, when that her day Light seemed night In passionate affection seemd to move. When thou to her didst onely Cease to show Thy sweet love token: makes me cry out, Ohl (p. 227)

Taylor’s esteem for the power of the senses as the first step in knowing the good and beautiful led him to plea for the sensual vision even if it temporarily numbed the reason,as in Meditation 2,73s 153

Let some, my Lord, of thy bright Glories beams, Flash quickening Flames of Glory in mine eye T’enquicken my dull Spirits, drunke with dreams Of Melancholy juyce that stupify, (p, 206)

Receptive to the power of the senses correctly attuned, Taylor welcomes

the sensual contact with Christ which will raise love into a higher

region. In the last stanza of Meditation 2.73, the poet invokes

Christ to woo a female soul whose affections are reserved for the love which anticipates a supra-sensory experience. As a precaution against

the deceitful love, the poet’s affections are as frozen as the Petrar­

chan lady’s:

Lord make thy beams my frost bit heart to warm. Ride on these Rayes into my bosom’s chill And make thy Glory mine affections Charm. Thy rapid flames my Love enquicken will. (p. 206)

The concern for a love of mind and sense is evident in Medita­ tion 1.36, where Taylor’s soul is initially hardened like stone to the beauties of Christ. The aloofness associated with the Petrarchan female soul is internalized by the poet in the form of a debate be­ tween the mind and the capricious female soul. In prodding the mortal soul to accept His love, Christ overcomes the female inclination toward cruelty and indifference which is characteristic of the apathetic soul:

What rocky heart is mine? My pincky Eyes Thy Grace spy blanct, Lord, in immensitie. But finde the Sight me not to meliorize, 0 Stupid Heart! What a Strange-strange thing am I? I many months do drawn in Sorrows Spring But hardly raise a Sigh to blow down Sin, (p. 57)

In the remaining stanzas, the poet describes the appeals of his would-be love. Late in the poem, however, he is still questioning love’s suffering:

I am asham’d to say I love thee do. But dare not for my Life, and Soule deny’t. 154

Yet wonder much Love’s Springs should lie so low Thy loveliness its Object shines so bright. Shall all the Beams of Love upon me shine? And shall my Love Love’s Object still make pine? (p. 59)

In the last stanza, Taylor suggests the differences between his love

for Christ and that of the Petrarchan lady for her lover. Like the

Petrarchan lady, the poet’s feminine soul attracts love, and the approaching lover is deceived by external beauty. The poet's interior

is hardened like stone. But Taylor encourages the wooing Christ by

observing that he has within a stony interior a "Crevice for one hope/

To creep in." (p. 59)

In Meditation 2.12, the poet’s "Cheeks blush." (p. 101)

Christ "Courtst mine Eyes in Sparkling Colours bright,/Most bright indeed, and soul enamouring,/With the most Shining Sun, whose beames did smitefee with delightfull Smiles to make mee spring./Embellisht knots of Love assault my minde," (p. 101) Yet, while the poet recog­ nizes Christ’s "gallantry," (p. 101) he is more concerned at first with his heart's indifference to the vision of Christ:

My Heart is heedless: unconcernd hereat: I finde my Spirits Spiritless, and flat. (p. 101)

Throughout the remainder of the poem, Taylor continues to "pine"

(p. 102) not as the lover but as the object of love who has not submitted to Christ's affections. As Christ courts with the full power of his love, Taylor describes the entreaties in images of

Platonic love:

Shall not this Lovely Beauty, Lord, set out In Dazzling Shining Flashes ’fore mine Eye, Enchant my heart, Love's golden mine, till't spout Out Streames of Love refin'd that on thee lie? (p. 102) and; 155

Let me thy Gold pass through thy Fire untill Thy Fire refine, and take my filth away. That I may shine like Gold, and have ray fill Of Love for thee; (p, 102)

In Meditation 1.12, the poet describes the approach of his

soul’s lover with an emphasis upon the pain which accompanies the

denial of love:

But is this so? My Peuling soul then pine In Love untill this Lovely one be thine, (p. 24)

and;

My Lovely One, I fain would love thee much But all ray Love is none at all I see, Ohl let thy Beauty give a glorious tuch Upon my Heart, and melt to Love all mee. Lord melt me all up into Love for thee Whose Loveliness excells what love can bee. (p. 25)

In Meditation 1.14, Taylor again assumes the role of the female

principle as Christ comes to woo. Christ approaches with "Glances

guilt o’re with smiling Comlinessl" (p. 26) and "Blancht o’re with

Orient Pearles being on his Breast," (p. 26) But his feminine soul reacts like the Petrarchan lady, whose soul is an impregnable fortress and whose affections freeze with aloofness when love approaches:

Frost bitten Love, Frozen Affections, Blush; What icy Chrystall mountain lodge you in? What Wingless Wishes, Hopes pinfeatherd tushl Sore Hooft Desires hereof do in you spring? Oh hard black Kirnell at the Coare, not pant? Eneas tied in an heart of Adamant,

What strange Congealed Heart have I when I Under such Beauty shining like the Sun Able to make Frozen Affection fly, And Icikles of Frostbitt Love to run. Yea, and Desires loekt in an heart of Steel Or Adamant, breake prison, nothing feel. (p, 27)

In Meditation 2,96, Taylor speaks of the torment which accom­ panies Christ’s courtship. In the first stanza, he describes the 156

infinite distance separating the loving souls of Christ and His

beloved. The pain of love’s absence is underscored in the last

line where the denied kiss is a symbol for the lack of fulfillments

What placed in the Suns and yet my ware, A Cloud upon my head? an Hoodwinke blinde? In middst of Love thou layst on mee, despare? And not a blinke of Sunshine in my minde? Shall Christ bestowr his lovely Love on his, And mask his face? allowing not a kiss? (p, 225)

Throughout -the remainder of the poem, Taylor is obsessed with the

agonies of love: "Christ loves to lay thy Love under Constraint./He

therefore lets not's Love her Candle light,/ To see her Lovely arms

that never faint/Circle thyself about, with greate Delight," (p. 226)

and "But, oh my Lord! let mee lodge in thy Love,/Although thy Love

play bow-peep with me here," (p, 226) In the third stanza, the poet

states the central paradox of Platonic loves

Lord! read the Riddle: Shall a gracious heart The object of thy love be sick of Love? And beg a kiss under the piercing Smart, . Of want thereof? Lord pitty from above. What wear the Sun, without a ray of light? In midst of Sunshine, meet a pitchy night? (p. 225)

In writing of his love for the approaching Christ, Taylor com­

bined Platonism with a meditative tradition inherited from the mystical

poets of the English church. His concern for the intellectual demands

of a Platonic vision is evident in the final subordination of an

uncontrollable passion to a spiritual vision. As John Smith Harrison writes, "The Platonic theory of love had enabled the English poets

to write about their passion as a desire of enjoying the spiritual quality of beauty in their beloved." J Although Taylor was acutely aware of the importance of the senses in inducing love for what is

good and beautiful, he was ultimately concerned with an understanding 157

of love which explained the quality of affection between God and man.

The fusion of mind and sense may be seen in Meditation 2.66 where

Taylor asks, "01 what a thing is Love? who can define/Or liniament

it out? Its strange to tell." (p. 190) His awareness of the power

of a sensual love for what is good is apparent in the early stanzas:

A Sparke of Spirit empearld pill like and fine In't shugard pargings, crusted, and doth dwell Within the heart, where thron’d, without Controle It ruleth all the Inmates of the Soule. (pp. 190-1)

But Taylor was also concerned with the spiritual purity of his love.

He was interested in love as a conception of goodness and as an

intellectual fact. For this reason, he focused upon the impression

of the passion upon the soul rather than the senses:

It makes a poother in its Secret Sell Mongst the affections: ohl it swells, its paind, Like kirnells soked untill it breaks its Shell Unless its object be obtained and gain’d. Like Caskd wines junbled breake the Caske, this Sparke Oft swells when crusht: untill it breakes the Heart.

