Analysis Of In Memory Of My Dear Grandchild By Anne Bradstreet

In 1678, many of Anne Bradstreet’s poems were published for public view. Throughout her poems Bradstreet tends to use symbolism to express her innermost thoughts and feelings. One of these poems is In Reference to Her Children, 23 June, 1659. Three of the most significant symbols in this poem are the representation of her family as a flock of birds, the dangers in the world, and the expression of her feelings toward her children. Anne Bradstreet’s representation of her family as a flock of birds symbolizes two different things.

Throughout women in colonial America, Anne Bradstreet was one of the strongest and influential figures of the time. Mrs. Bradstreet lived from the years 1612 through 1672 not knowing she would inspire later generations with her works and actions. Ever since a little girl, Anne’s father, Thomas Dudley, would make Anne write poetry so they could read together. Anne later married Simon Bradstreet, a future governor, at the age of sixteen years old and boarded on the ship Arbella headed to Plymouth, Massachusetts, with the famous sermoner John Winthrop??? In the famous writings of the poet, we learn Anne has a personal and formal writing voice. Anne writes in Iambic Pentameter, Couplets, and Paradox. Anne became a well-known colonial writer not

Anne Bradstreet’s feelings about her home represent the most material conflict. When her home burned down she wrote the poem to voice these feelings of hers. She describes the awakening to the “shrieks of dreadful voice” and going out to watch “the flame consume” her “dwelling place”. But she comforts herself with good Puritan dogma. The burning of the house is God’s doing and his doings should not be questioned. In looking over the stanzas where she

In the book “The Memory Keeper's Daughter” by Kim Edwards a doctor and his wife have twins and the first child is a healthy boy but then the second child that comes out is a little girl with the signs of down syndrome and he asks his Nurse to take the baby away to an institution while he tells his wife the baby girl died. Through out the entire book it is a struggle for Dr. Henry's wife Norah to have closure with the fact that her baby girl is said to be dead and she never saw her, held her, or cared for her. Kim Edwards shows through the whole book that we are only human, the themes that life is beyond our control and through the connection between suffering and joy.

Anne Bradstreet was America's first noteworthy poet in spite of the fact that she was a woman. Both the daughter and wife of Massachusetts governors, Bradstreet suffered all of the hardships of colonial life, was a mother, and still found time to write. Her poem, "The Author to Her Book," is an example of Bradstreet's excellent use of literary techniques while expressing genuine emotion and using domestic subject matter.

Travelling across the ocean to New England, Anne Bradstreet looked to America as a safe place to practice her puritan religion (Eberwein 4). She wrote many poems about her family and experiences, incorporating her faith and personal struggles into her works. A hundred years later, Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped from her homeland in Africa and brought to America, where she became a devout Christian and a renowned poet (James). Both women received an education above other women of their time leading to their literary accomplishments. The purpose of this paper is to determine the similarities and differences between Anne Bradstreet’s and Phillis Wheatley’s poems’ content, in terms of their themes and language by answering the following questions.

The poem “To my Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet, is not just an exceedingly felt expression of a wife’s marital love and commitment to her husband, as it is about a puritan women who is supposed to be reserved but she makes it her obligation to enlighten her husband of her devotion. A thorough analysis of the poem’s paradox, hyperbole, imagery and repetition reveals how she conveys her message.

Anne Bradstreet was not the typical Puritan author. She wrote sweet and loving poems that greatly contrasted from other writers of her time. She did not write the ever so popular sermons that told people that they were going to hell and there was nothing they could do about it. Bradstreet was a rarity in Puritan times, she was a very educated woman that worked on something other than being a woman in the household. She was one of a kind and the beginning of an era. Using literary criticism when reading Anne Bradstreet’s poems adds a deeper understanding of her character and difficulties in life.

Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor are two of the most distinguished and fervent Puritan poets. Yet this similarity has proven to be one of the few, if not only between these two. One cannot help but find it intriguing that poets who belong to the same religious group and style would write so differently. Many of these differences are not even subtle or hidden beneath the text itself. The differences themselves hold implications and ideas that differ between each poet.

Anne Bradstreet's poem, To My Dear and Loving Husband, shows her profound love and undying affection for her husband. For a Puritan woman who is supposed to be reserved, Bradstreet makes it her obligation to enlighten her husband of her devotion. She conveys this message through her figurative language and declarative tone by using imagery, repetition, and paradoxes.

Anne Bradstreet’s poetry resembles a quiet pond. Her quiet puritan thinking acts as the calm surface that bears a resemblance to her natural values and religious beliefs. Underneath the pond there is an abundance of activity comparable to her becoming the first notable poet in American Literature. Anne Bradstreet did not obtain the first notable poet’s title very easily; she endured sickness, lack of food, and primitive living conditions during her time in the New World. Despite these misfortunes she used her emotions and strong educational background to write extraordinarily well for a woman in that time.

Anne Bradstreet, as a poet, wrote as both a Puritan woman in her time and as a woman ahead of her time. Zach Hutchins analyzed this tension in “The Wisdom of Anne Bradstreet: Eschewing Eve and Emulating Elizabeth”, and makes a primary argument that three of Bradstreet’s poems provide evidence that Bradstreet rejects the Puritan views of a woman while keeping her own personal faith. Hutchins fither his argument by declaring that readers should not view Bradstreet as a symbol of rebellion or submission, instead as a symbol of wisdom.

Even though, she will not be able to repay him with money as materialistic things are not of value, Bradstreet will write about him in her poetry, to show him her gratitude and express her love for him. I feel that Bradstreet wrote her poems about her father to impress him and make sure he knew that she was doing everything she could to repay him and show him her gratefulness for life. Bradstreet never discredits her father or places any blame on him for anything happening in her life, which was true of Puritan beliefs at that time.

Bradstreet wanted her poetry to remain private. She accepted her poetry unconditionally, like a mother accepts her child, because if she tried to correct the poem's flaws more flaws appeared. A distinct expression of Bradstreet true love to her

Anna Bradstreet grows up in a healthy family. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley who is the manager of the country estate of the Puritan Earl of Lincoln. Anna Bradstreet got married at the age of 16 to the young Simon Bradstreet who was working with Anna father. Anna Bradstreet never went to school but her father always taught her and gave her an education. It that time many women didn’t have an education. Anna considers one of the best and most important American poets. When Bradstreet was a little girl, she writes poems to honor and please her father. After she got married, she kept writing and it marriage didn’t stop her. Her brother in law, John Woodbridge, pastor of the Andover Church, brought with him to London a manuscripts collection of her poetry in 1650. It was her first book, The Tenth Muse was the first published volume of poems written by an American resident and it was widely read. Anne Bradstreet was a very religious and Godly woman. Anne Bradstreet always tried to live life in a perfect way. Anne Bradstreet was a woman of God and she always wrote about her faith in her poetry. She always talked about the Puritan and their believes and views on salvation and reclamation in her poetry. Anna seems to believe that God has punished her through her sicknesses. The Puritans believed suffering was God’s plan of preparing the soul and heart for accepting his mercy