Engl 48A
Anne Bradstreet Poems
Anne Bradstreet was born in England and since very young her father gave her a superior education to what most woman at that time. Bradstreet was very intelligent and self-educated; she was the first woman poet to publish her poems in colonial America. She married at the age of 16 to Simon Bradstreet and they both sailed with her family to America in 1630.Bradstreet’s poems were written for her family, friends, she never meant to publish them. They were almost a way that she found to express her feelings of loneliness and strangeness in America. In 1650, her brother in law secretly brought her collection to London and published them, later called The Tenth Muse.
“Although she may have seemed to some a strange aberration of womanhood at the time, she evidently took herself very seriously as an intellectual and a poet. She read widely in history, science, and literature, especially the works of Guillame du Bartas, studying her craft and gradually developing a confident poetic voice.” www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/Bradstreet
In “Before the Birth of One of Her Children” Bradstreet writes about her maternal love, but it also shows her fear of dying “How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend” as if she was trying to explain to her daughter that death is part of everybody’s life.
"The Prologue," is also a very beautiful poem, which she writes about being a woman in a Puritan society. She writes about women inferiority “For my mean pen are too superior things” as if women were not meant to speak their mind or have strong opinions. Bradstreet argues that women can be as intellectual as men, “Men can do best, and women know it well”.
Another very powerful poem is “To My Dear and Loving Husband” which she describes the love between her husband and her. Bradstreet in this poem uses simple but very touching words to describe the love that she claims to be forever: “Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere/ that when we live no more, we may live ever” Bradstreet’s love and affection for her husband is intense and she believes that they will be together even after death.
