Critics of Puritan Poetry

“Subsequent critics have done just that and have constructed a variety of theories to account for the Puritans’ failure to write poetry. Usually in works centered on other subjects, these critics have offered major statements on Puritan poetry. Since so many such statements exist and since even modern critics of Puritan poetry have taken little note of their predecessors, we can understand the bases for current descriptions of Puritan poetry only by examining their development. A detailed examination of such criticism reveals that the numerous descriptions of Puritan poetry over the last century are variations on a few core descriptions, descriptions that do not entirely and accurately describe either Puritan poetry or the constellation of ideas and attitudes that informed it” (Robert Daly, God’s Altar: The World and the Flesh in Puritan Poetry, p. 4).