American Literature / Unit 4 AML 0318 short lesson, about 20 seconds
"Huswifery" and the Metaphysical Conceit
Captions available
The idea
Taylor read Donne and Herbert, and wrote what the anchor calls metaphysical poetry: intellectual, built from unexpected metaphors, incongruous imagery, puns and paradoxes. In "Huswifery" he asks God to make him a spinning wheel and a loom, so grace weaves the cloth his soul will wear.
In practice
A soul asking to become machinery.
Where people slip
The conceit's oddness is the point of it.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it