UNIVERSIDADE ESTÁCIO DE SÁ

THE DAY OF DOOMWIGGLESWORTH

Ricardo Fernandes Marques

Task assigned, by Professor Cláudia,

as AV1 for American Literature I

Niterói2012.2

The puritans observed strict morality and also development. Due to it,

people were encouraged to read; to study; to learn and to live on God’s

teachings.

Differently from England, New England sent signals of development

seeing that the individuals gathered for improving knowledge based on God’s

words.

Below, there is a piece of research made by us:

Education

New England differed from its mother country, where nothing in English statute required

schoolmasters or the literacy of children. With the possible exception of Scotland, the Puritan

model of education in New England was unique. John Winthrop in 1630 had claimed that the

society they would form in New England would be "as a city upon a hill;" [23] and the colony

leaders would educate all. These were men of letters, had attended Oxford or Cambridge, and

communicated with intellectuals all over Europe; and in 1636 they founded the school that

shortly became Harvard College.

Besides the Bible, children needed to read in order to “understand...the capital laws of

this country,” as the Massachusetts code declared, order being of the utmost importance, and

children not taught to read would grow “barbarous” (the 1648 amendment to the Massachusetts

law and the 1650 Connecticut code, both used the word “barbarisme”). By the 1670s, all New

England colonies (excepting Rhode Island) had passed legislation that mandated literacy for

children. In 1647, Massachusetts passed a law that required towns to hire a schoolmaster to

teach writing.

Forms of schooling ranged from dame schools to “Latin” schools for boys already

literate in English and ready to master preparatory grammar for Latin, Hebrew, and Greek.

Reading schools would often be the single source of education for girls, whereas boys would go

to the town grammar schools. Indeed, gender largely determined educational practices: women

introduced all children to reading, and men taught boys in higher pursuits. Since girls could play

no role in the ministry, and since grammar schools were designed to “instruct youth so far as

they may be fited for the university,” Latin grammar schools did not accept girls (nor did

Harvard). Most evidence suggests that girls could not attend the less ambitious town schools,

the lower-tier writing-reading schools mandated for townships of over fifty families.

Restrictions and pleasures

In modern usage, the word puritan is often used to describe someone who is strict in

matters of sexual morality, disapproves of recreation, and wishes to impose these beliefs on

others. This popular image is more accurate as a description of Puritans in colonial America,

who were among the most radical Puritans and whose social experiment took the form of a

theocracy. The first Puritans of New England certainly disapproved of Christmas celebrations,

as did some other Protestant churches of the time. Celebration was outlawed in Boston from

1659. The ban was revoked in 1681 by the English-appointed governor Sir Edmund Andros,

who also revoked a Puritan ban on festivities on Saturday nights. Nevertheless, it was not until

the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.[24] Likewise the colonies banned many secular entertainments, such as games of

chance, maypoles, and drama, on moral grounds.

They were not, however, opposed to drinking alcohol in moderation.[25] Early New

England laws banning the sale of alcohol to Native Americans were criticized because it was

“not fit to deprive Indians of any lawfull comfort aloweth to all men by the use of wine.” Laws

banned the practice of individuals toasting each other, with the explanation that it led to wasting

God's gift of beer and wine, as well as being carnal. Bounds were not set on enjoying sexuality

within the bounds of marriage, as a gift from God.[26] In fact, spouses (albeit, in practice, mainly

females) were disciplined if they did not perform their sexual marital duties, in accordance with 1

Corinthians 7 and other biblical passages. Puritans publicly punished 

Michael Wigglesworth

Family

Michael Wigglesworth was born October 18, 1631 in Wrawby, Lincolnshire. His father

was Edward Wigglesworth, born 1603 in Scotton, Lincolnshire, and his mother was Ester

Middlebrook of Wrawby (born in Batley), who married on October 27, 1629 in Wrawby. The

family moved to New England in 1638. They originally lived in Charlestown, Massachusetts,

then soon moved to New Haven, Connecticut. When Wigglesworth was ten years old his father

became bed-ridden, forcing him to leave school to help maintain the family farm.

He graduated from Harvard in 1651 and taught there as a tutor until 1654, sometimes

preaching in Charlestown and Malden, Massachusetts. He became a minister in Malden in 1654

but not actually ordained until 1656.[1]

Work

Wigglesworth believed that he was essentially not worthy of believing in God as a result

of merely being human. When he underwent a series of nocturnal emissions in his early life, he

was thereafter convinced of his damnation. Through his diaries, he recounts his struggle to

remain pure and good, despite continually relapsing into what he viewed as man's natural

depravity.

