Short biography of edward taylor

                                                                                                JeremyYoung

                                                                                                REL318

                                                                                                3October 2003

                                 &nbs

English anthropologist (1832–1917)

For other people named Edward Taylor, see Edward Taylor (disambiguation).

Sir Edward Burnett TylorFRAI (2 October 1832 – 2 January 1917) was an English anthropologist, and professor of anthropology.

Tylor's ideas typify 19th-century cultural evolutionism. In his works Primitive Culture (1871) and Anthropology (1881), he defined the context of the scientific study of anthropology, based on the evolutionary theories of Charles Lyell. He believed that there was a functional basis for the development of society and religion, which he determined was universal. Tylor maintained that all societies passed through three basic stages of development: from savagery, through barbarism to civilization. Tylor is a founding figure of the science of social anthropology, and his scholarly works helped to build the discipline of anthropology in the nineteenth century. He believed that "research into the history and prehistory of man [...] could be used as a basis for the reform of British society."

Tylor reintroduced the term animism (faith in the individual soul or anima of all things and natural manifestations) into common use. He regarded animism as the first phase in the development of religions.

Early life and education

Tylor was born in 1832, in Camberwell, London, the son of Joseph Tylor and Harriet Skipper, part of a family of wealthy Quakers who owned a London brass factory. His elder brother, Alfred Tylor, became a geologist.

He was educated at Grove House School, Tottenham, but due to his Quaker faith and the death of his parents he left school at the age of 16 without obtaining a degree. After leaving school, he prepared to help manage the family business. This plan was put aside when he developed tuberculosis at age 23. Following medical advice to spend time in warmer climes, Tylor left England in 18

1642

Sketchley, England

June 24, 1729

Westfield, Massachusetts

Puritan minister and poet

" . . . Is this thy play,/To spin a web out of thyself/To catch a fly?/For why?"

From Edward Taylor's poem "Upon a Spider Catching a Fly."

Edward Taylor was a Puritan minister in Westfield, Massachusetts, who wrote poetry to express his religious inspiration and beliefs. (Puritans were a Christian group who observed strict moral and spiritual codes.) The only verses by Taylor that appeared in print during his lifetime, however, were two stanzas from "Upon Wedlock & Death of Children" (1682 or 1683), which Puritan minister Cotton Mather (see entry) included in his book Right Thoughts in Sad Hours (1689). His work was virtually unknown until scholars discovered and published his poetry in the twentieth century. Yet today he is considered a major American poet, and his more than two hundred Poetical Meditations (1682–25) have been called the most important poetic achievements of colonial America. Although he accepted the stern beliefs of his fellow Puritans, he often focused on God's grace (good will) and the experience of religious ecstasy (joy) and that spirit is reflected in his verse.

Seeks religious freedom

Edward Taylor was born in Sketchley, England, around 1642. Little is known about his early life, but scholars assume his parents were dissenters (Protestants who rebelled against the practices of the Church of England, the official religion of the country). Nevertheless, Taylor apparently did not experience persecution as a result of his family's beliefs while he was growing up. Although he supposedly went to Cambridge University, there is no record of his attendance. In addition, his religion prevented him from taking the oath of loyalty to the Church of England that was required of all Cambridge students. Taylor must have received an education, however, for he later wrote that he was a teacher in rural England during th

American poet (c.1642 – 1729)

For other people named Edward Taylor, see Edward Taylor (disambiguation).

Edward Taylor (c.1642 – June 29, 1729) was a colonial American poet, pastor and physician of English origin. His work remained unpublished for some 200 years but since then has established him as one of the foremost writers of his time. His poetry has been characterized as "American Baroque" as well as Metaphysical.

Life

The son of a nonconformistyeoman farmer, Taylor is thought to have been born in 1642 at Sketchley, Leicestershire. There is conflicting evidence in regard to the dates and locations of events in his early life, but he grew up during the Commonwealth of England and under the influence of his father became a convinced Protestant Dissenter. His childhood was spent on the family farm where he enjoyed the stability of a middle-class upbringing. His later writings are full of influences from his farmhouse childhood, both as regards imagery, and in the occasional use of the Leicestershire dialect.

Taylor's mother and father died in 1657 and 1658, respectively. He continued to develop alone and the extent of his formal education is unknown. For some time he worked as schoolmaster at Bagworth but following the restoration of the monarchy, Taylor refused to sign the Act of Uniformity requiring worship according the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which cost him his teaching position. It was at this point that he began to write poetry in which he continued to lament the loss of religious freedoms after he emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America in 1668.

Taylor's Atlantic crossing and subsequent years (from April 26, 1668, to July 5, 1671) are chronicled in his now-published Diary.^&#