Sermon v Poem
How can a Sermon and a Poem accomplish the same purpose, while being so different? Anne Bradstreet’s poem focused more on the topic of God giveth and God taketh away. Because she was a strong Puritan, she believed that she knew the will of God. While on the other hand Jonathan Edwards gave a sermon that shook everyone's belief into listening to him by using fear and effective word choice, to strengthen their Puritan faith. Jonathan’s sermon was used to cause fear to help the listener obey. Both Bradstreet and Edwards wanted to achieve the same purpose, strengthening the Puritan faith, but who did it through a more effective way? For starters similarities can be really useful in finding comparisons between both texts. In both the poem
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A distinct difference found between the texts is the difference in tone. The tone in Bradstreet's poem is more calm and flows well, while Edward’s sermon is harsh, quick and to the point, as shown in these quotes from the texts respectively, “I looked upon the burning of my house… not in fear.”(Bradstreet 69-70) “Through God's hands are you saved, by a single thread!”(Edwards 81) Another major difference, being the manner of speaking in which each piece is spoken, being a slow poem, or a quick fast sermon. Jonathan Edwards uses a quick manner of speaking to force his audience to listen while not being able to think of anything otherwise, especially when he says, “You are no more than the worst venomous snake ever to slither across the earth… you are 1000 times worse than the most venomous spider.” (Edwards 81) Lastly another difference is the fact that their pathos is very different. Jonathan Edwards sermon covers how low God sees humans on the earth and thus constructs a detailed vision of fear, while Anne cleary exhibits calmness in her poem. A text's strong points and weak points are more noticeable when major differences are