From Preface To God's Determination By Edward Taylor

Analysis of Creation With his twenty-two line poem “From Preface to God’s Determination”, Edward Taylor paints a series of thought provoking puzzle like images from the Christian belief of Creation. The poem predominantly uses the abundant metaphors as its medium for these illustrations of how the world came to be. The secondary medium Taylor uses to compliment his metaphors would be the rhetorical questions most of the poem is composed of. One such example is the line “Who held the Mold wherein the world was cast”. This line clearly creates the image of a gargantuan mold of the world while rock, water, and other materials are being poured in. Along with that there is a great silhouette or shadow of someone both holding the mold and pouring in the components. This is again showed in “Who Laced and Filleted the earth so fine, With Rivers like green Ribbons Smaragdine”. In this image there is once again a great silhouette of a massive hand parting the earth while emerald ribbons of water surge to fill the fissures left behind. …show more content…
The line “Where stand the Pillars upon which it stands?” shows the entire world resting atop magnificent pillars. Yet this image and line beg the question of what is still underneath. Are the enormous columns floating in the abyss of space or are they being held aloft by the still illusive figure? Another instance of this is “Who laid its Corner Stone?”. This once again references our unknown person. Along with that it begs the question of what is said cornerstone laid on and where is the starting point of the universe? As well as those instances, this element is shown again in “In Nothing, and of Nothing all did build,”. This once again asks where is the location of the world’s construction. Along with that is the question of what are the materials of the universe and what happened for them to spawn from