The Pulter Project
Poet in the Making
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Sources Facsimile of manuscript: Photographs provided by University of Leeds, Brotherton Collection
Poem IndexNotes: TranscriptionTranscription
Pulter capitalizes "Elements" in this opening stanza as she invokes, or summons, the elements for assistance. The capitalization signals the importance of these entities for Pulter, and resonates with early modern understandings of the elements as particularly powerful forces. The four elements—water, air, fire, and earth—were a frequent topic of Renaissance poetry and natural philosophy. See, for instance, John Donne’s “The Dissolution,” which similarly uses the elements to reflect on loss and grief. Another useful comparison is Anne Bradstreet’s “The Four Elements.” Like Pulter, Bradstreet deals with each of the four elements in turn, but imagines the elements competing with each other to determine which is most important to human life. At the time Pulter was writing, the four elements were a familiar part of philosophical and scientific debates about the existence and creation of matter, central to the period’s renewed interest in atomism, for example.
The term “elements” might also be defined more simply as “the constituent parts of a whole.” This definition is particularly useful in thinking about the structure of Pulter’s poem—four stanzas (four “elements”) that each constitute one part of an aesthetic whole. In early modern religious contexts, “elements” could also refer to the “bread and wine used in the Sacrament of the Eucharist” (“element, n.,” OED Online), which directly relates to the poem’s central conceit: death as the “last, best feast” (line 5).
This stanza’s opening lines introduce the concept of life as a circle, succinctly captured by the phrase “Earth to Earth.” The life/death cycle provides important framing for the stanza’s maternal themes. Even though Pulter draws on her status as mother throughout the rest of the poem, in this stanza she explicitly identifies herself as “mother” (line 72) for the first time and uses that identification as leverage to petition Mother Earth.
An important context underlying Pulter’s themes in this stanza is the very real fear of death that accompanied childbirth in early modern England. Giving birth was a dangerous process and maternal and infant mortality rates were high. How does the connection between death and motherhood function in this stanza compared to, for instance, This Was Written in 1648, When I Lay in, With my Son John [Poem 45]? For more on Pulter’s status as mother and how she contemplates her mortality through her motherhood, see Amanda Zoch, “Rewriting the Lying-In: Hester Pulter, Katherine Philips, and the Felt Mortality of Pregnancy,” Early Modern Women 15.1 (2020): 3-25, and Lying-In in the Curations for Poem 45.
Pulter joins many of her contemporary poets in representing Earth as a fertile mother who both gives and takes life. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Hell’s demons “rifle[ ] the bowels of their mother Earth” (1.687) and, when Adam bites the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, Milton describes the Earth “trembl[ing] from her entrails, as again / in pangs” (9.1000). Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, also consistently draws on this metaphor in her psalm translations: “All things in brief, that life in life maintain, / From earth’s old bowels fresh and youngly grows” (Psalm 104, lines 47-48). Both Milton and Pembroke’s uses of this metaphor remind us that this is a common biblical trope, one with which Pulter would have been very familiar. In Pulter’s representation, Earth’s womb is central to the life/death cycle and the Earth’s “bowels” ultimately become the poet’s final desired resting place.
When I read this final stanza, I think about Pulter’s representation of Earth as a living, maternal organism in contrast to increasingly mechanistic representations of nature in seventeenth-century England. Within several decades of Pulter’s writing, changing attitudes toward science and the study of nature would result in widespread attempts to control, contain, and dominate the natural world. English poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825) confronts this shift in her 1773 poem “The Invitation,” where she describes scientists that “pensive creep” and “hunt” nature “to her elemental forms.” For foundational ecofeminist work to read alongside Pulter’s representation, see Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (Harper & Row, 1980).
Notes: Elemental EditionElemental EditionPulter capitalizes "Elements" in this opening stanza as she invokes, or summons, the elements for assistance. The capitalization signals the importance of these entities for Pulter, and resonates with early modern understandings of the elements as particularly powerful forces. The four elements—water, air, fire, and earth—were a frequent topic of Renaissance poetry and natural philosophy. See, for instance, John Donne’s “The Dissolution,” which similarly uses the elements to reflect on loss and grief. Another useful comparison is Anne Bradstreet’s “The Four Elements.” Like Pulter, Bradstreet deals with each of the four elements in turn, but imagines the elements competing with each other to determine which is most important to human life. At the time Pulter was writing, the four elements were a familiar part of philosophical and scientific debates about the existence and creation of matter, central to the period’s renewed interest in atomism, for example.
