로고스와 인간의 언어 -Edward Tayylor의 Preparatory Meditation 연구

Abstract

Edward Taylor, a Puritan minister of the Colonial Period, was also a poet who experimented on the art of poetry in order to glorify the Word of God. Taylor's life-long quest for poetry resulted in a series of religious poems called the Preparatory Meditations(1682~1725), which not only reveals his endeavor to harmonize his religious belief with his poetic expectation, but also provides us a good chance to examine the tension between the poet's religious sense of the Word and his artistic sense of human language. Taylor's double concern about the Word and human language is so stubbornly sustained throughout the Preparatory Meditations that, at the first glance, it seems only to further the overall monotony of his poetry: thus, critics like William Scheick argue that "there is. . . no development, no divergence, no progress in the thought or artistry of his verse." Such an argument itself would admit of no dispute, if we attributed the overall stasis of the Preparatory Meditations, as Charles W. Mignon does, to the poet's suspension of belief between doubt and certitude." This, however, is not exactly true of the poet's stance over the issue of human language: the poet may be irresolute in fathoming the Word, but definitely reveals his changing views, as well as his inner conflict, about words.