01 Strange Strange; Lovel ’Stroy Life and’t selfe thereby. Hence lose its Object, lay down all’t can rnoove. For nothing rather choose indeed to dy, And nothing be, that be without its love. Not t’be, than be without its fanci'de bliss1 Is this Love’s nature? What thing is this? (p. 191)

In the final stanzas, Taylor determines the purity of Christ's love:

"This Love was ne’re adulterate: e're pure./Noe Whiffe of Fancy: But

rich Wisdomes Beams,/No Huff of Hot affection men endure./But sweetend

Chimings of Celestiall gleams." (p, 191) Having tested the intel­ lectual foundation of his vision, the poet invites Christ to "gain my heart and thou my Love shalt have" as the poet prepares to climb the Neo-Platonic "golden Stares," (p. 192) 158

Summary

An examination of those poems revealing Taylor’s response to the incarnated vision provides the logical conclusion to a study of the influence of Platonic love upon the body of his poetry. Whenever scholars of western love discuss the synthesis of Platonism and

Christianity, they point to the Incarnation as the doctrine upon which the synthesis either stands as a grand dialectic or as a study in contradiction. Though this study is not intended to speak to that controversy, an examination of the systhesis of the two traditions of love in Taylor’s poetry does indicate that they can exist simultaneously in a coherent fashion. Proponents of a harmonious synthesis of the two strains of love can point to Augustine, and one of the chief apologists for the marriage is William Ralph Inge who in The Philosophy of Plotinus, sees"no contradiction between the philosophy and the 24 religion of Neoplatonism"s

We are here concerned with the Incarnation, not as an isolated historical event, but as the revelation of the highest law of the spiritual world; that God not only draws all life towards himself, as a magnet attracks iron, and not only ’moves the world as the object of its love,’ in Aristotle’s famous words, but voluntarily ’comes down’ to redeem it. If this is true, there is an end of the theory that the Soul would have done better not to have entered the body; for the same moral and spiritual necessity which caused the supreme manifestation of the Divine in the flesh, must also send Souls into the world to do their part in ransoming the creation from the bondage of corruption. This doctrine, so far from being in contradiction with the philosophy which is the subject of this book, seems to me to complete it. It gives an adequate motive for the ’descent of the Soul,* which obviously perplexed Plotinus; it exalts Love as the highest and most characteristic Divine principle, the motive of creation and of redemption alike; it enables us to see the social as well as individual ’puritifcation’ wrought by suffering, and entirely forbids that moral isolation which has seemed to us a weak point in Plotinian ethics.25 159

The Incarnation exemplified the Platonic injunction that

beauty is the result of soul by providing beauty in a form which

man can best appreciate, a form identical to himself. Further, the

possibility of redemption through an individual both personified

and concretized the Platonic idea that form becomes meaningful when

it impresses itself upon its subject. This idea, as we have seen,

is consistent with the conventions of the mystical courtship, since

Christian, erotic love is a response to what is beautiful; but the

idea also satisfied the demands of Platonic love in that the impact

is understood by the soul to be a response to what may be known as

beautiful and good, because an indelible imprint is made upon the

soul. What often appeared to be merely a sensual delight with external

beauty (a response as intense as any experienced by the mystical,

church poets) was, in its entirety, an experience as much grounded

in the pursuit of permanence of mind as it was paralyzed by the stimu­

lation of ephemeral ©notion.

Because the appearance of Christ was for Taylor a vividly

sensuous experience which also excited the need for intellectual

fulfillment, Taylor was closest to those poets of the mystical, church

tradition who kept alive the spirit of Platonism. Like them, he under­

stood that ELatonic love, however mystical it may be, must, if it is

to be consummated, progress from the senses to a higher region. Like

the Neo-Flatonists, Taylor reached for the abstractions of what Paul

Shorey calls "pure thought," and he did so with Neo-Platonic acceptance of the doubleness of the human spirit, This acceptance, as Shorey notes, grew out of the belief by Neo-Elatonists that Plato himself had proved the connection between religious abstraction and 160

moral catharsis,2? Because Taylor was interested in a love which

included both mind and sense, he is a part of a tradition of Platonism,

redefined by Plotinus in Christian terras, which, as Inge points out, allows for the synthesis of a religion based upon historical fact,

one which is "a transposition of man and humanity into the central point of the All" and brings together "individuals in full community of life and sorrow" with a philosophy which at the same time recognizes the absorption of man into the infinity of his source and which places 28 conscious man "on the heights of contemplation of the world."

The Platonic tradition, then, provided Taylor with the basis for a love based on mind and sense, doctrine as well as reality. The love was a synthesis of medieval church love and the more dispassionate, intellectual love of Platonism. For this reason, Taylor accepted not only the philosophical rationale for Platonism, but, when confronted by the incarnated vision, he displayed the conventionalized refinements of Platonic love which gave him a manner of loving. Taylor welcomed the sensual vision as good, but sought a union which brought relief from the pain of sensual (unfulfilled) passion. The application of

Renaissance Platonic love conventions to the incarnated vision illus­ trated his tendency to treat the call to passion as if it were predi­ cated by a philosophical understanding of the spiritual vision. Love, then, was moved by the senses but guided by reason.

Only a recognition of the complete synthesis of the Platonic and Christian love traditions in Taylor’s poetry can resolve the contradictions in scholarly criticism cited at the outset of this study. Platonism provides a breadth and depth of tradition in the 161

poetry which liberates him from Puritan nativism. Further, an exam­

ination of the poetry in light of an ongoing tradition provides a

basis for explaining the variety which scholars have noted in his

use of classical theme and convention, the medieval morality

tradition, medieval Christian mysticism, the tone and style of the

metaphysical poets, Cambridge Platonism and Puritan American provin­

cialism. Platonism provided the poet with a double vision of reality

which made him capable of perceiving the reality of earth and the

certainty of what is unseen. The double view of the Platonic

tradition gave him a conception of heavenly and earthly love and a

rationale for responding to the Incarnation, the meeting of the two.

Further, the tradition provided him with the way to know beauty in

itself as well as in the form which incites passion. Only this

tradition (Raul Shorey calls it the "Neo-Platonic mind") could contain

such diverse impulses as those represented by the words "scholasticism, mysticism, enthusiasm, asceticism, pantheism, symbolism, and the imaginative personification of abstractions,”2^

The double view of Platonism explains the paradoxical view which Taylor had of man, a creature who, in his finest moments was like 30 his maker, but who, in moments of self-deprecation, shared more with the lowest orders of creation, Taylor at times possessed an ego which expanded to the limits of romanticism. In terms of the conditions upon man set down by his Puritan faith, Taylor was one who was con­ ceived in depravity but not condemned to suffer permanently, Taylor’s liberation from depravity depended less on social consensus or pro­ fession of doctrine than a personal confrontation with God and his 162

creation. In Neo-Platonic fashion, he displaced superior orders of

creation to confront God as even the angels could not. Depravity and salvation designated more than conditions of the soul; they were

states of mind, metaphors measuring the distance between what man is and what he can become. Depravity was also a form of heightened

consciousness insofar as it was a way of knowing. The senses cor­ rectly understood made possible a union with God which surpassed either mind or sense. It was a vision of the mind which Taylor experienced by intense anticipation or celebrated in song.

Depravity, then, was not a set of limitations but potentiality, and love was the activating force. When transformed by the power of love, depravity became a disguised blessing which heightened insight through experience. It was the knowledge of experience which raised man above the angels and allowed him to confront God and contemplate the family of creation. While the depths of Puritan depravity symbolized the distance which Taylor sensed between man and his creator it was not an unconditional experience.

