Read all the Edward Taylor poems on this poet’s site from the Poetry Foundation. Like Bradstreet’s speakers, the voices in Taylor’s poems seem surprisingly fresh and modern.
Metaphors are comparisons between unlike things. (My wit is a razor. My heart is a stone. These get readers to make connections and engage.) Conceits are extended metaphors, like the start of Oedipus where the plague-ridden city of Thebes is identified with a ship in danger.
Draft your own six-line poem using the following line endings from “The Preface”:
shake
quake
All
fall
frown
down
Identify the guiding conceit, or extended metaphor, operating in “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly.”
Next, Identify the guiding conceit, or extended metaphor, operating in “Huswifery.”
A student is writing an analytical essay on Taylor’s use of symbolism. In a paragraph arguing that the spider symbolizes human failings in the “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly,” add a signal phrase and interpretation to flesh out the following paragraph:
The poem’s speaker, after setting the fly as the foolish victim, goes on to show that the spider operates primariliy as a symbolic creature. The crafty arachnid represents human nature or human failings, that tendency for us all to make errors. (add signal phrase) _____________ ____________________________ : “To tangle Adam’s race / In’s stratigems / To their Destructions, spoild’, made base” (Taylor ). In other words, ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. Despite all the human failings and the world’s ability to entrap humans, the speaker argues that we still have grace. Calling upon the savior, the poem concludes hopefully: “But mighty, Gracious Lord / Communicate / Thy Grace to break the Cord [. . .]” (Taylor 41-43). So the hope of forgiveness and grace allows the faithful—or the careful reader—to escape the spider’s bonds. The ways of the world are slipped and an escape into hope is possible. This is the logic of Taylor’s symbolism regarding the spider.