Mr. Edwards and the Spider” (1946). Content and Description

Published in Lord Weary’s Castle, “Mr. Edwards and the Spider” incorporates passages from three different texts by the Protestant preacher Jonathan Edwards. Associated with early American Puritanism, Edwards’s writings defend Calvinism and epitomize the fire-and-brimstone approach to preaching. He generally articulated a pessimistic view on the state of humanity, often attempting to strike fear into the hearts of his congregation by telling of an all-powerful God who held modern people in contempt. That position developed from one of Calvinism’s five main tenets, which holds that God’s grace alone saves an individual and that there is nothing anyone can do to save himself or herself.

Considering the poem’s context within Lord Weary’s Castle, most critics read “Mr. Edwards and the Spider” as a resolute condemnation of Edwards and his theology, meant to portray him as treacherous and angry. Although not entirely unfounded, such one-sided readings fail to recognize the complexity of the source material and ignore Lowell’s relationship to it. The poem presents Edwards’s voice in the first person, allowing us to encounter the preacher directly and encouraging us to note the rhetoric. If they prove anything about him, Edwards’s dramatic sermons attest to his skill as a master rhetorician. Lowell preserves the original language used in the three essays he draws from as faithfully as possible, managing to fit it within the poem’s strict structure.

The first stanza summarizes a passage from the essay “Of Insects,” which Edwards wrote at age 11. Notice the awe-inspired image of “spiders marching through the air,” which Lowell takes directly from the essay (59). The first lines of “Mr. Edwards and the Spider” highlight Edwards’s fascination with nature and the simple wonders of the world. Although the second half of the stanza begins to reveal a fascination with death, our initial impression of Edwards gives his character humanity.

By the third stanza, however, Edwards’s mild preoccupation with powerlessness in the face of destruction becomes much more morbid. Borrowed from the essay “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” we read: “It’s well / If God who holds you to the pit of hell / Much as one holds a spider, will destroy / Baffle and dissipate your soul” (59). It is difficult to understand circumstances under which it is good that God might destroy a human soul. Lowell manifests his unspoken criticisms by displaying Edwards’s violent fanaticism.

The last stanza, though, connects Lowell to the poem’s content and makes clear his ambivalence toward both Edwards and the Protestant faith he represents. When we read the name Josiah Hawley, we realize that the entire fiery monologue is directed at an individual: The poem admonishes the soul of Edwards’s uncle because he committed suicide, which introduces Lowell into the poem by way of his own well-documented bouts of mental illness and depression. The poet endures most of the preacher’s Protestant-informed warning against impropriety through depression.

In this case, though, Lowell is both the victim and the product of Edwards’s moralizing by virtue of his cultural and religious background. This complex portrait of an important Puritan figure, then, explores the different, and sometimes conflicted, aspects of Lowell’s identity. Far from simple, the poem actually moderates some of the “fire breathing” Catholicism present elsewhere in his poetry.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. Lowell structured “Mr. Edwards and the Spider” using John Donne’s “A Nocturnal on St. Lucy’s Day” as a model. Although the content of the poems differ drastically, Lowell made a conscious decision in choosing the stanzas’ pattern and rhyme scheme. Read each and compare the use of indentation, line break, rhyme, and meter. How does the structure of “Mr. Edwards and the Spider” take on meaning in the poem?

2. The three Edwards essays Lowell uses to compose “Mr. Edwards and the Spider” deal with themes that run throughout Lord Weary’s Castle, and yet Lowell is not wholly sympathetic to Edwards’s ideas about despair, eternity, suicide, and living in the presence of a great God. Read “Of Insects” “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and “The Future Punishment of the Wicked.” How do the two authors approach the same subjects in different ways? Discuss different points of departure.

3. “After the Surprising Conversions” directly follows “Mr. Edwards and the Spider” in Lord Weary’s Castle, and they are often read in conjunction. “After the Surprising Conversions” also draws upon a Jonathan Edwards letter known as “Narrative of Surprising Conversions” as its main source of content. Read both and discuss differences and similarities, focusing on tone and diction.

4. The final lines of “Mr. Edwards and the Spider” tell what death is: “To die and know it. This is the Black Widow, death” (60). Consider those last lines in relation to the rest of the poem. Do they finalize what has already been said in the poem? Why does Lowell only name a specific spider at the end? What does his description of death mean to you?