SOURCE: Konkle, Lincoln. “Puritan Epic Theatre: A Brechtian Reading of Edward Taylor's Gods Determinations.” Communications 19, no. 2 (November 1990): 58-71.

In the following essay, Konkle suggests that Gods Determinations could be classified as a verse drama rather than as poetry.

Fifty years after the publication of The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor, there is still much to be said about Gods Determinations Touching His Elect: AND The Elects Combat In Their Conversion, AND Coming Up to God In Christ: TOGETHER WITH The Comfortable Effects Thereof (hereafter, Gods Determinations) regarding its generic classification, the literary influences upon its composition, and the textual manifestations of Edward Taylor's purview and rhetorical intention. Scholars who have taken up the issue of Gods Determinations' generic status have agreed, for the most part, that it does not qualify as literal drama: “But a dramatic analysis—satisfying and informative though it may be—belies the fact...