In this class, we have read three poems that were written by Anne Bradstreet upon the deaths of three of her grandchildren: Elizabeth, Simon, and Anne. In each of these poems, Bradstreet ends with a typically-Puritan assertion of God’s divine will and purpose concerning the deaths of these children. However, these last, optimistic, God-praising lines do not work well to override the overall tone of the rest of the poem in which Bradstreet comes across as bitter about their deaths and appears to question the actions of God. Therefore, I would argue that these last lines are simply an attempt on Bradstreet’s part to save-face within her Puritan community by bringing the poem back around so that it appears that she is saying that she understands God’s actions rather than questioning his motives in their untimely deaths. I plan to argue that she does this by her verb use in the elegy for Elizabeth, by her lack of addressing God in the elegy for Anne, and by her almost blatant questioning of God’s will in the elegy for Simon.
In “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1665, Being a Year and Half Old,” Bradstreet uses many strong verbs to convey the overall feelings that influenced her to compose the poem. Some of there verbs include, “taken,” “bewail,” “terminate,” “rot,” “mown,” and “eradicate” (196). At the end of the poem, Bradstreet brings the overall message back to that which would be accepted among the members of her Puritan community with the line, “Is by His hand alone that guides nature and fate” (196). However, I believe that her verb usage signifies that she was actually questioning God’s actions in this poem.
Each of these verbs has a negative connotation, and each builds upon each other to signify the immense grief Bradstreet was experiencing when she wrote this poem. First, she says that Elizabeth was “ta’en away into eternity” (196). Taken would signify that she was stolen, that she was removed from the earth before her time. Secondly, she asks, “why should I once bewail thy fate” (196). To bewail is to experience deep grief. So, her granddaughter was stolen from her, and, because of that, she is filled with a deep grief. Finally, she uses the following verbs to describe the death of the child: “terminate,” “rot,” “mown,” and “eradicate” (196). Each of these verbs appears successively, and each builds upon one another to express the pure horror of the child’s death. To terminate something is to end it. If something rots, it deteriorates. If something is mown, it is cut down. Finally, to eradicate something is to destroy it utterly.
While Bradstreet uses these verbs to describe actions that occur on nature, it is obviously a metaphor for the death of the child. The child was not only “taken,” its life was ended, deteriorated, cut down, and utterly destroyed. And, she feels deep grief as a result of her granddaughter’s death. In my opinion, the assertions made against God’s action of taking the child, by use of these verbs, cannot be overridden by the last line of the poem.
In “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet Who Deceased June 20, 1669, Being Three Years and Seven Months Old,” Bradstreet discusses the death of her granddaughter, Anne. She begins the poem by saying, “The heavens have changed to sorrow my delight” (236). This is the second line of the poem, and, immediately, it causes the reader to question her use of the word “heavens.” It seems that she is opening this poem by stating that God has taken away something that made her happy. This is further compounded when she goes on to say, “How oft with disappointment have I met” (236), as though she’s saying that this isn’t the first time that the heavens, or God, have disappointed her.
Perhaps this small insinuation could be overlooked if it were not for the overall absence of an address to God in the poem. Where, in the other elegy poems, she ends by stating that God had a reason for his actions, in this poem she simply states that she’ll meet the child in heaven. This is an odd statement for a Puritan to make because Bradstreet had no way to know whether or not that she herself was going to heaven, much less whether or not her grandchild was going to heaven. Therefore, it seems in this poem that Bradstreet has given up on questioning God’s actions and has simply resorted to clinging to the one thing that could ease her guilt: the thought that her and her granddaughter will meet again in heaven.
The final poem I will address is “On My Dear Grandchild Simon Bradstreet, who Died on 16 November, 1669, being but a Month, and One Day Old.” In this poem, it seems that Bradstreet has begun to question God’s will. In line three, she says that the child was “Cropt by th’ Almighty’s hand; yet is He good” (196). Here, she is blatantly questioning God’s motives. She moves from there to say “With dreadful awe before Him let’s be mute, Such was His will, but why, let’s not dispute” (196). “Dreadful awe” signifies that she is displeased with God’s action of taking her grandchild from her, but she is not going to dispute his reasons for doing so. As for why she will not dispute it, she says “Let’s say He’s merciful as well as just” (196). The “let’s say” seems to be a contradiction to God’s being “well and just,” which leads me to believe that she is simply going along with her beliefs rather than truly believing that God had a “well and just” reason for taking Simon from her. However, she turns these assertions around in the end by saying that all of her losses will be forgotten when she arrives in heaven to be with her three dead grandchildren.
It’s interesting to note that the order in which I’ve discussed these poems is the order in which they were written. Elizabeth was the first of Bradstreet’s grandchildren to die, and, in this elegy, Bradstreet is very subtle about her questioning of God. She only makes it apparent in Elizabeth’s elegy by her verb use. Anne was the second of Bradstreet’s grandchildren to die, and, in Anne’s elegy, Bradstreet moves from subtly questioning God’s motives to simply leaving out any address to God. Finally, Simon was the third of Bradstreet’s grandchildren to die, and, in Simon’s elegy, Bradstreet begins to blatantly question God’s motives.
In conclusion, the succession of Bradstreet’s means of questioning God as more and more of her grandchildren die is interesting when attempting to determine whether or not she was a dutiful Puritan woman. After examining these poems, it is my opinion that she was not a dutiful Puritan woman; rather, she was a woman who often questioned both her own beliefs and the actions of a God who could take so much from her. I believe that the lines at the end of Bradstreet’s poems where she seems to turn the tone of the poem around to one that praises God is simply her attempt at appearing as though she was a dutiful Puritan woman when she allowed her friends and family to read these poems.
