BOOK LIST
Reading edition
General References
Otis, W. B. American Verse, 1625–1807. 1909. (A full and valuable bibliography appended.)
Tucker, S. M. In chap. ix of Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. I, Bk. I.
Tyler, M. C. A History of American Literature. Colonial Period (1607–1765), Vol. I, chaps. x, xi. 1878.
Individual Authors
The Bay Psalm Book. The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, etc. 1640.
Available Editions
A Reprint, 1862.
Facsimile Reprint for the New England Society in the City of New York, 1903.
Collections
Cairns, W. B. Early American Writers, pp. 73–81.
Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L. Cyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 16–18.
Stedman and Hutchinson. Library of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 211–216.
Michael Wigglesworth. The Day of Doom; or, a Description of the Great and Last Judgment, etc. (1662). Meat out of the Eater: or, Meditations concerning the necessity, end and usefulness of Afflictions unto God’s Children, etc. (1670). God’s Controversy with New England (1662). Vanity of Vanities (appended to 3d edition of The Day of Doom).
Available Editions
The Day of Doom, 1867.
God’s Controversy with New England. Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc., 1871.
Biography
Memoir of Michael Wigglesworth. J. W. Dean. 1871. See also M. W.,* earliest poet among Harvard graduates. Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc., 1895.
Collections
Boynton, Percy H. American Poetry, pp. 18–23, 598–600.
Cairns, W. B. Early American Writers, pp. 163–177.
Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L. Cyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 57–59.
Stedman and Hutchinson. Library of American Literature, Vol. II, pp. 3–19.
Anne Bradstreet. The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America, or Several Poems, compiled with great Variety of Wit and Learning, full of Delight—by a Gentlewoman in those parts. 1650.
Available Editions
The Club of Odd Volumes, 1897.
The Works of Anne Bradstreet, in Prose and Verse. J. H. Ellis, editor. 1867. This contains a valuable memoir.
The Works of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, together with her prose remains, and with an introduction by Charles Eliot Norton.
Biography and Criticism
Campbell, Helen. Anne Bradstreet and her Time. 1891.
Tyler, M. C. American Literature. Colonial Period, Vol. I, chap. x.
Collections
Boynton, Percy H. American Poetry, pp. 1–8, 594–598.
Cairns, W. B. Early American Writers, pp. 146–164.
Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L. Cyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 47–52.
Stedman and Hutchinson. Library of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 311–315.
TOPICS AND PROBLEMS
Confirm the comparison of meters in the “Bay Psalm Book” and “The Day of Doom.”
Read the opening and closing passages in “The Day of Doom” (Boynton, “American Poetry,” pp. 18–21) for the genuinely poetic material. Compare with Milton’s use of the same material in “Paradise Lost,” Bk. I.
Read Anne Bradstreet’s verses to Queen Elizabeth, the Prologue to the long poems, the rimed epistles to her husband, and the tributary poems of Nathaniel Ward and others (Boynton, “American Poetry,” pp. 1–13 passim) for the difference—even with her liberalism—between her point of view and that of the modern woman.
Read “Contemplations” and a passage of equal length from “The Faerie Queene” for likenesses and differences in versification.
Compare the ideas of God and of nature in “Contemplations” (of the later seventeenth century), “Thanatopsis” (of the early nineteenth), and “The Marshes of Glynn” (of the later nineteenth) and note how far they are personal to Anne Bradstreet, Bryant, and Lanier and how far they represent the spirit of their respective periods.