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{"id":60347,"date":"2020-07-17T01:01:57","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T05:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=60347"},"modified":"2020-07-10T06:09:22","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T10:09:22","slug":"robert-lowell-rethinks-jonathan-edwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2020\/07\/robert-lowell-rethinks-jonathan-edwards\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Lowell Rethinks Jonathan Edwards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I have been posting about using poetry as a resource for studying and teaching American history<\/a>. Up to now, I have been writing about using poems as first hand primary sources for the periods in which they are living. But several major writers have been fascinated by history, and their well informed comments help us approach some historical (and religious) celebrities.<\/p>\n

I think of Robert Lowell (1917-1977), with his utter saturation in New England history and culture. See his \u00a0 For the Union Dead,<\/em><\/a> or At the Indian Killer\u2019s Grave,<\/em><\/a> with its references to King Philip\u2019s War of the 1670s. But how could you delve into New England history without the religious foundations? I\u2019ll talk about the poems that Lowell wrote about his ancestor, Jonathan Edwards, whose biography he contemplated writing. There are four obvious contributions to this list, namely:<\/p>\n

After the Surprising Conversions<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Mr. Edwards and the Spider<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

Mr. Edwards in Western Massachusetts <\/em><\/p>\n

The Worst Sinner, Jonathan Edwards\u2019 God<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

Each of them represents a deep interest in Edwards and a thorough acquaintance with his works. In his Mr. Edwards in Western Massachusetts<\/em>, Lowell reports his \u201cpilgrimage\u201d to Northampton to find remains of the great cleric\u2019s lifetime, but finds little. Lowell regularly borrowed and adapted segments of Edwards\u2019s prose, so that we can often tell where he was drawing from at any given moment. When invited to become president of Princeton in 1757, Edwards had replied, bizarrely, that \u201cI have a constitution, in many respects peculiarly unhappy, attended with flaccid solids, vapid, sizzy and scarce fluids, and a low tide of spirits.\u201d Adapting only a couple of words, that passage appears dutifully in Mr. Edwards in Western Massachusetts<\/em>, to almost shocking effect.<\/p>\n

While Lowell never doubted Edwards\u2019 greatness, he was far from uncritical. However saturated he was in that New England Puritan heritage, Lowell was a Catholic convert of individualistic bent, although he ultimately left that church too. He saw Edwards\u2019s God as a hybrid of Jehovah and Satan, a harsh and judgmental Old Testament construct.<\/p>\n

After the Surprising Conversions<\/em> tells of Edwards observing the local effects of revival, but in one case, a man in spiritual agony cut his own throat, which threatened to set off a suicide wave in the community. (Historically, the victim was Edwards\u2019 own uncle Joseph Hawley). For Edwards, this case proved beyond doubt that God had withdrawn his support and love, for whatever reason.<\/p>\n

We were undone.
\nThe breath of God had carried out a planned
\nAnd sensible withdrawal from this land.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lowell, and many modern readers, would rather ask why Edwards cannot comprehend the psychological effects that his extreme and terrifying preaching is having on local people, driving some to insanity. Lowell himself was no stranger to religious mania.<\/p>\n

Mr Edwards and the Spider<\/em> (1946) is a brilliant interweaving (and I choose that word carefully) of an early essay by Edwards on insects, together with his famous Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God<\/em>, with its image of a spider destined for the flames.<\/p>\n

On Windsor Marsh, I saw the spider die
\nWhen thrown into the bowels of fierce fire:
\nThere\u2019s no long struggle, no desire
\nTo get up on its feet and fly
\nIt stretches out its feet
\nAnd dies. This is the sinner\u2019s last retreat;
\nYes, and no strength exerted on the heat
\nThen sinews the abolished will, when sick
\nAnd full of burning, it will whistle on a brick.<\/em><\/p>\n

All four poems repay reading in detail, and each represents a powerful insight into Edwards himself. To the best of my knowledge, the poems are not commonly cited in modern books on the Great Awakening era, although they appear in the customary range of Edwards-related bibliographies. They should be better known.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"