The term “elements” might also be defined more simply as “the constituent parts of a whole.” This definition is particularly useful in thinking about the structure of Pulter’s poem—four stanzas (four “elements”) that each constitute one part of an aesthetic whole. In early modern religious contexts, “elements” could also refer to the “bread and wine used in the Sacrament of the Eucharist” (“element, n.,” OED Online), which directly relates to the poem’s central conceit: death as the “last, best feast” (line 5).
This stanza’s opening lines introduce the concept of life as a circle, succinctly captured by the phrase “Earth to Earth.” The life/death cycle provides important framing for the stanza’s maternal themes. Even though Pulter draws on her status as mother throughout the rest of the poem, in this stanza she explicitly identifies herself as “mother” (line 72) for the first time and uses that identification as leverage to petition Mother Earth.
An important context underlying Pulter’s themes in this stanza is the very real fear of death that accompanied childbirth in early modern England. Giving birth was a dangerous process and maternal and infant mortality rates were high. How does the connection between death and motherhood function in this stanza compared to, for instance, This Was Written in 1648, When I Lay in, With my Son John [Poem 45]? For more on Pulter’s status as mother and how she contemplates her mortality through her motherhood, see Amanda Zoch, “Rewriting the Lying-In: Hester Pulter, Katherine Philips, and the Felt Mortality of Pregnancy,” Early Modern Women 15.1 (2020): 3-25, and Lying-In in the Curations for Poem 45.
Pulter joins many of her contemporary poets in representing Earth as a fertile mother who both gives and takes life. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Hell’s demons “rifle[ ] the bowels of their mother Earth” (1.687) and, when Adam bites the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, Milton describes the Earth “trembl[ing] from her entrails, as again / in pangs” (9.1000). Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, also consistently draws on this metaphor in her psalm translations: “All things in brief, that life in life maintain, / From earth’s old bowels fresh and youngly grows” (Psalm 104, lines 47-48). Both Milton and Pembroke’s uses of this metaphor remind us that this is a common biblical trope, one with which Pulter would have been very familiar. In Pulter’s representation, Earth’s womb is central to the life/death cycle and the Earth’s “bowels” ultimately become the poet’s final desired resting place.
When I read this final stanza, I think about Pulter’s representation of Earth as a living, maternal organism in contrast to increasingly mechanistic representations of nature in seventeenth-century England. Within several decades of Pulter’s writing, changing attitudes toward science and the study of nature would result in widespread attempts to control, contain, and dominate the natural world. English poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825) confronts this shift in her 1773 poem “The Invitation,” where she describes scientists that “pensive creep” and “hunt” nature “to her elemental forms.” For foundational ecofeminist work to read alongside Pulter’s representation, see Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (Harper & Row, 1980).
Notes: Amplified EditionPulter capitalizes "Elements" in this opening stanza as she invokes, or summons, the elements for assistance. The capitalization signals the importance of these entities for Pulter, and resonates with early modern understandings of the elements as particularly powerful forces. The four elements—water, air, fire, and earth—were a frequent topic of Renaissance poetry and natural philosophy. See, for instance, John Donne’s “The Dissolution,” which similarly uses the elements to reflect on loss and grief. Another useful comparison is Anne Bradstreet’s “The Four Elements.” Like Pulter, Bradstreet deals with each of the four elements in turn, but imagines the elements competing with each other to determine which is most important to human life. At the time Pulter was writing, the four elements were a familiar part of philosophical and scientific debates about the existence and creation of matter, central to the period’s renewed interest in atomism, for example.
The term “elements” might also be defined more simply as “the constituent parts of a whole.” This definition is particularly useful in thinking about the structure of Pulter’s poem—four stanzas (four “elements”) that each constitute one part of an aesthetic whole. In early modern religious contexts, “elements” could also refer to the “bread and wine used in the Sacrament of the Eucharist” (“element, n.,” OED Online), which directly relates to the poem’s central conceit: death as the “last, best feast” (line 5).
This stanza’s opening lines introduce the concept of life as a circle, succinctly captured by the phrase “Earth to Earth.” The life/death cycle provides important framing for the stanza’s maternal themes. Even though Pulter draws on her status as mother throughout the rest of the poem, in this stanza she explicitly identifies herself as “mother” (line 72) for the first time and uses that identification as leverage to petition Mother Earth.