The paradoxical nature of man’s being is also shown in the garden of the world, where the perception and delight with form pro­ vided the poet with a spontaneous understanding of the whole, According to the biblical and Neo-Platonic creations, the universe was decaying: like man it was fallen. Although, as I have pointed out, Taylor understood the concept of a fallen nature and expressed a doctrine of imperfect decorum, he also restored nature’s pre-Edenic vitality. His perception of its forms provided it with unseen regenerative powers, thus providing the link with nativist criticism. While the visible 163

phenomena of this world supplied an analogy for understanding the

whole, it was surpassed by the love which intuited form and culminated

in a mystical union with the source of all being. Taylor’s experience

in the garden of the world illustrated most clearly his tendency toward

Neo-Platonism for it revealed a mysticism the truth of which was not

dependent on the Incarnation or dogma of faith, Taylor’s contact with

nature was direct and not contingent on religious or scientific cos­

mologies, The only miracle was the poet’s inebriation with the forms

of nature. It might almost be said of Taylor, as William Ralph Inge

says of Plotinus, he "follows the Hellenic tradition in asserting the

co-ordination of humanity with the All, the soul-life and even the deification of natural forces, the expectation of happiness from active conduct, the high estimation of thought and knowledge as the 31 Divine spark in man," For Taylor, this Platonic concept of the enhanced soul was central to his vision of what humanity could be. His poetic imagination freed him from a self-deprecating view of man to seek the limits of man’s expansive role in the family of creation.

The poet began with an ideal which intended nothing less.

The Beauty of Humanity Compleate, Where ery organ is adopted right, Wherein such Spirits brisk, do act full neate Make Natures operations fully ripe. All Haromonizing in their actions done That ery twig's with glorious blossoms hung. (p. 207) 164

FOOTNOTES CHAPTER I ■^The roots of the tradition run deeper than the Judeo-Christian heritage; and, although the earliest antecedent of western love, Platonism, is not fixed in origin, it is probably Iranian or Orphic. See Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western World. 2nd ed. (New York, 1957), P. 52. 2The more recent focus on mysticism may reflect the rise of modern mysticism which, as Percy H. Osmond suggests, tends to be "non-Christian. ” See The Mystical Poets of the English Church (New York, 1919), p. 1. ^Among several possible examples are Louis L. Martz* The Poetry of Meditation (New Haven, 1954); John Smith Harrison’s Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1915)i Osmond, The Mystical Poets of the English Church. For a dis­ cussion of the nature of Platonic love as distinguished from Christian, Romantic, and Freudian theories see Thomas Gould’s Platonic Love (New York, 1963), pp. 1-17. 4 Mysticism in Taylor’s poetry is now a commonplace observation. Underlying the mysticism is the meditative function which was first discussed in terms of poetic structure by Louis L. Martz. See Martz’s Foreword to The Poems of Edward Taylor, ed. Donald E. Stanford (New Haven, I960). Norman Grabo's Edward Taylor (New Haven, 1961) attempts "not only to define the character of Taylor's poetry analytically but to place that poetry in the context of the life that produced it." Grabo finds a "context" in what he regards as Taylor's "unifying mysticism." (p. 9) ^There are numerous studies treating various aspects of this relationship. Norman Grabo’s Edward Taylor ("The Contemplative Life," pp. 40-83) is interesting as a comparative study which applies Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness (New York, 1955) and Martz * The Poetry of Meditation to some aspects of Taylor’s poetry. Useful as a survey of the history of the meditative tradition not to be found elsewhere in connection with Taylor is Donald Stanford’s Edward Taylor (Minneapolis, 1965), PP. 17-23. ^"Puritan” and "Anglo-Catholic" are used here to suggest more than differences in articles of faith. Patrick Cruttwell has proposed a scheme designed to clarify the seventeenth century by polarizing its various states of mind. He suggests that "Puritanism" may be extended to describe a subculture including the New Science, Renaissance classicism, iconoclasm, austerity, insularity, parliamentary sympathies, 165

optimism, and introspectiveness. "Anglo-Catholicism," by contrast, describes an inclination toward traditional medieval theology, native popular art, sensuousness, courtly splendor, Continentalism, monarchist sympathies, pessimism, and the dramatic sense. See The Shakespearean Moment and Its Place in the Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1955), PP. 252-3. ^Beyond the expected objection that a discussion of Puritan mysticism must recognize the rules of what Perry Miller has called in Errand into the Wilderness (New York, 1964), p. 71, "the game of salvation*’ is its particular role in Taylor’s poetry. It can be assumed that Donald Stanford reflects more than a private opinion when he writes in a Minnesota Pamphlet that Taylor is a "retrogressive" who admired Herbert but never "bothered to read the major English poetry of his own time." Although Stanford concedes Taylor's deriva­ tion from the meditative tradition—the vehicle of mysticism, he con­ siders Taylor’s application too narrow to be anything but Puritan. He concludes the pamphlet by saying that there is no call to greatness in Taylor which is not thwarted by "too much dependence on Biblical language, and not enough classical and humanistic refinement in the verse of the Puritan parson," (Edward Taylor, pp. 6, 7, 44.) Examples of this specialized Puritan interpretation comprise the majority view of Taylor's poetry and include discussions of the verse style and content. Although both approaches are to be examined in detail below, Roy Harvey Pearce's "Edward Taylor: The Poet as Puritan," New England Quarterly. XXIII (March 1950), 31-46, presents the assumptions for a Puritan premise in the poetry. Pearce maintains that Taylor's poetry must be read and judged by a Puritan aesthetic tailored to "the dis­ covery of God-informed unity in man’s experience in and of his world." The process "is not to study human experience of order in the world, but rather simply to show how and wherein that order exists." Pearce regards Taylor's aesthetic as Ramist in orientation, one which considers truth as something "not to be deduced, but rather to be ’invented' and expressed in self-evident axioms—axioms self-evident because developed from primary observation and judgment." Quotations from pages 33, 31, 41, Reprinted in Critical Approaches to American Litera­ ture. ed. Ray B. Browne and Martin Light (New York, 1965), I, 13-25. p In a review of Grabo’s Edward Taylor. Donald Stanford objects to what he feels is the book's overemphasis on mysticism. See American Literature. XXXIV (November 1962), 412. Thomas H. Johnson, an architect of Taylor scholarship, presented the Meditations in terms of Covenant theology. On the possibility for a mystical reading he writes, "The Meditations need no analogues among Anglo-Catholic saeramentalists to explain their adoration of Christ, At the core of Puritanism, as it was practiced in seventeenth-century New England, are to be found all the humility and the passionate love for Christ that are necessary." See Johnson, ed. The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor (New York, 1939), P. 24. Millie T. Weathers, "Edward Taylor and the Cambridge Flatonists," American Literature. XXVI (March 1954), 1-31. 166

^See n, 7, above, for a basis for criticism of the mystical view. Weathers’ article on Cambridge Platonism in Taylor’s poetry (see n, 9) has been labeled as "Often misinformed" by Norman Grabo (Edward Taylor, p. 186, and, although Grabo is not specific in his criticism, his insistance upon Taylor’s total orthodoxy (p. 40) would, if applied to Weathers* article, need to be further explained in the face of an alleged Renaissance Platonism which apparently places Taylor at odds with New England Puritanism, A review of Weathers’ article maintains that it "explains why he could be both a good New England Puritan and a good poet," See the bibliography to Taylor, American Literature, XXVI (November 1954). More accurately, Weathers' conclusions raise serious questions about Taylor’s orthodoxy which are explored throughout this study in connection with the poet’s use of a cultural tradition.

