Anne Bradstreet ( 1612-72 A.D.)

1. Anne Bradstreet(1612-72 A.D.) American Literature I 04/10/2004 Cecilia H.C. Liu PowerPoint created by Alice Wei

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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.

6. General Approaches to Bradstreet's’ Poems • The meter of Anne Bradstreet’s 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.

7. General Approaches to Bradstreet’s 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)

8. General Approaches to Bradstreet’s 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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10. 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 Bradstreet’s Poetry 05 Oct. 2004 http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/ Bradstreet/bradread.htm