Anne Bradstreet To My Dear And Love Husband

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.

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'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.

poem wherein she’s revealing her never-ending love, devotion, and appreciation for her spouse. The fact that she was born around the seventeenth century could mean it is puritan culture for women to remain reserved, regardless of how they may truly feel; however, she makes it her obligation to make her husband aware of feelings, whether positive or negative. She uses figurative language and declarative tone through imagery, repetition, and paradoxes to send her message. "To My Dear and Loving Husband" can be interpreted in many ways by many different people depending how it is initially read. This uncertainty allows the poem to be interpreted on a surface level and on a deeper level.

Bradstreet is a kind woman who loves her eight children and her husband more than anything else in the world. She specifically wrote a poem on the topic of her love to her husband, entitled To My Dear and Loving Husband. In the poem, she makes remarks such as, “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold/ Or all the riches that the East doth hold./ My love is such that rivers cannot quench,/ Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense./ Thy love is such I can no way repay,/

Love can be quite a difficult topic to write about, expressing one’s intimate and innermost emotions requires a great level of dedication and honesty. If done correctly, the outcome is truly stunning. John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” and Katherine Philips’s “To Mrs. M.A. at Parting” are two masterpieces of this genre. These poems depict the concept of true love so meticulously that the reader cannot help but envy the relationships presented. Perhaps the reason that these works are so effective is due to the fact that they are incredibly similar to each other. Although some differences are present when it comes to structure and gender concerns, the poems share the same theme of love on a spiritual level and show many parallels in meaning.

Anne Bradstreet’s first collections of poems are titled “The Tenth Muse” referring to the mythological Greek goddesses who inspires mortals in specific art. It is clear to see that Anne's faith remained strong during her hardships, and so was her love for children and her husband. A Puritan in thought and lifestyle but also a woman, her

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.

In Anne Bradstreet’s poems she describes her husband’s love for her by using comparisons of money and gold and again puts herself as the less worthy one of the pair as she does with her parents. Bradstreet feels she will never be able to repay her husband for his love and further goes on in her poem “Another” (239), expressing her desires to be with him and not leave his side until they are divided by death. This particular poem demonstrated not only her true love for her husband, but also demonstrated how even the love she had for her husband was all built upon their beliefs of God. Even though, it is very hard to find individuals who hold their religious beliefs as closely as the Puritans did, there are still couples who display this same marital bond in both their private homes and in Church. This shows that even after all this time has passed, there are still people who blend their

, usually around their late twenties, to enter into a relationship. In this society marriage was viewed as a civil contract between man and wife and not a covenant, but this did not diminish the adoration between spouses. As seen in the poetry of Anne Bradstreet marriage was a companionship surrounded around love. In the Poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” Bradstreet expresses to her husband “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, Or all the riches that the east doth hold” (qtd. in Miller, 271). Through Puritan poetry on marriage it is recognizable that the Puritans were capable of love and emotion.

Anne Bradstreet emphasizes romantic love and eternal love in her writing, which are not typical puritan beliefs. In her poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband”, she expresses her unconditional love towards her husband, which makes the readers assume that, for her, the most important person was her husband. Anne Bradstreet emphasizes romantic love in her writing, which is not a typical puritan belief. Free Reformed Churches of North America states that puritans “emphasized that married love should always be subordinate to the love of God” (Rev. C. Pronk) meaning that it was not appropriate for Anne Bradstreet to have these strong emotional feelings towards her husband because they were bigger than her feelings towards God. She uses different literary devices to manifest her love, like hyperboles and metaphors.

On a surface level, “To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet appears to be a fundamental poem describing a woman’s undying love for her husband, but upon further reflection, this poem true meaning lies in her love for God and Puritanism. Throughout the poem the poet emphasizes her love as a remarkable force so strong that to find something equal she must turn her looks heavenward. This purpose becomes even more apparent when one reads the biblical passage, Ephesians 5:27, which in return reflects some of Bradstreet’s main ideas as well. For example, both the poem and the bible verse closely focus on how a man and woman become one under God, as well as how it is necessary for one to love their wife as much as themselves. Though Bradstreet does not directly say so, the passage from Ephesians states, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). The previous quotation alludes to the fact that in order to achieve salvation one must devote themselves to their marriage in the same way they devote themselves to Christ, giving insight to the idea that love is the key to salvation. Bradstreet skirts around this idea when she says “The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray” (10 Bradstreet). This excerpt is a keen example of how Bradstreet suggests to the audience the connection of the couple, in how she talks highly of her husband, in a similar manner she would Christ. In return demonstrating that the poem itself is a

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