11Grabo, Edward Taylor, pp. 41-43. TO Briefly, the range extends from Roy Harvey Pearce who sees Taylor as a poet whose power, or lack of it, is attributable to his Puritan relation. See n, 7. See also Pearce, "Origins: Poetry and the Puritan Imagination," The Continuity of American Poetry (Princeton, 1961), pp. 42-54. Among those who have sought to enlarge the Puritan premise is Nathalia Wright. See "The Morality Tradition in the Poetry of Edward Taylor," American Literature. XVIII (March 1946), 1-18. Miss Wright suggests that Taylor’s contacts with the medieval morality tradition, rather than a Renaissance influence, were enriched by their congeniality with Puritanism and Taylor’s own thinking. Cecelia L. Halbert, who places Taylor’s imagery in a religious and mythic tradition with the Bible as its immediate source, considers Taylor’s Puritanism important only as it affects "his varied use of the tree of life metaphor." See "Tree of Life Imagery in the Poetry of Edward Taylor," American Literature. XXXVHI (March 1966), 22. Although Miss Wright denies the poet a "classical back­ ground" (see "The Morality Tradition in the Poetry of Edward Taylor," p. 2), Willie T. Weathers has called the assertion "clearly mistaken." See "Edward Taylor, Hellenistic Puritan," American Literature. XVIII (March 1946), 19. Weathers maintains that non-English poetry in Taylor’s library may explain elements of Hellenism in Gods Determina­ tions. 13 A full and fair discussion of these evaluations is presented below. However, a profile of judgments which value his contribution to American literature are interesting inasmuch as they illustrate how the present view of Taylor unnecessarily limits the possibilities for his evaluation, Donald Stanford (Edward Taylor) has called Taylor an "anomaly" (p, 6), and Austin Warren has written that "Taylor is some­ times a neat little artisan but more often an unsteady enthusiast, a naive original, an intermittently inspired Primitive." Also, "he moves at the pitch of keen intellectual vaudeville; he is a kind of erudite version of the New Yorker’s poets." ("Edward Taylor’s Poetry: Colonial Baroque," Kenyon Review. IH (Summer 1941), 370» 370-371; 16?

reprinted in Rage for Order: Essays in Criticism (Chicago,1948), 11-18. To these opinions, one that of an eminent Taylor scholar and the other that of a spokesman for a specialized approach to literature, might be added the judgments of those assigned to find his place in the contin­ uity of American literature. Conspicuous in this regard are the intro­ ductions to Taylor in two prominent anthologies, Norman Foerster's American Poetry and Prose (Boston, 1962) cites Taylor as the man who in 1939 "filled a gap” in American literature by supplying it with a metaphysical poet who was useful both in satisfying the critical in­ quiries of the time and in answering the existence of such poets on the English side of the Atlantic (I, 47). They American Tradition in Literature edited by Sculley Bradley, Richard Croom Beatty and E. Hudson Long, 3rd ed. (New York, 1967) provides this perspective: "The poetry alone is sufficient to establish him as a writer of a genuine power unequaled by any American poet until Bryant appeared, 150 years later" (I, 62). The latter opinion is repeated in the Literary History of the United States: History:"The greatest poet of New England before the nineteenth century was Edward Taylor ..." See Robert E. Spiller, et al.. 3rd ed. (New York, 1963), p. 65. Although the scholars who stress Taylor’s importance to a body of American literature correct the impression that Taylor is a New England literary freak, his impor­ tance remains largely functional either as a transplanted and fossil­ ized Englishman or as the missing link in American poetry, Taylor too often proves interesting as the one who did more than rhyme the tenets for the popular ear as Michael Wigglesworth (as well as replace him in the anthologies) and whose absence from such a study as Tyler’s literary history provides the book with one of its chief antiquarian notes. 14 Forces in American Criticism. A Study in the History of American Literary Thought (New York, 1939), P. vii, ^See nn. 9 and 12.

■^"Edward Taylor and the Cambridge Platonists," p. 1.

17 'Although Thomas H. Johnson is commonly credited with discovering the manuscripts, two others inspected them earlier. See Grabo, Edward Taylor, p. 17. See Thomas H. Johnson, "The Discovery of Edward Taylor’s Poetry," Colophon. New Graphic Ser., I (June 1939), 101-106. 1 o x See Foerster, n, 13. 19 ed. The American Puritans. Their Prose and Poetry (Garden City. New York, 195^)7 p.""M.------on Grabo, Edward Taylor, pp. 40-41,

21AGrabo is useful here because his comments, as quoted above,are directed to Taylor as well as the Puritans as a whole. Many others, however, have concerned themselves with the Puritan image generally. 168

Among the earliest is Charles Beard who points to the vagueries of the term "Puritanism" as a surer clue to understanding his contem­ poraries than the Puritans. See New Republic. XXV (December 1, 1920), 15-17. See also the studies of the Puritans by Kenneth B. Murdock, Samuel Eliot Morison, and Perry Miller.

Perry Miller writes of the present state of Puritan scholar­ ship, "I suppose the saddest comment I can make upon the whole enterprise is that, after three decades of endeavor, though we have shaken a few complacencies, we have not arrived at the comprehensive understanding we presumptuously proposed," Quoted from Errand into the Wilderness. p. viii-ix. For a discussion of attitudes toward the Puritans in the 1920’s see Frederick J. Hoffman, "Critiques of the Middle Class, Philistine and Puritan," The Twenties. American Writing in the Postwar Decaderev. ed. (New York, 1965), PP. 355- 369.” 23See n. 7. 24 See n, 13. Z-’Kenneth B. Murdock, Literature and Theology in Colonial New England (New York, 1963), p. 172. 2^The Twenties. American Writing in the Postwar Decade, p. 357.

2?Miller, Errand into the Wilderness, p, viii,

^Literature and Theology in Colonial New England, pp. 173-4.

29New Republic. CXXV (December 10, 1951), 17-18.

30.Ibid.. p. 17. 33. •^The Great Tradition. An Interpréta tion of American Literature since the Civil War, rev. ed. (New York, 1935), P. 3. ^Beard, p. 16.

3^Hoskins, p. 18.

•^See nn. 10 and 12.

'uFor a discussion of the Puritan concept of providential history see Murdock, "Puritan Historians: ’The Lord’s Remembrancers,’" Literature and Theology in Colonial New England, pp. 67-97. •^The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (Boston, 1961), P. 332. -^Murdock, Literature and Theology in Colonial New England, p, 31. 169

38 a History of American Literature: 1607-1765 (New York, 1962), P. 239,”* 39Ibid.. p. 240.

40 x Ibid.. pp. 5-12 f see Smith, Forces in American Criticism, p. 262. ^Pearce, "Edward Taylor: The Poet as Puritan," and Lind, "Edward Taylor: A Revaluation," New England Quarterly. XXI (December 1948), 518-30, Pearce writes that the Puritan culture "cut Taylor down (or should one say, built Taylor up?) to its size. However adequate that culture might have been for major religious experience, it was yet inadequate for major poetry; for it allowed for little play of the individual will—in the last analysis, for little real human drama." (p, 43) Lind considers Taylor a part-time Puritan maverick who is most powerful to the modern reader when he did not write as a Puritan. 42pearce, p, 4,

43Ibid.

^See n. 18. Grabo also suggests that Taylor is a "rara avis" who offers a vivid contrast to his fellow Puritans. See Edward Taylor, pp. 18-19. ^For a discussion of the problem in the scholarship of the English Puritans see Lawrence A, Sasek, The Literary Temper of the English Puritans (Baton Rouge, 1961), pp. 11-20. ^Puritanism and Democracy (New York, 1944), pp, 240, 239.

47 Murdock, p. vii. ^Ibid.. p. 31.

^9Pearce, "The Poet as Puritan, "p. 38.

3°Pearce, The Continuity of American Poetry, p. 18.

^Handkerchiefs from Paul (Cambridge, 1927)» PP. lxvii-lxviii,

^Puritanism and Democracy, p, 263.

33Literature and Theology in Colonial New England, p. 46. 54 ’A type of criticism which is related both to historical and to sociological criticism is that which concerns itself with the whole complex of cultural activities of which the production of literature is only one fragment." See Critical Approaches to Literature (New York, 1956), p. 376. 170

-^Ruth Benedict considers a culture that which "binds men together." Quoted from Patterns of Culture (New York, 1946), p, 14, -’^Mirror for Man, A Survey of Human Behavior and Social Attitudes (New York, 195977 p. 35.

57Lt4iterature and Theology in Colonial New England, pp. 175-77.

58,See n. 14,

Forces in American Criticism, p. 3. 60. Ibid, 6lIbid.

