Anne Bradstreet
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Bradstreet was born Anne Dudley in Northampton, England. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley and Dorothy (Yorke) Dudley. Her father was chief steward to the Earl of Lincoln, and she grew up in cultured circumstances. At the age of sixteen she married Simon Bradstreet. Both Anne's father and husband were later to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Anne and Simon, along with Anne's parents, immigrated to America aboard the "Arbella" during the "Great Migration" in 1630. Anne's decendant is American poet, physician, and essayist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr..
Bradstreet was an unusually well-educated woman for her time. This allowed her to express herself through poetry. She wrote about politics, history, medicine, and theology. Her personal library of books was said to have numbered over 800, many of which were destroyed when her home burned on July 10, 1666. This event itself inspired a poem entitled "Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666" wherein Bradstreet strives to reconcile her faith in an all-powerful God with the tragedy that has befallen her.
Much of Bradstreet's poetry is based on observation of the world around her, focusing heavily on domestic and religious themes. Long considered primarily of historical interest, she won critical acceptance in the 20th century as a writer of enduring verse, particularly for her sequence of religious poems. "Contemplations", which were written for her family and were not published until the mid-19th century. Bradstreet's work was deeply influenced by poet Guillaume du Bartas who was favoured by 17th-century readers.
In 1647 Bradstreet's brother-in-law, Rev. John Woodbridge, sailed to England, carrying her manuscript of poetry (possibly without her knowledge). Anne's first work was published in London as "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America". The purpose of the publishing appears to have been an attempt by devout Puritain men (i.e. Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet, John Woodbridge) to show that a godly and educated woman could elevate the position held by a wife and mother, without necessarily placing her in competition with men.
Most of the poems in the first edition are long and rather dully imitative works based on the standard poetic conventions of the time, but the last two poems, "Of the Vanity of All Worldly Creatures" and "David's Lamentation for Saul and Jonathan", are individual and genuine in their recapitulation of her own feelings.
Her later poems, written for her family, show her spiritual growth as she came fully to accept the Puritan creed. She also wrote more personal poems of considerable beauty, her thoughts before childbirth and her response to the death of a grandchild. These shorter poems benefit from their lack of imitation and didacticism. Her prose works include Meditations, a collection of succinct and pithy aphorisms.
In 1678 her self-revised version "Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning" was posthumously published in America. It included the following short poem.
- TO MY DEAR AND LOVING HUSBAND
- :by Anne Bradstreet, published posthumously in 1678
- If ever two were one, then surely we.
- If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
- If ever wife was happy in a man,
- Compare with me ye women if you can.
- I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
- Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
- My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
- Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
- Thy love is such I can no way repay,
- The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
- Then while we live, in love let's so persevere,
- That when we live no more, we may live ever.
- :The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse, John Harvard Ellis, ed., 1867.
“The Author to Her Book” by Anne Bradstreet is a comical poem about an author who has written a book of poetry but feels it is unacceptable for public view no matter what she does to try and fix it. The poem is written in first person and the speaker is Bradstreet herself indicated by the intimate details of the poem. Her tone in the beginning of the poem is irritated as she is constantly critical of her work yet she still feels a motherly love towards it and can’t help but love it. Humor is created throughout this poem by the extended metaphor where Bradstreet personifies her book as her child which perhaps only a fond mother would have used. Certainly no male writer at the time would have developed such a metaphor. This metaphor shows that she considers her book to be her baby as it is a conception of her brain. She loves it dearly but is very critical of it as well. The entire poem is one stanza and has rhyming couplets throughout it. The absence of separation in the poem suggests that the entire poem is one thought. It is as if the poet is spilling out her thoughts and feelings and so she has no space for breaks. Also the fact that the poem is written in first person emphasizes that these words are Bradstreet’s thoughts and feelings. The rhyme scheme of couplets keeps with the humorous mood of the poem because it makes the atmosphere more light-hearted. There is also a definite rhythm throughout the poem where every line is exactly ten syllables. Just like the rhyme scheme, the rhythm makes the poem more cheerful creating a good mood for the humorous content. In the first line she refers to her book as an “ill formed offspring of her feeble brain”. The sharp and forceful f sounds in the words “ill-formed offspring” emphasize the author’s disgust with her inability to write her view of a masterpiece. This alliteration creates a strong opening and leads into the initial tone of anger in the poem. Anne Bradstreet is very judgmental of her work and constantly doubts her abilities as a writer. In any case, she feels that her work is not fit for the public eye so when her friends “less wise than true” steal her book and “expose it to public view” in line 4, she is outraged but mainly embarrassed. The line “at thy return my blushing was not small” expresses the