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Meditative Poetry

Religious and Devotional Writing

Meditative poetry combines the religious practice of meditation with verse, with roots in Christian tradition where meditation became a major devotional practice in medieval monasteries. In America, Puritan ministers such as Edward Taylor wrote meditative verses based on biblical texts and sensory experience, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1836 essay Nature later secularized the form by treating nature itself as a repository of symbols.

Facts
Notable Example
Anne Bradstreet's sense-based meditations celebrating nature 1
Defining Trait
Combines the religious practice of meditation with verse 1
Sources
1. Meditative poetry (Wikipedia)
  • Opening sentence
    Meditative poetry combines the religious practice of meditation with verse.
  • American Puritan tradition section
    provided the first published meditations purely based on the senses, celebrating nature's beauties as the creation of God.
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