62_, . , Ibid. 63Ibid. It should be noted that Smith, like Murdock, also recog­ nized that Puritan literary attitudes were affected by the changes undergone by Puritanism itself. He differs from Murdock, however, in that he understands the contrasts in the Puritan attitude toward literature to be primarily intra-generational rather than inter- generational and because he attributes a greater militancy to the earlier generations insofar as the literature is concerned (pp. 3-4). %t is commonly assumed that the Puritans wrote little poetry, and a check of their publications and printings bears this out. See Charles Evans, American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of Books (New York, 1941), I. By design, however, the bibliography is a reflection of the publishing industry and not the reading or writing habits of the Puritans. According to Evans, the types of entries are expected and not at all surprising: "The earliest issues of the printing press in any country seem to follow the same general lines, which are apparently governed by the people's needs." (p, viii) Three other points should be made: 1) New England’s chief poet, Michael Wigglesworth, was read avidly. The first edition, according to Wigglesworth himself, was sold out in a year. See "Introduction," The Day of Doom, or a Poetic Description of the Great and Last Judgment with other Poems by Michael Wigglesworth. ed. Kenneth Murdock (New York,""1955), p, IU. 2TThere is no way of determining to what extent the Iforitans circulated their verse privately among friends as many English poets did, Taylor’s habit of accompanying each sermon with a poem suggests a variation of this practice, and the idea provides another possible reason why Taylor may not have published his verse. 3) An inspection of book titles in Taylor's library suggests that he, at least, collected several volumes of poetry. See "Taylor's Library," The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor, pp, 201-220. 171

^As David Daiches suggests, a study of literature in terras of its social or individual origins raises certain questions. "First: Are the sciences (or pseudo-sciences), in terms of which these origins are explained, themselves normative or are they merely descriptive. , . , Second: If they are normative—if we have criteria on which to form value judgments about states of mind and kinds of society—can judgments which are made about the conditions of origin of a literary work be transferred to the literary work itself? Third: If they are not normative, what kind of value can data concerning the psychological or sociological origin of a work possess for the literary critic as distinct from the literary historian?" See Critical Approaches to Literature, p. 359. ^The Twenties. American Writing in the Postwar Decade, pp, 356, 355. ^Spiller, Literary History, p. 67.

68 Austin Warren has suggested that, for his inventiveness, Taylor nay be compared with another "village poet," Emily Dickinson. See "Edward Taylor: Colonial Baroque," p. 370. 69 See "The Broken Circuit, A Culture of Contradictions," The American Novel and Its Tradition (New York, 1957), PP. 1-28, ^Spiller, Literary History, p, 66.

^"ed. Literature in America (Cleveland, 1957), P. 13. 72 The Secular City. Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective (New York. 1965), P. 95.

Chapter II ^■"Platonism" denotes philosophical Platonism, not Platonic Criticism. 2 Austin Warren, who raged for order and discipline, was assembling a group of essays and included one on Taylor in the collection as a baroque who invites comparison with the English tradition of meta­ physical poets, Warren, in his concern for poetry as a technical pro­ cedure, judged Taylor for his perception, his adeptness at analysis and comparison, his ability to order experience by tension and equilib­ rium, and his willingness to supplement this aesthetic with bold metaphors. See Ch. I, n. 13. Several articles and dissertations indicate the extent of Warren's influence. 172

^Alfred Kazin, who witnessed the criticism at the time of Taylor's discovery, writes: "A few words on critical method, We live in a day when the brilliance of some of our critics seems to me equaled only by their barbarism. In my study ... of the twin fanaticisms that have sought to dominate criticism in America since 1930—the purely sociological and the purely textual-'esthetic' approach—I have traced some of the underlying causes for the aridity, the snobbery, the sheer human insensitiveness that have weighed down so much of the most serious criticism of our day," See On Native Grounds (New York, 1942), pp. x-xi, ^Edward Taylor, pp. 18-19.

^Collected Essays (Denver, 1959), p. 197; reprinted in Critical Approaches to American Literature. H, 54. ^Poetry: A Modem Guide to Its Understanding and Enjoyment (New York, 1959), P. 13. ^Chapter I maintained that the poet’s materials and his imagina­ tion are separate and individual links in a chain of creation begin­ ning, in Mark Linenthal’s words, "at some level deep in the human psyche" and ending in the art form. See ed. Aspects of Poetry. Modern Perspectives (Boston, 1963), P. xiii. The example is the controversy surrounding Taylor's failure to publish his poetry. See Ch. I, n. 64; Grabo, pp. 19, 174 (partial bibliography); Emmy Shepherd, "Edward Taylor’s Injunction against Publication," American Literature. XXXIII (January 1962), 512-513; Francis Murphy, "Edward Taylor’s Attitude Toward Publication: A Question Concerning Authority," American Literature, XXXIV (November 1962), 393-4. barren, p. 362.

9Ch. I, n. 7.

10 Ch. I, n. 20. ^Edward Taylor, p. 173.

^Ch. II, n. 7.

1-^Norman Grabo (p. 40) writes, "A review of Taylor's active life demonstrates beyond question his social and theological orthodoxy, his involvement in the intellectual life of his times, his commitment to all that colonial New England represents." ^The Myth of the Birth of the Hero and Other Writings, ed, Philip Freund (New York, 195977 PP* 1&5-21O,

^^David Daiches suggests that "Psychology comes into criticism in two ways, in this investigation of the act of creation and in the 173

psychological study of particular authors to show their relation between their attitudes and states of mind and special qualities of their work." See p. 340. "^Lionel Trilling suggests that "for literature as for Freud, the test of the culture is always the individual self, not the other way around," but, he admits that in some hands culture becomes an absolute by which the individual is "judged by the criteria of the culture." Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture (Boston, 1955)» pp. 33“38. Psychological critics themselves are among the first to admit the implicit social value judgments in such an approach, Herbert Read, who like Freud regards the artist as a neurotic but who differs with Freud over the importance of case histories to literature, writes concerning the significance of the social function of the artist, "But in certain ages society has made the artist an exponent of the moral and ideal emanations of the super-ego, and art has thus become the handmaid of religion or morality or social ideology." See Art and Society (London. 1950), p. 95.

-^-7The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. The Ego and the Id and the Id and Other Works, trans. James Strachey (London, i95iTrv5T.-m7T^3-257,T>59.------•l^Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture, p. 16,

19The classic study of poetic genesis is John Livingston Lowes’ The Road to Xanadu (Boston and New York, 1927). Lowes fails to provide more than an associationalist account of how the images are linked together. Elizabeth Wiley shows "that some at least of Taylor’s imagery can be traced to sources that have been identified as part of his reading background." "Sources of Imagery in the Poetry of Edward Taylor," Ph.D. dissertation (Pittsburgh, 1962), p. 137. See also pp. 128-182 of Wiley, 2°Ch. I, n. 41.

21Ch. II, n. 3.

22 Aspects of Poetry, p. 1. 2^Ibid.. p. xiv.

24 Form and Value in Modern Poetry (Garden City, New York, 1952), P. 345. 25 The Seventeenth Century, p. 89. 26 On Native Grounds. p. 28. 1?4

^Platonism is familiar largely through its association with the New Humanists. Francis X.Duggan writes of Raul Elmer More, for instance, that "his interpretation of the New England tradition was influenced by his early philosophical interests" and that he sought "to elevate the importance of his philosophical dualism in that interpretation," See "Raul Elmer More and the New England Tradition," American Literature. XXXIV (January 1963), 544. 28 J.A.K, Thompson writes, "It is somewhat harder to defend the metaphor in ’background.’ History, it maybe objected, is continuous and alive; and while it is convenient to divide it into eras, the eras are not true divisions. They merge into one another, each causing its successor and caused by its predecessor. For this reason a word like ’background* or ’setting’ creates a false impression of permanence. It may be admitted at once that to the history of English literature there is no fixed background, for it is as fluid and changeful as the literature itself. But this is no more than admitting that every metaphor, if pressed too hard, becomes inept." The Classical Background of English Literature (New York, 1962), pp. 11-12. 29The American Adam. Innocence. Tragedy and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1958), p. 1. Maud Bodkin writes, "When a great poet uses the stories that have taken shape in the fantasy of the community, it is not his individual sensibility alone that he objectifies. Responding with unusual sensitiveness to the words and images which already express the emotional experience of the community, the poet arranges these so as to utilize to the full their evocative power. Thus he attains for himself vision and possession of the experience engendered between his own soul and the life around him and communicates that experience, at once individual and collective, to others so far as they can respond adequately to the words and images he uses." See Archetypal Patterns in Poetry, Psychological Studies of the Imagination (London. 1963). p. 6. 3^The Myth of the Birth of The Hero, p, 13.

