Metaphors In Anne Bradstreet's The Author To Her Book

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.

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

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.

In “The Author to Her Book,” Bradstreet is inundated in indecision and internal struggles over the virtues and shortfalls of her abilities and the book that she produced. As human beings we associate and sympathize with each other through similar experiences. It is difficult to sympathize with someone when you don’t know where they are coming from and don’t know what they are dealing with. Similar experiences and common bonds are what allow us to extend our sincere appreciation and understanding for another human being’s situation. In this poem an elaborate struggle between pride and shame manifests itself through an extended metaphor in which she equates her book to her own child.

The character was illiterate and thus excluded her from others. In the beginning of the story, the shame from the daughter and others was made prevalent as the author wrote “I learned to be ashamed of my mother” (58). The shame and prejudice began to grow when the mother goes to the school to register her daughter. The mother needed and asked for help when she was filling out the forms that were required for her daughter to go to school. The author wrote “The women asks my mother what she means . . . The women still seem not to understand. ‘I can’t read it. I don’t know how to read or write,” (60) showing that the women the mother was asking for help, did not understand her question, because her ignorance of other people. Her poor understanding of the question clearly made the mother feel even more ashamed of herself. The author goes on to write “My mother looks at me, then looks away. I know almost all of her looks, but this one is brand new to me.”(61) exhibiting how the mother never felt so ashamed and embarrassed in front of her daughter. Once the woman realizes that she was on a higher “level” than the mother, she agreed to help, the author wrote “and suddenly appears happier, so much more satisfied with everything”(61). The mother was being ridiculed and humiliated by the second, as the other

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 only the first English-speaking, North American poet, but she was also the first American, woman poet to have her works published. In 1650, without her knowledge, Bradstreet’s brother-in-law had many of her poems published in a collection called The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up In America. Although these poems did not reflect what would be her best work, they did emulate what would be the greatest influence on all of her writing. Anne Bradstreet’s Puritan life was the strongest, and the most obvious influence on her work. Whether it was her reason for writing, how she wrote, or what she wrote about, Bradstreet’s poems would reflect the influence of Puritan life and doctrine.

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.

Puritan literature captures not only their beliefs as a religion, but their beliefs as individuals. All Puritan literature is utilitarian, meaning it is useful, purposeful, and reflecting a non-ornate style of writing. One of the most prominent of early English poets was Anne Bradstreet. Her poems reflect the utilitarian style, but do so in a way that is entirely unique to herself and her emotions. Anne Bradstreet opens the bridge between her faith and her personal experiences in her poetry. In her poems “Upon the Burning of Our House” and “In Reference to Her Children” she reflects utilitarianism by recounting the conflicts between her love of her worldly things and her devotion to God’s eternity.

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.

in a book called The Tenth Muse under a male name and without her knowing. Anne Bradstreet’s

Every author, poet, playwright has a subtle message that they would like present to their audience. It may be a lifelong struggle that they have put into words, or a multiple page book that took a lifetime to write. A poet by the name of Anne Sexton sought out to challenge society’s views of women by writing “Her Kind”. A poet, a playwright, and an author of children’s books, Anne Sexton writes about the conflicts of a social outcast living in modern times. She voices the hardships she faces through three different speakers in her poem. At the end of the poem, the woman is not ashamed nor afraid of whom she is and is ready to die in peace. In Anne Sexton’s poem “Her Kind”, the main idea the speaker is depicting is the multiple stereotypes placed on a woman, by society. Sexton’s vivid use of imagery paints a picture of the witch, house wife, and mother cliché, while also implying the poem is autobiographical as Sexton went through her own personal struggles during her life.

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.

The mother-daughter relationship is often scrutinized, publicized, and capitalized on. Whether from tell-all biographies, to humorous sit-coms, or private therapy sessions, this particular relationship dynamic gives some of the most emotion-activating memories. When female authors reflect and write about their relationships with their mothers, they have a tendency to taint their reflections with the opinions they have as an adult, reviewing the actions of their mother when they were young. These opinions set the tone of the story independently and in conjunction with the relationship itself and manifest in creative literary styles that weave an even more intricate story. Case in point, when reviewing the two literary works “I Stand Here