An important context underlying Pulter’s themes in this stanza is the very real fear of death that accompanied childbirth in early modern England. Giving birth was a dangerous process and maternal and infant mortality rates were high. How does the connection between death and motherhood function in this stanza compared to, for instance, This Was Written in 1648, When I Lay in, With my Son John [Poem 45]? For more on Pulter’s status as mother and how she contemplates her mortality through her motherhood, see Amanda Zoch, “Rewriting the Lying-In: Hester Pulter, Katherine Philips, and the Felt Mortality of Pregnancy,” Early Modern Women 15.1 (2020): 3-25, and Lying-In in the Curations for Poem 45.
Pulter joins many of her contemporary poets in representing Earth as a fertile mother who both gives and takes life. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Hell’s demons “rifle[ ] the bowels of their mother Earth” (1.687) and, when Adam bites the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, Milton describes the Earth “trembl[ing] from her entrails, as again / in pangs” (9.1000). Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, also consistently draws on this metaphor in her psalm translations: “All things in brief, that life in life maintain, / From earth’s old bowels fresh and youngly grows” (Psalm 104, lines 47-48). Both Milton and Pembroke’s uses of this metaphor remind us that this is a common biblical trope, one with which Pulter would have been very familiar. In Pulter’s representation, Earth’s womb is central to the life/death cycle and the Earth’s “bowels” ultimately become the poet’s final desired resting place.
When I read this final stanza, I think about Pulter’s representation of Earth as a living, maternal organism in contrast to increasingly mechanistic representations of nature in seventeenth-century England. Within several decades of Pulter’s writing, changing attitudes toward science and the study of nature would result in widespread attempts to control, contain, and dominate the natural world. English poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825) confronts this shift in her 1773 poem “The Invitation,” where she describes scientists that “pensive creep” and “hunt” nature “to her elemental forms.” For foundational ecofeminist work to read alongside Pulter’s representation, see Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (Harper & Row, 1980).
Amplified EditionPulter capitalizes "Elements" in this opening stanza as she invokes, or summons, the elements for assistance. The capitalization signals the importance of these entities for Pulter, and resonates with early modern understandings of the elements as particularly powerful forces. The four elements—water, air, fire, and earth—were a frequent topic of Renaissance poetry and natural philosophy. See, for instance, John Donne’s “The Dissolution,” which similarly uses the elements to reflect on loss and grief. Another useful comparison is Anne Bradstreet’s “The Four Elements.” Like Pulter, Bradstreet deals with each of the four elements in turn, but imagines the elements competing with each other to determine which is most important to human life. At the time Pulter was writing, the four elements were a familiar part of philosophical and scientific debates about the existence and creation of matter, central to the period’s renewed interest in atomism, for example.
The term “elements” might also be defined more simply as “the constituent parts of a whole.” This definition is particularly useful in thinking about the structure of Pulter’s poem—four stanzas (four “elements”) that each constitute one part of an aesthetic whole. In early modern religious contexts, “elements” could also refer to the “bread and wine used in the Sacrament of the Eucharist” (“element, n.,” OED Online), which directly relates to the poem’s central conceit: death as the “last, best feast” (line 5).
This stanza’s opening lines introduce the concept of life as a circle, succinctly captured by the phrase “Earth to Earth.” The life/death cycle provides important framing for the stanza’s maternal themes. Even though Pulter draws on her status as mother throughout the rest of the poem, in this stanza she explicitly identifies herself as “mother” (line 72) for the first time and uses that identification as leverage to petition Mother Earth.
An important context underlying Pulter’s themes in this stanza is the very real fear of death that accompanied childbirth in early modern England. Giving birth was a dangerous process and maternal and infant mortality rates were high. How does the connection between death and motherhood function in this stanza compared to, for instance, This Was Written in 1648, When I Lay in, With my Son John [Poem 45]? For more on Pulter’s status as mother and how she contemplates her mortality through her motherhood, see Amanda Zoch, “Rewriting the Lying-In: Hester Pulter, Katherine Philips, and the Felt Mortality of Pregnancy,” Early Modern Women 15.1 (2020): 3-25, and Lying-In in the Curations for Poem 45.