3^See Halbert, Ch. I, n. 12. For a recent study of Poe's rela­ tionship to the problem see Charles L. Sanford, "Edgar Allan Poes A Blight upon the Landscape," American Quarterly, XX (Spring 1968), 54—66, ■^Modern scholars insist that the tradition has always been mis­ understood in some sense. See Thomas Gould’s comments on Nygren and de Rougemont in Platonic Love, pp. 3“7.

33Gould, Platonic Love, p. 1. ^Ibid.

35Ibid. 175

-'' Bertrand Russell sees this contribution as the result of a somewhat "unbiologieal" church. See Marriage and Morals (New York, 1929), p. 52. 37piatonic Love, p. 18.

38Cf. the speech of Diotima with the earlier speakers in the Symposium. 39de Rougemont, pp. 51-52. The emphasis in Platonism, according to Harrison, is "upon the loveliness of that wisdom which is the object of contemplation which results in quickening the imagination and in stirring the soul to realize the principle in love,” (pp. 10-11) Gould writes that "Love, according to Plato, is the universal longing for happiness.” (p, 101) For a discussion of the relationship between Christian and Platonic love from a Platonic standpoint, see Gould; from a Christian standpoint, see Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, Vol. I, Pt. II (London, 1938), 10-28; both from the viewpoint of the duality of love, see J. B. Broadbent, Poetic Love (London, 1964), pp. 1-15. 40 Milton, for example, used Platonic doctrines in Comus. See James Holly Hanford, A Milton Handbook, 4th ed. (New York, 1961), p. 159. ^p. 155. Inasmuch as Taylor is often regarded as a metaphysical and compared with the School of Donne, the possible effect of that revolt against Platonic love is discussed briefly below in connection with Taylor’s use of the tradition, 42 The theme of the dialogues is debatable, A. E. Taylor writes of the Phaedrus. "Is Plato primarily concerned with the question of the use and abuse of sexual passion, or are the speeches Socrates de­ livers on this topic merely examples of the right and wrong use of persuasive eloquence? ... My own opinion is on the side of those who regard the right use of ’rhetoric’ as the main topic, for the following simple reason. In Socrates, with whom the ’tendance of the soul’ was the great business of life, it is quite intelligible that a discussion of the use of rhetoric or anything else should be found to lead up to the great issues of conduct. If the real subject of the Phaedrus were sexual love, it is hard to see how its elaborate dis­ cussion of the possibility of applying a scientific psychology of the emotions to the creation of a genuine art of persuasion, or its examination of the defects of Lysias as a writer, can be anything but the purest irrelevance." See Plato: The Man and His Work. 6th ed. (Cleveland, 1952), pp. 299» 300. He writes of the Symposium, "it is more from the Symposium than from any other source that soul-sick ’romanticists’ have drawn their glorification of the very un-Platonic thing they have named ’platonic love,’ a topic on which there is not a word in this or any other writing of Plato." (p. 209) ¿^Platonism (London, 1917)» p. 302. 176

^Plato for the Modern Age (New York, 1964), p, 85.

^Platonism, p. 302,

^Poetic Love, pp, 12-13. 47 p, 209. Whether the dialogues reflect the opinions of their author is irrelevant Stuart Gilbert writes, "Certainly the form of the dialogue has commonly been used since Plato’s time for the presentation of matters that are to be debated rather than for the direct exposition of the beliefs of the author. Even up to the present, however, exposi­ tors of these dialogues have tended to accept as Plato’s own opinion whatever is said by any of the principal speakers. Yet the only safe rule for the reader is to assume that though any opinion expressed is one Plato was sufficiently interested in to wish to present it, it need not be his; indeed it may even be the opposite of what he holds to be true." See ed. Literary Criticismst Plato to Dryden (Detroit, 1962), P. 5. bG Paul Shorey, Platonism, Ancient and Modern (Berkeley, 1938)» P. 103» ^A History of Modern Philosophy (New York, 1951), P» 55»

^Joseph Katz, ed. The Philosophy of Plotinus, Representative Books from the Enneads (New York, 1950), PP» viii-xiii. There are two schools of thought concerning the relationship between Platonism and Neoplaton­ ism, Philip Merlan writes, "How close are Platonism and Neoplatonism? There had been ages when the two were considered virtually identical. The 19th century saw the victory of the opposite point of view. The claim of Plotinus to be nothing else but an interpreter of Plato was rejected and the complete difference between the two systems stressed. The last decades have again seen a change taking place." See From Pla­ tonism to Neoplatonism (The Hague, 1953), P. 1. C. S. Lewis writes, "Those who call themselves Platonists at the Renaissance may imagine a love which reaches the divine without abandoning the human and becomes spiritual while remaining also carnal; but they do not find this in Plato. If they read it into him, this is because they are living, like ourselves, in the tradition which began in the eleventh century." See The Allegory of Love. A Study in Medieval Tradition (London, 1938), p. 5. Hugh I* Ans on Fa us set agrees: ',TGod is Love* interpreted though it might often seem to have been as 'God is Lust,’ contains without doubt the truth which divides the art and life of the pagan world, of Greece and the Renaissance, from that of a world no less ardent but more mature, a world which was born with the Reformation and reached its adolescence with the Revolution." See Studies in Idealism (Port Washington, New York, 1965), pp. 43-44. Thompson also agrees but chooses to emphasize a continuity evident, for example, in The Courtier:"Castiglione's ideal has more in it of mediaeval conceptions like Chivalry and the Courts of Love than of anything that is really Greek. But the spirit of it is genuinely Humanistic, and so far Greek." (p. 164) 51Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus. pp. 154-5. 177 52Ch. II, n. 50.

33Robert Herrick: A Biographical and Critical Study (New York, 1962), p. 175. ^See, for example, A. Alvarez, The School of Donne (New York, 1967), and Kathryn Anderson McEuen, Classical Influences Upon the Tribe of Ben (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1936). ^Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, p. 155. •5^John Smith Harrison considers the love poetry of Donne and his circle not as a revolt but as a "second phase" of the Platonic tradi­ tion in which they shared "in keeping alive the so-called metaphysical mood of the seventeenth century lyric." Nevertheless, he acknowledges a change from the earlier form. Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, pp, 105-5. See also C. S. Lewis, "Donne and Love Poetry in the Seventeenth Century," Seventeenth Century Studies Presented to Sir Herbert Grierson (Oxford, 1938), pp. 64-84; and, Joan Bennett, "The Love Poetry of John Donne, A Reply to Mr. C. S. Lewis," Seventeenth Century Studies Presented to Sir Herbert Grierson (Oxford, 1938), pp. 85-104. Reprinted in Seven­ teenth Century English Poetry. Modern Essays in Criticism, ed., William R. Keast (NewYork, 1962), pp. 92-110; 111-131.

CHAPTER III 1-See, for example, "Edward Taylor and the Cambridge Pla tonists." 2 The Works of Plato, Translated into English with Analyses and Introductions, ed. B. Jowett, 4 vols, (New York, n.d.), Ill, 304-5. Subsequent references to Plato's text are from Jowett*s edition. 3 •^Platonic Love, p. 23. 4 The Philosophy of Plotinus: The Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews, 1917-1918, 3rd ed. (London, 1948), II, 231. ^History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (New York, 1950), pp. 328-9, 6Jowett, IH, 342.

?Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, p. 29. 178

8Ibid.. p. 154.

9Plato, The Man and His Work, p. 307.

^Opiato for the Modern Age, p. 104,

^Agape and Eros. 224-5. ^Ibid.. 225.

