Anne Bradstreet (1612-72 A.D.)

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Anne Bradstreet (1612-72 A.D.)

• American Literature I
• 04/10/2004
• Cecilia H.C. Liu
• PowerPoint created by Alice Wei

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Anne Bradstreet (1612-72)

• The Author to her Book
• By Night when Others Soundly Slept
• Contemplations
• A Dialogue between Old England and New
• The Flesh and the Spirit
• The Four Ages of Man
• In Reference to her Children, 23 June 1659
• Prologue
• To My Dear and Loving Husband

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Biography

• Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 to a
  nonconformist former soldier of Queen Elizabeth,
  Thomas Dudley, who managed the affairs of the
  Earl of Lincoln.
• In 1630 Dudley sailed with his family for America
  with the Massachusetts Bay Company. Also sailing
  was his associate and son-in-law, Simon
  Bradstreet. At 25, he had married Anne Dudley,
  16, his childhood sweetheart. Anne had been well
  tutored in literature and history in Greek,
  Latin, French, Hebrew, English. 

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Biography

• Anne's identity is primarily linked to her
  prominent father and husband, both governors of
  Massachusetts who left portraits and numerous
  records.
• Though she appreciated their love and protection,
  any woman who sought to use her wit, charm, or
  intelligence in the community at large found
  herself ridiculed, banished, or executed by the
  Colony's powerful group of male leaders.
• "Her domain was to be domestic, separated from
  the linked affairs of church and state, even
  "deriving her ideas of God from the
  contemplations of her husband's excellencies,"
  according to one document

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Biography

• This situation was surely made painfully clear to
  her in the fate of her friend Anne Hutchinson,
  also intelligent, educated, of a prosperous
  family and deeply religious. The mother of 14
  children and a dynamic speaker, Hutchinson held
  prayer meetings where women debated religious and
  ethical ideas.
• Her belief that the Holy Spirit dwells within a
  justified person and so is not based on the good
  works necessary for admission to the church was
  considered heretical she was labelled as Jezebel
  and banished, eventually slain in an Indian
  attack in New York. Therefore, Anne Bradstreet
  was not anxious to publish her poetry and
  especially kept her more personal works private. 
   

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General Approaches to Bradstreet's Poems

• The meter of Anne Bradstreets poems are usually
  iambic pentameter with key variations in rhythm
  and syntax. Ordinarily any variation from the
  norm set up points to special rhetorical effect
  or emphasis.
• She often includes annotated meanings of words to
  clarify meanings, and those different meanings
  together has created complex feelings and ideas.
• Her poems are also filled with imagery, followed
  with sustained parallels. Metaphysical conceits
  could also be found in her poems.

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General Approaches to Bradstreets Poems

• Some of her poems are filled with irony and male
  Puritan cultural context, along with the suspect
  of conventionally religious additions and
  retractions.
• Her poems are also filled with
• Self-effacing "apology" (art claiming
  artlessness), which gradually becomes more
  authoritative poetic persona. questioning God)

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General Approaches to Bradstreets Poems

• Pride in ability to instruct and experience life
• Distaste for dualism and hierarchy preference
  for balance
• Attachment to nature and the body (even Humor and
  irony which allow her to say the things that are
  not to be said
• Self-exploration through historic and mythic
  heroines
• Dwelling on the domestic as authoritative
• Language and imagery are often direct, and
  relatively simple

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Photo Gallery
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References

• RPO Editors, Department of English, and UTO.
  Representative Poetry Online. 05 Oct. 2004
  http//eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem208
  .htm
• Ann Woodlief. Anne Bradstreet. 05 Oct. 2004
  http//www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/bradbio.htm
• Ann Woodlief. Study Texts on Anne Bradstreets
  Poetry 05 Oct. 2004 http//www.vcu.edu/engweb/webt
  exts/
• Bradstreet/bradread.htm