In the late 1620s, a young Englishwoman sailed for America with her parents and husband. They landed at the Massachusetts Bay Colony, America’s Puritan settlement. Through her struggle with her new life straining to build a home and raise a family in a new country, Anne Bradstreet emerged as the New World’s first female poet.
Puritan doctrine repressed those who followed it, leading to a cultural bias toward women, as well as the belief that a woman’s proper place was at home with her children. Women of this time were considered intellectual inferiors, even outside the Puritan religion. Puritan Law dictated love between spouses must also be repressed, so as not to distract from their devotion to God. Bradstreet’s first book, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, was published without her knowledge by her brother-in-law in 1650… Critics of the time accused Bradstreet of stealing her ideas for poems from men. Many thought she was neglecting her duties as a Puritan woman by writing. In attempt to dispel rumors to that effect, her brother-in-law added “By a Gentle Woman in Those Parts,” to the title page. This was meant to affirm she did not shirk her home and wifely duties to write. Bradstreet shows her anger for these criticisms in The Prologue:
I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits;
A poet’s pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits.
If what I do prove well, it won’t advance;
They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance.
I can relate to some of Bradstreet’s work, as a wife and mother myself, though the Puritan beliefs are far removed from my own. Bradstreet was not afraid to show her emotions, though it was not condoned in her religion. As a Puritan woman, she tended to stay within the socially acceptable topics such as her husband, her children, and God. One of the poems in her first book To My Dear and Loving Husband shows her style quite well:
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
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;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then, while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.
In The Tenth Muse, she imitated the style of respected male writers of the time, greatly limiting the scope of her work. In later publications, Bradstreet’s own style emerged, expressing her true feelings on her subjects. This introduction of emotion to her work transformed Bradstreet from a good writer into a great one. One poem that exemplifies her style is In Honor of That High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory:
No memories, nor volumes can contain,
The nine Olymp’ades of her happy reign,
Who was so good, so just, so learn’d, so wise,
From all the Kings on earth she won the prize.
Nor say I more than truly is her due.
Millions will testify that this is true.
She hath wip’d off th’ aspersion of her Sex,
That women wisdom lack to play the Rex.
Her proclamation of Queen Elizabeth’s successes shunned the biased ideologies of her religion. Writing about the Queen gave her the elbow room to dismiss the accepted role of women, while staying within Puritan boundaries. Her gumption puts her on the front lines of the stirring movement for women’s liberation, not only from her words, but also the example she sets in writing and raising a family.
Bradstreet’s influence in today’s literary community is linked to her insight and wisdom on women and politics. As an educated woman and the wife of the Governor, Bradstreet delved into many areas previously untouched by most female writers of her time. She wrote that “authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.” This statement not only applied to the government in America and England in the 1600s, but also today’s politics. Her work has endured radical changes in American cultural and political views and continue to inspire and unveil truths. We have studied Bradstreet’s works of poetry for nearly four hundred years and still we find new meaning throughout. Bradstreet’s work maintains its versatility though these changing times, proving her competence once and for all.
Works Cited
Bradstreet, Anne. The Tenth Muse Lately sprung up in America. By a Gentlewoman in those parts. London: Stephen Bowtell, 1650, 3-4 ,199-203.
Bradstreet, Anne. Several Poems, 2nd edn. Boston: John Foster, 1678.
“Introduction to Anne Bradstreet,” http://www.highbeam.com/library. Monarch Notes; 1/1/1963.
