A minister, Wigglesworth is today remembered for two works The Day of Doom (1662) and God's Controversy with New England (written in 1662 but published more than two hundred years later). The first book is known as the first American bestseller. It contains an expression of the basic Puritan beliefs described earlier in the Introduction to this chapter.

Primary Works

The Day of Doom, 1662; Meat Out of the Eater, 1670, 1717; Riddles Unriddled, or, Christian Paradoxes, 1689; "God's Controversy with New England," 1662, 1873 (E-Text); The Diary of Michael Wigglesworth, 1653-1657, ed. Edmund S. Morgan, 1970; The Poems of Michael Wigglesworth, ed. Roland A Basco, 1989.

Selected Bibliography

Adams, John C. "Alexander Richardson and the Ramist Poetics of Michael Wigglesworth." Early American Literature 25.2 (1990): 271-88.

Baldwin, Lewis M., II. "Moses and Mannerism: An Aesthetic for the Poetry of Colonial New England." DAI 35 (1974): 1035A.

Brack, O M, Jr. "Michael Wigglesworth and the Attribution of 'I Walk'd and Did a Little Molehill View'." Seventeenth Century News 28 (1970): 41-44.

Bray, Alan. "The Curious Case of Michael Wigglesworth." A Queer World: The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Martin Duberman. NY: New York UP, 1997. 205-15.

Cassell, Marcia H. "Voice in Michael Wigglesworth's Poems." DAI 57.7 ( Jan 1997): DA9637101.

Cherniavsky, Eva. "Night Pollution and the Floods of Confession in Michael Wigglesworth's Diary." Arizona Quarterly 45.2 (Sumr 1989): 15-33.

Craig, Raymond A. "The Stamp of the World: The Poetics of Biblical Allusion in American Puritan Poetry." DAI 50.11 (May 1990): 3586A.

| Top | Crowder, Richard. No Featherbed in Heaven: A Biography of Michael Wigglesworth. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1961.

- - -. "'The Day of Doom' as Chronomorph." Journal of Popular Culture 9 (1976): 948-59.

Daly, Robert. God's Altar: The World and the Flesh in Puritan Poetry. Berkeley: U of California P, 1978.

Filetti, Jean S. "Wigglesworth's The Day of Doom." Explicator 58.3 (Sprg 2000): 127-30.

Gummere, Richard M. "Michael Wigglesworth: From Kill-Joy to Comforter." Classical Journal 62 (1966): 1-8.

- - -. Seven Wise Men of Colonial America. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1967.

Hammond, Jeffrey A. "'Ladders of Your Own': The Day of Doom and the Repudiation of 'Carnal Reason'." Early American Literature 19.1 (Sprg 1984): 42-67.

Hill-Zeigler, Patricia J. "In the Name of Father: The Continuity and Paradox of Puritan Theology and Pastoral Authority." DAI 59.4 (Oct 1998): DA9831944.

Hughes, Walter. "'Meat Out of the Eater': Panic and Desire in American Puritan Poetry." Engendering Men: The Question of Male Feminist Criticism. Eds. Joseph A. Boone and Michael Cadden. NY: Routledge, 1990. 102-21.

Osowski, Edward J. "The Writings of Michael Wigglesworth: The Rhetoric of Debate, Propaganda, and Typology." DAI 36 (1975): 2201A.

Pope, Allan H. "Petrus Ramus and Michael Wigglesworth: The Logic of Poetic Structure." Puritan Poets and Poetics: Seventeenth-Century American Poetry in Theory and Practice. Ed. Peter White. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1985. 210-26.

Renaker, David. "A Source of Michael Wigglesworth's Short Discourse on Eternity.' Harvard Library Bulletin 25 (1977): 493-98.

Requa, Kenneth A. "Public and Private Voices in the Poetry of Anne Bradstreet, Michael Wigglesworth, and Edward Taylor." DAI 32 (1972): 5802A-03A.

Sloan, Gary. "Wigglesworth's The Day of Doom." Explicator 56.2 (Wint 1998): 64-67.

Verduin, Kathleen. "'Our Cursed Natures': Sexuality and the Puritan Conscience." New England Quarterly 56.2 (Jun 1983): 220-37.

Study Questions

1. Why does Wigglesworth stick so close to the Bible, in some cases offering virtual paraphrases of his biblical sources?

2. What does "The Day of Doom" suggest about how texts were used in Puritan culture?

3. In what ways does the poem link the private framework of personal salvation with the communal mission of the Puritans in New England?

4. How does the poem--in both form and content--reflect Wigglesworth's conception of audience?

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page:

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 1: Early American Literature to1700 - Michael Wigglesworth." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. WWW URL: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap1/wigglesworth.html (provide page date or date of your login).

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