...I enjoyed reading your discussion regarding Anne Bradstreet and her contribution to American literature. I agree that although she may have been considered somewhat of a rebel during those times since women were primarily expected to care for the home and family. However, her necessity to adjust to a harsh colonial life required considerable tenacity, especially with experiencing the loss of her child and two grandchildren. As you also mentioned, additional hardships such as her husband’s absence due to his work, her health, and her house catching fire caused her to develop an even tougher resolve in order to survive. Although Bradstreet was often viewed as though she was focused on England, since she was educated there, she clearly reflected...
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...It is no secret that Anne Bradstreet, a British born female poet who lived between (1612-1672), had her share of doubts and questions about God, salvation, eternal life, and the teachings of Puritanism. Despite the fact that she conformed, at least outwardly, to Puritanism, the dominated ideology and doctrine in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where she lived, themes of criticism to the Puritanism can be traced in her literary works. In Bradstreet’s elegiac poem, in the memory of her grandchild, Anne, who died at three years and seven months, the reader comes across words of such: With troubled heart and trembling hand I write, The heavens have changed to sorrow my delight. Here, not only the tone of Bradstreet is different from her first elegy,...
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...Deformed “The Author to Her Book”, by Anne Bradstreet, is Bradstreet’s reaction to her work, “The Tenth Muse”, being poorly published without her knowledge or consent. To achieve her goal of appealing to a wide audience and alerting them of her pain and frustration, Bradstreet chooses to use the metaphor of mothering a physically-deformed child: a versatile topic that allows her to express her emotions. The first stanza of “The Author to Her Book” is about the first half of childhood, which is a serves as a representation of the smaller changes Bradstreet tried to make to her piece. The saying “little children, little problems; big children, big problems” can be applied directly to the stanzas. In the opening line, Bradstreet compares “The...
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...Anne Bradstreet was a poet who was born in 1612. She was the first to write English verse and her poems were published without her knowledge by John Woodbridge, her brother-in-law. She wrote many of her poems about her personal experiences and religion. Anne Bradstreet's poems are filled with themes that set the path for her writing career which include feminism, sickness, love, and Puritanism. Anne Bradstreet is considered a feminist in today's world, even though she herself never stated it. Anne Bradstreet, through her writing in "The Prologue," demonstrated that women are worthy enough to write poetry, or to write in general. Men believed that women were not supposed to write or do anything out of their "domestic duties". Bradstreet believed that men and women had their separate duties, but...
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...ANALYSIS “Before the Birth of Her Children,” by Anne Bradstreet tells of mothers’ maternal fears that are accompanied by love. Bradstreet makes her writing personable for the reader by reminding them of their mother’s love to show that a mother’s love is like no other. Though the poem embodies a mother’s love for her child, mothers’ fears reveal a dark side that takes away the comforting feeling of love and places attention on death. By using words like “irrevocable”, Bradstreet emphasizes the inevitability of death to her child, while giving the audience a sense of just how grave a mother’s fears are, as they are even thinking of how the child will cope with death. The mother-child relationship can be viewed as a symbol of its own; one that represents a one-of-a-kind love, yet also many worries. The poem characterizes mothers as valuable individuals that place their trust and legacy in the hands of their children, hoping they will prosper. In “My Dear and Loving Husband,” Anne Bradstreet displays her love for her husband. Considering the time period, in which women did not have the rights they do in contemporary society, to be able to say “If ever man were loved by wife, then thee,” and that her husband’s love cannot be repaid, comes to show that the contemporary perception love has existed before. Bradstreet characterized her husband as a caring man, whom unlike convention, does not appear to flaunt his superiority and degrade his wife. Her husband’s characterization reaffirms...
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...I chose Anne Bradstreet because I have always found her writings very interesting and seeing her concept on life. “Before the Birth of One of Her Children” she writes about how she and her partner will feel about the death of her while giving birth. In that time frame, dying while giving birth was not uncommon and shows the maternal fears, hope and love that may occur while being pregnant and giving birth. I do feel that she is a puritan writer, because she had a way of expressing the Puritan way of life, with how difficult and limiting that lifestyle was, but still expressed her beliefs and intelligence of women. This poem expresses the love for her husband, her children and concerns of giving birth and also explaining to her children that death is also a part of life. Just as she expresses in the poem, “No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet, But death’s parting blow is sure to meet.” Anne suffered most of her life being ill, so it’s easy to understand why she would write a poem of such a thing. Whether she was pregnant at the time and it was a possibility to happy in the future or that she just expresses in such a way to her children that death can sometimes happen just so easily. My expression of her being a Puritan writer is because she voices her expression how easily death may or can occur, and explains that, hey, this is part of life. But no matter what happens there will always be a bond between her, her husband and her kids. Just as she expresses: ...
