Puritan Plain Style Worksheet
Name:
1. Define Puritan Plain Style.
2. List the three characteristics associated with Puritan Plain Style.
3. Read and summarize the biographies of Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor. These biographies can be found on page 88 of the text book.
4. Read the poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband” on page 91.
5. Locate and record two examples of direct statements made in this poem.
6. Locate and record two lines filled with short words.
7. Locate and record two examples of everyday ordinary objects.
8. In the first four lines of the poem, what is Bradstreet saying about her relationship with her husband?
9. According to Bradstreet, what is the only thing that can match or reward her unquenchable love for her husband?
10. What does Bradstreet mean by the apparent paradox, or contradiction, in the last two lines: “…let’s so persevere,/That when we live no more, we may live forever”? Hint: Puritans existed for the glory of God.
11. Why might some of Bradstreet’s Puritan contemporaries have considered this poem inappropriate?
12. Read “Huswifery” on page 93.
13. Locate and record two examples of direct statements made in this poem.
14. Locate and record two lines filled with short words.
15. Locate and record two examples of everyday ordinary objects.
16. To what household task does the speaker liken the granting of salvation?
17. What does the speaker want to do with God’s handiwork?
18. What does the poem suggest about the speaker’s attitude toward God?
19. How do the final two lines convey Taylor’s belief that religious grace comes as a gift from God, rather than as a result of a person’s efforts?
20. What process might Taylor describe if he were writing this poem today?
21. Read and summarize the biography of Jonathan Edwards on page 96.
22. Read and summarize “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” on pages 98-101.