humiliation that Bradstreet felt when her most intimate thoughts were published to the world without her consent. Bradstreet is actually writing this from a specific episode in her life. Her brother-in-law, Rev , without her knowledge, took her poems to England, where they were published as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650). The first American edition of The Tenth Muse was published in a revised and expanded form as Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning (1678). Her tone towards her brother in law is indicated in the phrase “less wise than true”. She does not think he is wise because she is unhappy with what he did. But she sees that he is true because his intentions were kindly meant and did not mean any harm to her. She has ambiguous feelings towards her brother in law because even though she is angry at him for sending her book to the publishers, she understands why he did it. In fact her poems were very popular when they were published. Although Bradstreet seems to think her work has numerous errors and is not fit to be published, the public loves it. This poem has a unique point of view: the author. Even though the populace loves her work and deems her to be a talented poet, she, the author, still sees many faults in her work. At any rate, she thinks that there was still much error to fix in her book and is fearful that people will judge her book and thus judge her. So, she quickly goes to work trying to edit her book of poetry in hopes that it will become acceptable in the eyes of the public. During this section of the poem, lines 8-18, the extended metaphor prevails and the tone changes from anger to exasperation. Bradstreet is frantically trying to improve her book but with every flaw she mends, more materialize and she is frustrated. She begins by referring to her work as a “rambling brat” showing that she thinks her book is insignificant. The word rambling means incoherent or wordy and the word brat ties with the extended metaphor and accentuates the insignificance of a child. Next, she “casts thee by as one unfit for light” and finds “thy visage irksome in my sight” in lines 9 and 10, which shows that she so cannot stand to look at her book for its errors but the next line “yet being mine own, at length affection would thy blemishes mend, if so I could” illustrates that she still feels affection for her book because it is her own and she loves it like a daughter. Bradstreet tries in vain to mend her book of poetry trying to look at the bright side but ends up making it worse. The extended metaphor continues as she washes the faces of her poems. Line 13, “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, and rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.” Her words illustrate the frustration that comes with revising one’s work. She incorporates humor by personifying her book with imagery. For example, in line 14 and 15 “she stretches thy joints to make thee even feet yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet”, Bradstreet uses the term “even feet” to represent the regular poetic meter but uses it in a literal sense. Poets use poetic meter to create a rhythm. She thinks her poems are poorly written, having no regular rhythm. She uses a child’s feet to represent the poetic meter and because there is no regular rhythm in her poem, the feet of her child are uneven and so it cannot walk properly and must hobble creating a comical image. The author next tries to give her book a more presentable dress but she can find nothing but homespun cloth in the house. When she uses the words "homespun cloth", Bradstreet means that she only had her own ideas and her own tools to make her book a masterpiece, but they were not good enough. She finally gives up and tells her book that it need not worry because it will never reach critic hands. The poem ends in a comical twist. Even though she does not feel the book is suitable for the public, she claims she is poor and so must sell it. When she states that the book has no father, she is saying that she alone worked hard to create the book and only her thoughts and feelings are in her book. So she consequently refers to herself as the mother to her book. In the last two lines of the poem, Bradstreet switches from the first person to the third person point of view. This change in point of view gives a feel that external forces caused her to “send [her poem] out the door” rather than it being a decision of her own volition. Also, the way in which Bradstreet phrases her publishing of the book is comical in its self. Her phrasing and switch to the third person adds to the humorous ending of the poem and leaves the reader smiling. The mood of “the author to her book” is one of humor and the tone is judgmental during the first 10 lines of the poem and then switches to frustration when she is attempting to edit her composition. Bradstreet establishes the comical mood through an extended metaphor in which she personifies her book as her child. The reason she specifically chooses this particular metaphor is because she feels a motherly affection to her work and so it is fitting to characterize it as her child. “The author to her book” shows the reader that not all poetry is written in a creative burst flowing out beautifully with little effort. Poets must work hard to make their poetry the polished masterpieces the public enjoys and even sometimes the authors themselves find their work flawed even after they are published. Sadly, in some situations poetry is only published to make money, however I think Bradstreet uses her poverty as an excuse for publishing her book to make her poem comical and amuse the reader. In fact, Bradstreet herself was quite well off so her excuse was just to create humor. The message Anne Bradstreet is trying to communicate is that writing is a far more difficult and stressful thing than most people believe it to be.
Bradstreet died in 1672, in Andover, Massachusetts. While the precise location of her grave is uncertain, she may have been buried next to her husband in the Old Burying Point in Salem, Massachusetts, or in the Old Burying Ground on Academy Road in North Andover, Massachusetts.
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