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...Anne Bradstreet’s poetry is considered one of the best literary achievements of the 1700s. Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards are both very talented writers with Bradstreet’s poem Upon the Burning of Our House and Edwards’s Sinners in the hands of an Angry God. Both of these writers have unquestionably different, but both unique writing styles. First we will talk about their use of literary devices and then about their style and structure of writing. Lastly we will talk about their strong religious views. Both of these two writers are different in many ways, but also in some they are alike. Both authors have different styles of writing. Bradstreet fancy’s to write poems while Edwards is keen on writing more about sermons and speeches. Bradstreet...
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...Anne Bradstreet was the first published female poet in England’s North American colonies. She is also recognized as the first Puritan predominate in American literature. As a married mother of eight, her poems and other writings addressed what she knew best; being a wife, mother, and a devout Puritan. Having been born into a wealthy family, she was extremely well educated which allowed her to possess knowledge on subjects many other woman, and even some men, of her time knew little about. She was also known for her personal library of over 9000 books. The poem, “To My Dear and Loving Husband”, was written by Anne Bradstreet about her feelings for her husband Simon. It is often viewed as a love letter written by her, only to be viewed by him,...
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...ANNE BRADSTREET 1. What does Bradstreet’s poetry reveal about Puritan ideas of the proper role of women? Note how, in writing her poetry, she both rejects and accepts (Prologue stanza 7) John Winthrop’s standards for women as he revealed them – first, in describing Mrs. Hopkins’s failure to attend “to such things as belong to women” and, second, in his “Speech to the General Court” (“The Woman’s own choice”). The puritans believed that women should not have the right to voice their opinion. The husbands were the ones who made the decisions in the household and not the women. The women played the role of being home doing house work and taking care of the kids. In John Winthrop’s writing, he says, “he is her lord, and she is to be subject to him” (Winthrop 76). Therefore, men are the dominant where the...
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...I enjoyed reading your discussion regarding Anne Bradstreet’s evolution as a writer, and how she acknowledges her struggle between flesh and spirit in her earlier years and develops into a more passionate and expressive writer. It seems as though has a sense of maladjustment to the New England environment and colonial life, which triggers her need to express her feelings. One important observation to consider, also, is that women were not only expected to take care of the home but not to be particularly expressive in thought or manner. Although losing children (and mothers during childbirth) was more commonplace during the 1600’s, nothing had been written from a woman’s viewpoint regarding the loss or separation prior to Bradstreet’s writings....
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... Laura Bridgman: Deaf - blind Pioneer If you were a little girl in England at the time that Laura Bridgman was alive you would have named your doll after her and made your dolls clothes like Laura Bridgman. Then you would have poked your dolls eyes out. Laura Bridgman was born in a small town named Etna New Hampshire very close to Hanover New Hampshire on December 21st 1829. Her parents were Harmony and Daniel Bridgman, they owned a small farm in Etna. When Laura was born she was diagnosed with this thing called “fits” that Harmony and Daniel worried would damage her or maybe even kill her. Fits were these things that made her legs and arms jerk uncontrollably. She was born into a family of four she had two older sisters, Mary and Collina. When Laura was 20 months old the fits disappeared and Laura continued to grow up next to her older sisters. Everything was very good until one dark morning in February 1832 Laura and her sisters were stricken with what doctors called Scarlet Fever. This disease was awful it caused a rash and facial flush. Laura later recalled “I was saturated with very bad sores on my chin and neck and on my lowest right leg and other parts of the body…. My dearest mother was so painfully apprehensive that there was great danger of my dying.” In a dark bedroom of the farmhouse Laura lay next to Mary and Collina, their fevers raged on. At the age of four years old Collina passed away from the fever and at the age of six it took Mary to. The...
