내파(內破)의 시학 : 미국 청교도의 예형론과 알레고리

Abstract

Unlike traditional genre conception, the typology in American Puritanism capitalizes on the literal as well as symbolic connection between biblical figures and the historical events of colonial New England. Intent on the allegorical implication of typology, I explore poetic achievements of Puritan poets like Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, especially the epistemological skepticism of their meditative poems. Allegory, often suppressed by strong typological drive of Puritan hermeneutics, turns out to facilitate the moment of implosion within the structure of that very tight typology. Bradstreets silently-defiant female personae and Taylors ever-doubting writership both represent the poetics of allegorical implosion in the fiction of Puritan typology. Allegorical indeterminacy in the 17th century Puritan poetics marks the triumph of the literary in American literatures against religious literalism.