Who is Anne Bradstreet?

Anne Bradstreet started out as any other woman in the seventeenth century. Luckily she had a very well to do family and was brought up very educated. From a very young age she began reading and enjoying books and poetry. It became her passion. Because Bradstreet was a faithful Puritan woman, she kept to her homely duties and only wrote for fun or as an escape from daily chores, she would even write to deal with the absence of her husband. As she watched her children grow up, she would write poems to them, about them or just about her daily struggles throughout life, and she would entertain her children with these poems.

Bradstreet did not have much self confidence as an author. She did not feel she deserved an audience. You can see how she struggles with this in her poem "The Author to Her Book". She refers to her works as "ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain" (Bradstreet line 1). It isn't until later after her second book is published that she begins to feel more comfortable in her own skin as a writer. 

Poem of Quotes. 2004. Web. 11 December 2010.<http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nwa/bradstreet.html>

Success Story

In the seventeenth century it was very rare for a woman to be as successful as Bradstreet was. Fortunately, her family was able to get her works published and circulating throughout their society. It is hard to tell if her works would be as famous and talked about today if she did not have such a well to do family. Unfortunately it was not her works that made her famous in that day and age.

Bradstreet's works were originally passed around by her family. They all enjoyed her poetry and found it very interesting. It was an accident when her first book was published. Her brother-in-law published a book of about fifteen poems that Bradstreet wrote before the age of thirteen without her consent or knowledge. The book was called "The Tenth Muse". She was actually embarrassed of this publishing and sought out to correct it all and publish a new book titled "Several Poems Complied with great variety of Wit and Learning". In this new book she corrected her older poetry to make it more seamless as well as adding new works (Behling).

The Works

Some of Bradstreet's poetry shows how close her relationship with God was. In "The Flesh and the Spirit" the imagery she uses to try and describe heaven paints a very vivid picture for the reader. "Mine eyes doth pierce the heavens, and see/ What is invisible to thee./ My garments are not silk or gold/ Nor such like trash which earth doth hold,/ But royal robes I shall have on/ More glorious than the glist'ring sun/" (Bradstreet lines 77-82). 

She also wrote of different things that happened in her life. She wrote of her struggles with the absence of her husband "A Letter to Her Husband",she wrote of tragedies in "Upon the Burning of Our House" and "In Memory of My Dear Grandchild" she speaks of dealing with loss. Her works were very holistic and she wrote about everything that happened in her life on a very personal level.

Bradstreet also had an amazing advantage as a successful woman poet. In this era, everything was dominated by men. There were significant gender roles between men and women. Luckily, she grew up very educated and her parents and husband played a dominant role in society and she held a higher stature among her peers which helped lead to her success.

Bradstreet, Anne. "Anne Bradstreet (1612?-1672)." ENGL-2327. Shared Files. Tarrant County College. 8 September 2010. Web. 11 December 2010. PDF file.

Bradstreet, Anne. "The Flesh and the Spirit." ENGL-2327. Shared Files. Tarrant County College. 8 September 2010. Web. 11 December 2010. PDF file.

Bradstreet, Anne. "The Author of Her Book." ENGL-2327. Shared Files. Tarrant County College. 8 September 2010. Web. 11 December 2010. PDF file.

Bradstreet, Anne. "A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment." ENGL-2327. Shared Files. Tarrant County College. 8 September 2010. Web. 11 December 2010. PDF file.

Bradstreet, Anne. "Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666." ENGL-2327. Shared Files. Tarrant County College. 8 September 2010. Web. 11 December 2010. PDF file.

Bradstreet, Anne. "In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1665 Being a Year and a Half Old." ENGL-2327. Shared Files. Tarrant County College. 8 September 2010. Web. 11 December 2010. PDF file.

Bradstreet's Audience

Originally Bradstreet's audience was her husband and children. She wrote for them. Not only did she want to educate her children, but she wanted them to understand her struggles and how she was able to cope with them. Bradstreet, being a very religious Puritan woman, would turn to God to help her through her every day struggles and then write about them for her children.

Her poetry also circulated throughout her family but it was intended to only for personal reading. "As a Puritan woman of the seventeenth-century, Anne Bradstreet struggled to write poetry in a society that was hostile to imagination. Women were expected to behave deferentially and neither her education nor her privileged status as the child of one colonial governor and wife of another could protect her against the scorn and persecution visited upon women who stepped beyond their role in Puritan society. Anne often appears self-deprecating in order to appease the critical males, describing her work as lowly, meanly clad, poor, ragged, foolish, broken, and blemished" (Behling). 

Her poetry was eventually published and her works spoke "as a wife, as a mother and as a woman." By doing so, this made it easy to look past the fact she was a Puritan woman, going outside of the cultural standards set by her society and people were gradually able to accept and enjoy her poetry. 

 Behling, Susanne. "Anne Dudley Bradstreet". 2007. Web. 11 December 2010. <http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nwa/bradstreet.html>

Poem of Quotes. 2004. Web. 11 December 2010.JPEG file. <http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nwa/bradstreet.html>

Seventeenth Century Literature

As settlers  traveled from England to America not only did they bring their families, but they brought their history and their culture. Bradstreet came to America as a devout Puritan, as most settlers did in this time frame. Most literature from this century reflects the upbringings from a time before America; a time when the Crown and God were the ultimate authorities.

As seen in Bradstreet's work their is a connection to her religion in each of her pieces. She always ties her religion into her poems because of her Puritan beliefs. Her religion was not just about worshiping on certain days of the week, it was her way of life and she always stayed true to it.
 

There are many famous writers and poets that also reflect their religious views as well as their political views into their works such as William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. Both men from Europe where Bradstreet was originally from.  

Cowell, Pattie. "Anne Bradstreet (1612?-1672)". Web. 11 December 2010. <http://college.cengage.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/bradstre.html>

Finley, Gavin. "Puritan History: Past, Present and Future." 2003. Web. 10 December 2010. <http://endtimepilgrim.org/puritans.htm>.

Willem Buytewech. "Merry Company, c.1618". Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.  Web. 11 December 2010. <http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/index.html>