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...Dr. Kristin Redfield English 131-800 13 March 2014 A Diary in the Life of Anne Bradstreet: 1612-1672 May 1628 “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” (Bradstreet: "To My Dear and Loving Husband"). I am so excited at this moment for I am about to marry a wonderful man. He is a gift from God and I treasure him. I thank God daily in my prayers for such a wonderful man. I met Mr. Bradstreet-Simon, when he began to work with my father. He and my father worked in service of the Earl of Lincoln. Dad had invited him over to dinner with us. I still remember the first time he came to our house. I was in my room and mama called me for introductions. Upon first laying eyes on him, I thought him to be a nice looking man. As he grew a closer relationship with my father and visited on a regular basis, I grew very fond of him and today, at the age of 16, I am marrying the love of my life, Mr. Simon Bradstreet. Recently, mother and I have heard father and Simon speak of journeying to America. I do not know if that will happen but I know that I will follow wherever my husband leads. A. Bradstreet June 1630 "I found a new world and new manners at which my heart rose [up in protest]" (Bradstreet). Wow, this is a grueling trip. It turned out that Simon and father were speaking about going to America. We boarded the Arbella headed for America in March...
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...At a young age the sickly narrator in “Upon a fit of sickness”, written in the 17th century by poet Anne Bradstreet, faces the notion of inevitable death and the abruptness of life. Through Anne Bradstreet’s usage of metaphysical conceits, juxtapositions, and biblical references she depicts the short journey of mortality that people bear before the transition into eternal life. The poem implores the narrator’s anticipation for her eventual demise and how she merely waits for life to end. She describes her wait when she entails “O bubble blast, how long can’st last? / that always art a breaking” (Lines 17,18). The bubble represents Bradstreet’s metaphysical conceit for life. The blast, or pop, of the bubble, alludes that a popped bubble is akin...
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...Biography of Anne Bradstreet Anne Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England, in the year 1612, daughter of Thomas Dudley and Dorothy Yorke; Dudley, who had been a leader of volunteer soldiers in the English Reformation and Elizabethan Settlement, was then a steward to the Earl of Lincoln; Dorothy was a gentlewoman of noble heritage and she was also well educated. At the age of 16, Anne was married to Simon Bradstreet, a 25 year old assistant in the Massachusetts Bay Company and the son of a Puritan minister, who had been in the care of the Dudleys since the death of his father. Anne and her family emigrated to America in 1630 on the Arabella, one of the first ships to bring Puritans to New England in hopes of setting up plantation colonies. The journey was difficult; many perished during the three month journey, unable to cope with the harsh climate and poor living conditions, as sea squalls rocked the vessel, and scurvy brought on by malnutrition claimed their lives. Anne, who was a well educated girl, tutored in history, several languages and literature, was ill prepared for such rigorous travel, and would find the journey very difficult. Their trials and tribulations did not end upon their arrival, though, and many of those who had survived the journey, either died shortly thereafter, or elected to return to England, deciding they had suffered through enough. Thomas Dudley and his friend John Winthrop made up the Boston settlement's government; Winthrop was...
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...Idella Rodriguez Professor: Jeff Jeske Eng. 225: American Literature Survey I September 22, 2014 The Lord Prevails in Sickness and in Death Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor were two different writers of different backgrounds. They were both Puritans who showed devotion to their families and their writing. They both accepted God through good times and bad. Even though Anne Bradstreet suffered from rheumatic fever as a child causing her to risk her own life having eight children, she never blames God for her getting sick and kept praising him throughout her illness. Although Edward Taylor did not suffer from any sickness, he had to bear the loss of a few of his children during their infancy. Even through all of this, he still praised God for taking them out of the pain they endured. He accepted his children’s death as God’s will. In the poem by Anne Bradstreet, “On My Dear Grandchild Simon Bradstreet, Who Died on 16 November, 1669, Being but a Month, and One Day Old.,” she is grieving the loss of her grandchild. She says, “No sooner came, but gone, and fall’n asleep, Acquaintances short, yet parting us weep; Three flowers, two scarcely blown, the last I’ th’ bud, Cropt by th’ Almighty’s hand... (Baym 211). The words gone and asleep are in reference to death. Although Bradstreet speaks of the child’s sleep, it is not literal sleep, but symbolic, the child has died just a month after being born. When she talks about a short acquaintance, she is referring...
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