Pulter joins many of her contemporary poets in representing Earth as a fertile mother who both gives and takes life. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Hell’s demons “rifle[ ] the bowels of their mother Earth” (1.687) and, when Adam bites the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, Milton describes the Earth “trembl[ing] from her entrails, as again / in pangs” (9.1000). Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, also consistently draws on this metaphor in her psalm translations: “All things in brief, that life in life maintain, / From earth’s old bowels fresh and youngly grows” (Psalm 104, lines 47-48). Both Milton and Pembroke’s uses of this metaphor remind us that this is a common biblical trope, one with which Pulter would have been very familiar. In Pulter’s representation, Earth’s womb is central to the life/death cycle and the Earth’s “bowels” ultimately become the poet’s final desired resting place.
When I read this final stanza, I think about Pulter’s representation of Earth as a living, maternal organism in contrast to increasingly mechanistic representations of nature in seventeenth-century England. Within several decades of Pulter’s writing, changing attitudes toward science and the study of nature would result in widespread attempts to control, contain, and dominate the natural world. English poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825) confronts this shift in her 1773 poem “The Invitation,” where she describes scientists that “pensive creep” and “hunt” nature “to her elemental forms.” For foundational ecofeminist work to read alongside Pulter’s representation, see Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (Harper & Row, 1980).
All Notes Pulter capitalizes "Elements" in this opening stanza as she invokes, or summons, the elements for assistance. The capitalization signals the importance of these entities for Pulter, and resonates with early modern understandings of the elements as particularly powerful forces. The four elements—water, air, fire, and earth—were a frequent topic of Renaissance poetry and natural philosophy. See, for instance, John Donne’s “The Dissolution,” which similarly uses the elements to reflect on loss and grief. Another useful comparison is Anne Bradstreet’s “The Four Elements.” Like Pulter, Bradstreet deals with each of the four elements in turn, but imagines the elements competing with each other to determine which is most important to human life. At the time Pulter was writing, the four elements were a familiar part of philosophical and scientific debates about the existence and creation of matter, central to the period’s renewed interest in atomism, for example.
The term “elements” might also be defined more simply as “the constituent parts of a whole.” This definition is particularly useful in thinking about the structure of Pulter’s poem—four stanzas (four “elements”) that each constitute one part of an aesthetic whole. In early modern religious contexts, “elements” could also refer to the “bread and wine used in the Sacrament of the Eucharist” (“element, n.,” OED Online), which directly relates to the poem’s central conceit: death as the “last, best feast” (line 5).
This stanza’s opening lines introduce the concept of life as a circle, succinctly captured by the phrase “Earth to Earth.” The life/death cycle provides important framing for the stanza’s maternal themes. Even though Pulter draws on her status as mother throughout the rest of the poem, in this stanza she explicitly identifies herself as “mother” (line 72) for the first time and uses that identification as leverage to petition Mother Earth.
An important context underlying Pulter’s themes in this stanza is the very real fear of death that accompanied childbirth in early modern England. Giving birth was a dangerous process and maternal and infant mortality rates were high. How does the connection between death and motherhood function in this stanza compared to, for instance, This Was Written in 1648, When I Lay in, With my Son John [Poem 45]? For more on Pulter’s status as mother and how she contemplates her mortality through her motherhood, see Amanda Zoch, “Rewriting the Lying-In: Hester Pulter, Katherine Philips, and the Felt Mortality of Pregnancy,” Early Modern Women 15.1 (2020): 3-25, and Lying-In in the Curations for Poem 45.
Pulter joins many of her contemporary poets in representing Earth as a fertile mother who both gives and takes life. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Hell’s demons “rifle[ ] the bowels of their mother Earth” (1.687) and, when Adam bites the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, Milton describes the Earth “trembl[ing] from her entrails, as again / in pangs” (9.1000). Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, also consistently draws on this metaphor in her psalm translations: “All things in brief, that life in life maintain, / From earth’s old bowels fresh and youngly grows” (Psalm 104, lines 47-48). Both Milton and Pembroke’s uses of this metaphor remind us that this is a common biblical trope, one with which Pulter would have been very familiar. In Pulter’s representation, Earth’s womb is central to the life/death cycle and the Earth’s “bowels” ultimately become the poet’s final desired resting place.
When I read this final stanza, I think about Pulter’s representation of Earth as a living, maternal organism in contrast to increasingly mechanistic representations of nature in seventeenth-century England. Within several decades of Pulter’s writing, changing attitudes toward science and the study of nature would result in widespread attempts to control, contain, and dominate the natural world. English poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825) confronts this shift in her 1773 poem “The Invitation,” where she describes scientists that “pensive creep” and “hunt” nature “to her elemental forms.” For foundational ecofeminist work to read alongside Pulter’s representation, see Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (Harper & Row, 1980).
