Michael Wigglesworths Wrathful Poetry Essay -- Michael Wigglesworth

Michael Wigglesworths Wrathful PoetryMichael Wigglesworth was born(p) in England in 1631. He came over to America with his family at the come on of seven. He was raised in the town of saucy Haven, Connecticut until he went to Harvard at sixteen. He graduated in 1651 but remained a manager for threesome years. He was called to the ministry and accepted a call to a church building in Malden, Massachusetts, in 1655 and remained in that town the rest of his life. He had three wives and eight children.Wigglesworth was a small and extremely frail man. Due to his sickness, he went to Bermuda for seven months in 1663, and there he began to study medicine, which was his initial saki before the ministry. After this trip, he was a physician as intimately as a preacher. However, Wigglesworth was not known for his preaching.He was not very well liked in his hometown and turned to poetry due to his rejection in the pulpit. Samuel Sewall commenting on his death mentioned two things the fact that he wrote The daytime of eschaton and that he was very useful as a physician. The fact that Sewall did not comment about Wigglesworth being a preacher helps verifies that he was not well known for his preaching.Wigglesworth wrote a lot of poetry, but his piece The Day of Doom was by far his most famous work The numbers sold 1800 copies in its root year of publication, and sold many copies afterwards the head start year as well. About one in every(prenominal) twenty people in New England bought a copy, and it was supposedly Americas first bestseller. Children memorized verses of the poem along with their catechism, and others memorized it as well. This poem affected the people of his day and the new American culture. The poem was written in common anthem meter, which made it easy to memor... ...rtheless, it should be represent and remembered for a few reasons. First, it captures the impression of one of the main religious bodies at the beginning of this Country, Purita nism. The Puritans were one of the first peoples to come over to America and set up a colony, and for this we owe them our gratitude and remembrance. Also, the fact that this poem was probably Americas first bestseller is reason enough to read it. It is important to know our heritage. So, lets celebrate Americas religious and literary heritage by reading The Day of Doom by Michael Wigglesworth.Works CitedLawson, Stephen. About Michael Wigglesworth and His Poetry. Ed. Milton Stem. New York Viking, 1962. http//www.puritansermons.com/poetry/wigglife.htm.Michael Wigglesworth The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 5th ed. Vol. 1. Ed. Nina Baym. New York Norton, 1998. 283-284.