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Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet. 1612 - 1672 Some Key Features Of Her Writing. Early Writing. Classical Poetical Devices and Form Iambic pentameter: five iambs per lines. (See " Metrical Forms ") Quatrains: four rhyming lines per stanza References and allusions to classical cultures

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Anne Bradstreet

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  1. Anne Bradstreet 1612 - 1672 Some Key Features Of Her Writing

  2. Early Writing • Classical Poetical Devices and Form • Iambic pentameter: five iambs per lines. (See "Metrical Forms") • Quatrains: four rhyming lines per stanza • References and allusions to classical cultures • Intentional variation to signify rhetorical effect or emphasis • in rhythms: variations on the iamb • syntax: a grammatical arrangement of word • End rhymes: slant rhymes or imperfect rhymes • Extended metaphor and metaphysical conceits • In the tradition of English Metaphysical Poets George Herbert ("Love"), Andrew Marvell ("The Mower’s Song") and John Donne ("Death be not proud . . .") • A sophisticated use of wit and irony to explore complex spiritual paradoxes • Dominant Puritan conceits: Fire and Dust (“Ashes to ashes . . . “).

  3. Subtext • Use of traditional poetical devices belies a non-traditional view of the role of women in Puritan society • Alternatives to the Bible for sources of authority • Literature and mythology • Mythic and historic heroines • The maternal domestic role • The use of irony to allow her to say what she could not otherwise say openly • Self-effacing apologies • A subdued confidence in her own ability to instruct and to experience life

  4. Early Influences • An educated and literary background • European audiences who were reading the experiences of a colonist • Self-consciousness about the creation of a divergent literary tradition in the Colonies • Themes • Dangers of living in the Colonies • Challenges of living in Puritan society • Audiences • Other Puritan women who did not receive her level of education • Puritan male audiences who were reading the work of a Puritan woman

  5. Later Influence • Authorial Voice: • more plain spoken • Expansive symbols and images abandoned • Uses the self by example of victory over doubt (crisis of faith) • Identifies strongly with the content of her own poems: • As a Puritan • As a woman • As a writer • As a Colonist • Life Experience • Love and Sex • Motherhood and infant mortality • Loss and disaster • Political change • Spirituality • Crisis and reconciliation of faith • Puritan role of "mother" • The increasing importance of Puritan life over her "career"as a writer (from feminist to traditionalist)

  6. Other Notable Colonial Women Ann [nee Marbury] Hutchinson (1591–1643) religious dissenter labeled "dangerous" by John Winthrop and others acknowledged retrospectively for a kind of American Colonial feminism thought to be the inspiration for Hester Prynne in Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter authored papers and letters Sarah Kemble Knight (1666 –1727) The Journal of Madam Knight (1825), published by Theodore Dwight. diary of Knight’s 1704-1705 journey, from Massachusetts Bay Colony to Province of New York Lady Deborah [nee Dunch] Moody (1586-1659), a.k.a. Lady Moore first female landowner; only woman colonial settlement founder, of Gravesend, in 1645, in New Netherland, which would later become part of Brooklyn, New York staunchly against baptism of infants (who did not have a choice) Mary [nee White] Rowlandson (c. 1637 –1711) The Sovereignty and Goodness of God made captivity narratives [a form of literary romance] a popular genre

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