ANNE BRADSTREET

(c. 1612-1672)

father:
o Thomas Dudley
o estate manager for Puritan Earl of Lincoln
o Puritan himself

education:
o ensured by her father
o superior to peers

16: (1628)
o married
o Simon Bradstreet

worked w/her father at Lincolns estate

graduate of Cambridge University

Puritan

appointed to assist in preparations of MBC, 1629

later = secretary & diplomat of MBC, governor of MBColony

travel away from home leaving AB alone see poems

1630
o Dudleys & Bradstreets
o sailed w/John Winthrop, MBC to America

life in MBC:
o difficult
o severe fatigue: childhood rheumatic fever
o still, gave birth 8 times

Bradstreet the writer:

o captivated by the natural & majestic beauty surrounding her
o finding evidence of God in the land, sky, and sea
o had begun writing poetry as a girl
o continued to compose in New World
o without her knowledge, her brother-in-law (John Woodbridge) took a collection of her poems to
London and had it printed there as The Tenth Muse (1650)

1st poetry volume published by a colonist

widely read

reprinted in 1678

like a diary intimate, brutally honest

doubt: truth in Scriptures, never saw miracles, feigned, existence of God

o (like Mother Teresas secret diary)

took consolation in Nature

o saw God in Nature (DEISM)
o order, providing, proper end
o (less solace in the Bible, more in Nature)

ages of mankind

the seasons of the year

intimate: of family, home life, pleasure in everyday life

reflect
erudition
faith, nature
joy in everyday life
(magic of ordinary days)
RHYME SCHEME:

meditations on

o AABBCCDD
FORM:
o varying lengths
o no sonnets,
METER:
o iambic pentameter
o 10 beats per line
o unstressed, stressed

The Flesh and the Spirit

dialogue
o eternal battle between the Flesh & Soul
overheard by Speaker
by the river
2 sisters
Flesh:
o materialism & vanity
o mocks Sister
o Earth has everything you could ever want riches, pleasure
Spirit:
o mind & sights on afterlife, higher sphere
o wont listen to her sister anymore fooled once, led astray
o description of Heaven
no need for sun, moon, candle, torches...gold, pearls, diamonds
Ill be free of you then
b/c you wont be allowed there (things unclean)
The Author to her Book
1666:
o 16 years after the book was surreptitiously published
o as 2nd edition is being planned
book = her child
o ugly, unwanted child
o metaphor, conceit
ugly, unwanted child
o Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain
o My rambling brat I cast thee by
published w/o her consent
o slightly embarrassed
o my blushing was not small
motherly love
o cast it aside
o but returns to it, out of natural affection
love
o tries to mend it
o love to fill in the gaps, overlook blemishes (love = blind)
tries to fix it
o washed face, but found more blemishes

o rubbed off spot, but found more

o stretched feet, but made it hobble more
o tried to dress it in better clothes, but found only homespun clothes
in public
o around common people = OK
o around critics, literati = high class, avoid
excuses
o tell people you have no father
o tell them your mother is so poor she turned you out, couldnt take care of you
sustained metaphor of Mother to Child
humility
o no confidence in her literary achievement/ability
Billy Joel: songs like children
o http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080039/ns/dateline_nbc-newsmakers/t/billy-joel-movin/#.TyS71Jib0c
o http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Billy-and-Katie-Joel-Movin-Up

Before the Birth of One of Her Children

All things within this fading world hath end
o everything & everyone dies
o nothing lasts forever
mortality = Lesson #1 for her child
heavy, unsentimental lesson
Puritan?
this = good-bye letter
o These farewell lines to recommend to thee
in case she dies in childbirth
childbirth in America: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/childbirth.cfm
see her other poems
3 @ death of grandchildren ***
o Elizabeth (1 ), Anne (3.7), Simon Bradstreet (32 days)
o I should have known better to put my joy into something mortal, fleeting
(see line #1)
o dont ask why, Gods plan
o consolation
The Lord giveth & the Lord taketh away (Job 1.21)
theyre in heaven: Thou w/thy Savior art in endless bliss
o Michael Keaton movie My Life (dead before born, video)
o My Life w/o Me?
bury my faults (like a body)
remember my virtue (like a soul lives on, eternal life)
look to my other children
when you find this poem
o kiss the paper
o my tears are on it

A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment

wish you were here
miss you
when he leaves on business (not in the poem)
o she = alone to raise the kids
o take care of the house, property
o in the wilderness, New World, savages
o PLUS
o she has bouts w/severe fatigue
metaphors, syndoche
o he = her head, heart, eyes, life, joy, magazine of earthly store
conceit re: the ZODIAC:
o he = her sun
o in Capricorn (winter)
o wants him in Cancer (summer)
flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone
o Genesis 2.23-24
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called
Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and
they shall be one flesh
o marriage ceremonies
2 = 1:
o were still together although apart
Another [Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment]
puns
o deer & dear, hart & heart
metaphors of
o deer
o dove
o fish
equals
Return my dear, my joy, my only love
o come home soon
o I miss you

PURITAN MARRIAGE:
o civil ceremony
Puritan clergy did not officiate
still, adultery = serious violation, homosexuality = death
still, couldnt marry outside the church
still, no divorce (annulments w/infertility)
o marriage = society
hierarchically structured
husband over wife, parents over children
o marriage = metaphor for relationship between God & Christian

care for spouse, family
be faithful
(also = sign of piety)
o BUT
o remember God = #1
keep your eyes on the prize
Puritan ministers warned against excessive devotion
between family members lest such love distract from
proper spiritual focus.
John Cotton, a Puritan minister, preached that marriage should make men and women better
fitted for Gods service, and bring them nearer to God.
He also cautioned, [W]hen we exceedingly delight ourselves in husbands or wives or
children, [it] much benumbs and dims the light of the spirit.
o Daniel Rogers: Marriage is the preservative of chastity, the seminary of the commonwealth, seedplot of the church, pillar (under God) of the world, right-hand of providence, supporter of laws,
states, orders, offices, gifts, and services: the glory of peace, the sinews of war, the maintenance of
policy, the life of the dead, the solace of the living, the ambition of virginity, the foundation of
countries, cities, universities, succession of families, crowns, and kingdoms; truly (besides the being
of these) it is the wellbeing of them being made, and whatsoever is excellent in them, or any other
thing, the very furniture of heaven (in a kind) depending thereupon.

from Anne Bradstreets The Tenth Muse:

To My Dear and Loving Husband
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 persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.

true love
partners
2 = 1:
really love each other
passionate for a Puritan?
if metaphors religious
I cant repay you God will
immortality:
o through love
o God will grant us eternal life .. b/c we love each other
marriage = Gods covenant between God & Man
Christ = married to His Church, Christians
so we model marriage after Christs example
o unlike SHK
not through procreation
not through poetry

1. How does the speaker describe her relationship with her husband? What aspects of her feelings does she seem
to emphasize?
2. What kind of figurative language does Bradstreet use to describe her feelings for her husband?
3. How do you understand the final two lines of the poem? What do you think Bradstreet means when she
enjoins her husband to persever in love so that they may live ever?

STYLE:
simple language
o PURITAN simple style
o concrete descriptions
o simple syntax
metaphors & conceits
o from the natural world
o Zodiac
Biblical allusions
o concepts
o verses
erudition
o bible
o zodiac
o classical mythology
brutal honesty
o like a journal, diary
o very personal
o fears, doubts
o love & longing
faith in God
o even in pain, loss
o Gods plan, mercy, justice
d

http://www.lukehistory.com/resources/oaths.html