When Wigglesworth became a minister of a church, he was soon overcome with a

psychosomatic disorder in which he felt he could do everything except preach. His confused

and disappointed congregation elected to find a replacement for Wigglesworth, an unnamed

preacher who went on to embezzle funds from the church. Thereafter, Wigglesworth was

reinstated and encouraged to take up preaching again.

In his diaries, Wigglesworth expresses an overwhelming sense of inferiority. First with

his refusal to accept the presidency of Harvard due to his lack of self-confidence, and again

when he married his cousin because, he claims, he is not good enough to find another woman.

Yet he was eventually to marry three times: Mary Reyner in 1655, Martha Mudge in

1679 and Sybil (Avery) Spearhawk in 1691.[1] A daughter Mercy Wigglesworth was born

February 21, 1655. With his second wife he had six children, including Samuel Wigglesworth

born circa 1689. His youngest son, with his third wife was clergyman Edward

Wigglesworth (1693–1765) who had several namesakes.[2]Son Samuel had 12 children,

including one also named Edward Wigglesworth (1741–1826) who was Colonel in the American

Revolutionary War.

In 1662 he published The Day of Doom or a Poetical Description of the Great and Last

Judgment, a "doggerel epitome of Calvinistic theology", according to the anthology, Colonial

Prose and Poetry (1903), that "attained immediately a phenomenal popularity. Eighteen

hundred copies were sold within a year, and for the next century it held a secure place in [New

England] Puritan households. As late as 1828 it was stated that many aged persons were still

alive who could repeat it, as it had been taught them with their catechism; and the more widely

one reads in the voluminous sermons of that generation, the more fair will its representation of

prevailing theology in New England appear."[1]

Despite the fierce denunciations of sinners and the terrible images of damnation in The

Day of Doom, its author was known as a "genial philanthropist, so cheerful that some of his

friends thought he could not be so sick as he averred. Dr. Peabody used to call him 'a man of

the beatitudes', ministering not alone to the spiritual but to the physical needs of his flock,

having studied medicine for that purpose," according to Colonial Prose and Poetry.[1]

Other works by Wigglesworth include God's Controversy with New England, Meat out of

the Eater, and "God's Controversy with New England," (1662). The latter poem was

unpublished, yet provides a lengthy commentary on the fears of Puritans that they would be

stricken by God for their sin, and persecuted by House of Stuart.[3]

Wigglesworth died June 10, 1705 in Malden, Middlesex County. This epitaph on

Wigglesworth's grave has been attributed to Cotton Mather:[1]

His pen did once Meat from the Eater take

And now he's gone beyond the Eater's reach

His body once so thin was next to none

From hence he's to unbodied spirits flown.

Once his rare skill did all diseases heal

And he doth nothing now uneasy feel.

He to his paradise is joyful come

And waits with joy to see his Day of Doom.

We hereby will comment on the religious aspects present in this obvious

religious poem of Wigglesworth.

What is clearly seen, not only by the title, but also by the narrative is the

apocalypse, i.e., The Day of Doom.

He begins the poem with the following:

Still was the night, Serene & Bright,

When all Men sleeping lay;

The lines mentioned above allude the judgment day when the dead,

waiting the Final Day, will rise from tombs and the Living will also be tried.

Another interesting aspect, that talks about one of the seven sins, is

mentioned down below:

Virgins unwise, who through disguise

Amongst the best were number’d,

Had closed their eyes; yea, and the wise

Through sloth and frailty slumber’d.

Sloth is one of the seven sins, so here, another religious aspect we meet.

Besides mentioning the moral falsity he also mentions the sin of Sloth

and this is clear in the sentence: “They rush from Beds with giddy heads”

This poem is all religious. So, it is very clear the apocalypse passages

like the following one, mentioning Christ coming to judge the living and the dead

ones.

“Straightway appears (they see ‘t with tears)

the Son of God most dread;

who with his Train comes on amain

to judge both Quick and Dead.”

The poem continues following the apocalypse scene:

“Mean men lament, great men do rent

their Robes, and tear their hair:

They do not spare their flesh to tear

through horrible despair.”

We could continue getting excerpts from the poem and trace the

apocalypse lines themselves, but we assume this is not necessary at all.

To end our brief analysis, we will mention the last verse for us

understood to show clearly the End of the Days.

“Thus every one before the Throne

of Christ the Judge is brought,

Both righteous and impious

that good or ill hath wrought.

A separation, and diff’ring station

by Christ appointed is

(To sinners sad) ‘twixt good and bad,

‘twixt Heirs of woe and bliss.”

To conclude our analysis, we want to say that the apocalypse as a poem

can be better understood and also be considered by many a piece of art and

not The Day of Doom.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wigglesworth