^»The Morality Tradition in the Poetry of Edward Taylor," p. 12, 14 Edward Taylor, p. 27. ^■fhe Poems of Edward Taylor, ed. Donald E. Stanford (New Haven, 1963)» pp. 265-6. Unless indicated otherwise, subsequent references are to Stanford’s edition or to Edward Taylor’s "Poetical Writings," Yale University Library, film 2155. l8J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, trans. Jack Sage (New York, 1962), pp. 76-7. ^Taylor, Plato. The Man and His Work, p. 27. to jL Plato’s distaste for formlessness is apparent in a reference to the inability of medicine to conquer disease which "inflames and dissolves the composite frame of man and introduces rheums." Jowett, IV, 374. 19Jowett, IV, 318.

20See Ch. Ill, n. 5. 21 Grabo, Edward Taylor, p. 163, 22Ibid. 23 The discussion of "breath" as an image of Platonic love appears in Chapter IV. Generally, however, the exchange of breath during a kiss was thought to be an exchange of soul particles. There is an indirect reference in the Symposium to breath as the source of oaths and music. A complete statement of the function of breath in love appears in Book IV of The Courtier. 24 Edward Taylor, p. 23. 25lbid. 26Jowett, III, 403.

2?Ibid.. 404; Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, p. 103. 179

po A Dictionary of Symbols, pp. 144-5. 2gape and Eros. 228-9.

3°Ibid.. 229.

3^-Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus. p. 73.

32lbid.. pp. 74-5; 103; 107.

33jowett, III, 301.

34piatonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, p. 68. 35pOetic Love, p. 8. 3^Plato for the Modern Age, p. 130.

37Jowett, III, 298.

^Ibid.

3^Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, p. 18.

Jowett, IV, 373-4. 41 Ibid.. 373. 4? Rage for Order, p. 15. ¿^Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, p. 110,

^Quoted from Mayer, A History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, p, 119. Not available in Jowett, 43jowett, IV, 419. 46 Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, p, 85. 47 Ibid.. p. 82. 48 Ibid.. p. 104.

Plato for the Modern Age, p. 128. ^Quoted from Philosophic Classics. Thales to St. Thomas, ed. Walter Kaufmann (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1961), p. 327. Passage not available in Jowett.

51lbid., p. 328. 180

32Plato, The Man and His Work, p. 440.

^^Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, p. 106.

^Ibid.. p. 57.

55ibid.. p. 58.

56Ibid.. p. 73.

3?A. E. Taylor, Plato, The Man and His Work, p. 305«

58Agape and Eros, 19.

59Ibid.. 20. ^Edward Taylor, pp. 72-3.

^Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, 229-30.

62Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, p. 73.

CHAPTER IV

^Plato, The Man and His Work, pp, 305» 306.

2Jowett, III, 401.

^Errand Into the Wilderness, p. 185,

^Ibid.

^The Elizabethan World Picture (London, 1958)» P. 42,

^Errand Into the Wilderness, pp. 184-203.

7Jowett, III, 384.

®A Dictionary of Symbols, p, 328.

9”Tree of Life Imagery in the Poetry of Edward Taylor," p. 22. 10Jowett, III, 405.

^^Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus. p. 82, 181 12 See "Edward Taylor and the Cambridge Platonists." ^3Among the symbols of Anglicanism, the Puritans were thought to object particularly to the ring. Accounts of the ring in Puritan documents merely indicate the extent to which the attempt to bury the symbol failed. William Jones, Finger-Ring Lore (London, 1890), pp. 289-90. l^Baidassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans. Sir Thomas Roby (London, 1928), pp, 308-9. ^^The Elizabethan World Picture, p. 41,

^6pOetical Works. p. 222.

17Jewett, III, 403.

^Quoted from Grabo, Edward Taylor, p. 78,

l^The Book of the Courtier, pp. 309-10, on Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. pp. 112-113. 2^The Book of the Courtier, p. 310.

22Jowett, III, 382.

23The Book of the Courtier, p. 310.

2^The Elizabethan World Picture, pp. 6l, 60,

25Jowett, III, 315.

2^Plotinus t The Ethical Treatises Being the Treatises of the First Ennead with Porphyry* s Life of Plotinus. and the Preller-Ritter Extracts Forming a Conspectus of the Plotinian System, trans. Stephen MaeKenna ^Boston, n.d.77 II» 177. 27Jowett, IV, 376-7.

2^Literature and Theology in Colonial New England, p. 11. 29 Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. pp. 92-3. 39The Book of the Courtier, p. 304.

^Ibid.. p. 315.

^Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, pp. 30-31. 182 CHAPTER V

-1-The Mystical Poets of the English Church, p. 16.

^Edward Taylor, pp. 75-83.

^Poetic Love, p, 92.

4rhe Book of the Courtier, p, 313,

^Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, p. 95. ¿Edward Taylor, pp. 75-83.

7Ibid.. p. 79. Q °See "Edward Taylor and the Cambridge Platonists," p. 9. o 7Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, p. 91. ^The Book of the Courtier. p. 317.

11Ibid.. p. 305. 12 Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. p, 105. ^3The Book of the Courtier, p, 307. 14 Quoted from Grabo, Edward Taylor, p, 78. •^The Book of the Courtier, p. 313. l6Ibid.. pp. 309-10.

17Ibid.. p. 303.

l8Ibid.. p. 313.

19Ibid., p. 309.

2°Ibid.. p. 318.

21Ibid.. p. 304. 22 Ibid.. pp. 305-6. 23 Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. p, 140. 24 The Philosophy of Plotinus. p. 207, 183

25Ibid.. p. 209. 2 ^Platonism. Ancient and Modern, p. 57.

2?Ibid., p. 57. oO The Philosophy of Plotinus. p. 206. 29 Platonism. Ancient and Modern, p, 40. 30 See Bert C. Bach, "Self Depreciation in Edward Taylor’s Sacramental Meditations," Cithara, VI, i (November 1966), 49-59. ^The Philosophy of Plotinus. p. 205. 184

LIST OF WORKS CITED

Alvarez, A. The School of Donne. New York, 1967.

Bach, Bert C. "Self Depreciation in Edward Taylor’s Sacramental Meditations. ” Cithara. VI, i (November 1966), 49-59.

Beard, Charles. New Republic, XXV (December 1, 1920), 15-17.

Benedict, Ruth. Patterns of Culture. New York, 1946.

Bennett, Joan. "The Love Poetry of John Donne, A Reply to Mr. C. S. Lewis," Seventeenth Century Studies Presented to Sir Herbert Grierson. Oxford, 193^ Reprinted in Seventeenth Century English Poetry, Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. William R. Keast. New York, 1962, pp.111-131.

Blackmur, R. P. Form and Value in Modern Poetry. Garden City, New York, 1952.

Bodkin, Maud. Archetypal Patterns in Poetry. Psychological Studies of the Imagination. London, 1953.

Bradley, Sculley, Richard Croom Beatty, E. Hudson Long, eds. The American Tradition in Literature. 3rd ed. New York, 1967.

Broadbent, J, B. Poetic Love. London, 1964,

Browne, Ray B., and Martin Light, eds. Critical Approaches to American Literature. 2 vols. New York, 1965.

Brumbaugh, Robert S. Plato for the Modern Age. New York, 1964,

Castiglione, Baidassare. The Book of the Courtier, trans. Sir Thomas Hoby, London, 1928.

Chase, Richard. "The Broken Circuit, A Culture of Contradictions," The American Novel and Its Tradition. New York, 1957.

Cirlot, J. E. A Dictionary of Symbols, trans. Jack Sage. New York, 1962.

Cox, Harvey. The Secular City. Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective. New York, 1965.

Cruttwell, Patrick, The Shakespearean Moment and Its Place in the Poetry of the Seventeenth Century. New York, 1955. 185

Daiches, David. Critical Approaches to Literature. New York, 1956.

de Rougemont, Denis. Love jn the Western World. 2nd ed. New York, 1957.

Drew, Elizabeth. Poetry: A Modern Guide to Its Understanding and Enjoyment. New York,"l959.

