SOURCE: Filetti, Jean S. “Wigglesworth's The Day of Doom.” Explicator 58, no. 3 (spring 2000): 127-30.

In this essay, Filetti interprets the poem The Day of Doom by attempting to infer Wigglesworth's methods of teaching his readers, focusing on Wigglesworth's use and arrangement of biblical parables.

Michael Wigglesworth acknowledged that he was willing to “play the fool this once for Christ” if that ornamentation—poetry—helped instruct and bring others to the path of righteousness (qtd. Nye 38). With the goal to instruct, why does Wigglesworth, a pastor-poet knowledgeable about the entire range of biblical stories, use Gospel parables exclusively in his poem The Day of Doom (1662)? What do the parables he selects and his decoding of them tell us about his teaching method?

The parables Wigglesworth selects teach the lesson that depending on one's choice, there is reward or punishment. Wigglesworth's listeners, who must have found likenesses of themselves in the...