Duggan, Francis X. "Paul Elmer More and the New England Tradition," American Literature. XXXIV (January 1963), 542-561.

Evans, Charles. American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of Books. Vol. I. New York, 194l.

Fausset, Hugh I’Anson. Studies in Idealism. Port Washington, New York, 1965.

Foerster, Norman. American Poetry and Prose. Vol. I. Boston, 1962.

Freud, Sigmund, The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. The Ego and the Id and the Id and Other Works, trans. James Strachey. Vol. XIX (1923-257, London, 1961.

Gilbert, Stuart, ed. Literary Criticism: Plato to Dryden. Detroit, 1962.

Gould, Thomas. Platonic Love. New York, 1963.

Grabo, Norman, Edward Taylor. New Haven, 1961.

Halbert, Cecelia L. "Tree of Life Imagery in the Poetry of Edward Taylor," American Literature. XXXVIII (March 1966), 22-34.

Hanford, James Holly. A Milton Handbook. 4th ed. New York, 1961.

Harrison, John Smith. Platonism in English Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. New York, 1915«

Hicks, Granville. The Great Tradition. An Interprétation of American Literature since the Civil War-, rev. ed. New York, 1935»

Hoffman, Frederick J. "Critiques of the Middle Class, Philistine and Puritan, " The Twenties, American Writing in the Postwar Decade, rev. ed. New York, 19^5»

Hoskins, Katherine, "The Necessity of Virtue," New Republic, CXXV (December 10, 1951)» 17-18.

Inge, William Ralph. The Philosophy of Plotinus: The Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews. 1917-19ÏK 3rd ed. Vol. II, London, 1948.

Johnson, Thomas H. "The Discovery of Edward Taylor’s Poetry," Colophon. New Graphie Ser,, I (June 1939), 101-106. 186

Johnson, Thomas H., ed. The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor. New York, 1939.

Jones, William. Finger-Ring Lore. London, 1890.

Kaufmann, Walter, ed. Philosophie Classics. Thales to St. Thomas, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1963.

Kazin, Alfred. On Native Grounds. New York, 1942.

Kluckhohn, Clyde. Mirror for Man. A Survey .of Human Behavior and Social Attitudes. New York, 1959.

Lewis, C, S. The Allegory of Love. A Study in Medieval Tradition. London, 193^7

Lewis, C. S. "Donne and Love Poetry in the Seventeenth Century,” Seventeenth Century Studies Presented to Sir Herbert Grierson. Oxford, 1938. Reprinted in Seventeenth Century English Poetry. Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. William R. Keast. New York, 1962, pp. 92-110.

Lewis, R. W. B. The American Adam. Innocence, Tradegy and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago, 195Ô.

Lind, S. E. "Edward Taylor: A Revaluation," New England Quarterly. XXI (December 1948), 518-30.

Linenthal, Mark, ed. Aspects of Poetry. Modern Perspectives. Boston, 1963.

Lowes, John Livingston. The Road to Xanadu. Boston and New York, 1927.

Martz, Louis L. The Poetry of Meditation. New Haven, 1954.

Mayer, Frederick. A History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. New York, 1950.

Mayer, Frederick. A History of Modern Philosophy. New York, 1951.

McEuen, Kathryn Anderson, Classical Influences Upon the Tribe of Ben. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1936.

Merlan, Philip. From Platonism to Neoplatonism. The Hague, 1953.

Miner, Perry, ed. The American Puritans. Their Prose and Poetry. Garden City, New York, 195&~,

Miller, Perry. Errand Into the Wilderness. New York, 1964.

Miller, Perry, The New England Mind, The Seventeenth Century. Boston, I96Ï. 187

Moorman, F, W. Robert Herrick: A Biographical and Critical Study. New York, 19^7

More, Raul Elmer. Platonism. London, 1917.

Murdock, Kenneth B, Handkerchiefs from Paul. Cambridge, 1927.

Murdock, Kenneth B. Literature and Theology in Colonial New England. New York, 1963.

Murphy, Francis. "Edward Taylor’s Attitude Toward Publication: A Question Concerning Authority," American Literature. XXXIV (November 1962), 393-4.

Nygren, Anders. Agape and Eros. Vol. I, Pt. 2, London, 1938.

Osmond, Percy H. The Mystical Poets of the English Church. New York, 1919.

Pearce, Roy Harvey. ’’Edward Taylor: The Poet as Puritan," New England Quarterly. XXIII (March 1950), 31-46.

Pearce, Roy Harvey. The Continuity of American Poetry. Princeton, 1961.

Perry, Ralph Barton. Puritanism and Democracy. New York, 1944,

Plato. The Works of Plato, Translated with Analyses and Introductions, ed. B. Jowett. 4 vols. New York, n.d.

Plotinus: The Ethical Treatises Being the Treatises of the First Bnnead with Porphyry*s Life of Plotinus. and the Preller-Ritter Extracts Forming a Conspectus of the Plotinian System, trans. Stephen MiacKenna. 2 vols. Boston, n.d,

Plotinus. The Philosophy of Plotinus, ed. Joseph Katz. New York, 1950.

Rahv, Philip, ed. Literature in AmericaCleveland, 1957.

Rank, Otto. The Myth of the Birth of the Hero and Other Writings. ed. Philip Freund. New York, 1959.

Read, Herbert, Art and Society. London, 1950.

Russell, Bertrand. Marriage and Morals. New York, 1929.

Sanford, Charles L. "Edgar Allan Poe: A Blight upon the Landscape," American Quarterly. XX (Spring 1968), 54-66.

Sasek, Lawrence A. The Literary Temper of the English Puritans. Baton Rouge, 19&L.

Shepherd, Emmy. "Edward Taylor’s Injunction Against Publication," American Literature. XXXIII (January 1962), 512-513. 188

Shorey, Paul, Platonism, Ancient and Modern. Berkeley, 1938.

Smith, Bernard. Forces in American Criticism. A Study in the History of American Literary Thought. New York, 1939.

Spiller, Robert E, et al. Literary History of the United States: History. 3rd ed. New York, 19657

Stanford, Donald E. Edward Taylor. Minneapolis, 1965.

Stanford, Donald E. Review of Edward Taylor, by Norman Grabo, American Literature. XXXIV (November 1962), 412.

Tate, Allen. Collected Essays. Denver, 1959.

Taylor, A, E. Plato: The Man and His Work. 6th ed. Cleveland, 1952.

Taylor, Edward. The Poems of Edward Taylor, ed. Donald E. Stanford. New Haven, I960.

Taylor, Edward. The Poems of Edward Taylor, ed. Donald E. Stanford. New Haven, 1963.

Taylor, Edward, "Poetical Writings," Yale University Library, film 2155.

Thompson, J.A.K, The Classical Background of English Literature. New York, 1962.

Tillyard, E. M, W. The Elizabethan World Picture. London, 1958.

Trilling, Lionel. Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture. Boston, 1955.

Tyler, Moses Coit, A History of American Literature. 1607-1765. New York, 1962.

Underhill, Evelyn. Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and DRvelopment of Man's Spiritual Consciousness. New York, 1955.

Warren, Austin. "Edward Taylor's Poetry: Colonial Baroque," Kenyon Review. Ill (Summer 1941), 355-71. Reprinted in Rage for Order: Essays in Criticism (Chicago, 1948), pp. 11-18,

Weathers, Willie T. "Edward Taylor and the Cambridge Platonists," American Literature. XXVI (March 1954), 1-31.

Weathers, Willie T. "Edward Taylor, Hellenistic Puritan," American Literature, XVIII (March 1946), 18-26.

Wigglesworth, Michael. The Day of Doom, or a Poetic Description of The Great and Last Judgment with other PQems by Michael Wiggles­ worth. ed. Kenneth Murdock. New York, 1966.

Wiley, Elizabeth. "Sources of Imagery in the Poetry of Edward Taylor." Ph.D. dissertation (Pittsburgh, 1962). Wright, Nathalia. "The Morality Tradition in the Poetry of Edward Taylor," American Literature, XVIII (March 19^6), 1-18,