Anne Bradstreet Ap Prompt

Our poem takes place in the 1600’s Puritan era and the narrator Anne Bradstreet is a common women who has found a passion for writing. However she does not tell anyone about her work that she does because it wasn’t widely accepted that Puritan women write. Anne Bradstreet finds herself in the worst position she could imagine through her work being broadcasted to the public with no knowledge. Through this experience she finds comfort and clarity in writing again. She begins to tell us of the story of her work being published by a “friend”. Through this experience, she talks about how her work was not good enough for the public to see. She only wishes she could alter and fix it, but it’s too late. On the other hand, she realizes that she cares

Every time she “wash’d” (13) her face and rubbed the spots off, but “more defects” she saw (13) and they “still made a flaw” (14). After having her work ripped from her, she attempted all sorts of things to fix and revise it. As she still relates her work as her child, she admits she “stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet, / Yet still thou run’st more hobling than is meet” (15-16). Like I referred to in the beginning, she always saw her work as something being off, and seeing a physical deformity. In her mind she sees the issues and the problems and when it came down to it, she could not change it. She describes it as “a better dress to trim thee was my mind, / But nought save home-spun Cloth, i’ th’ house I find” (17-18). Anne could not make it happen the way she saw. Robert Hilliker says in his article “Bradstreet's 'Author to her Book" brings out another meaning by insisting on her attempts to "amend" her book-child's "blemishes" before she returns it to public view, implying that she is not against her poems' publication, but against their appearing in public before they have been properly educated.” I believe that is a legitimate reason, to be afraid for your

Kimberly Latta reminds the readers that this poem was a bit of a game changer to Anne’s usual work. “Anne Bradstreet (1612-72) painstakingly investigated the nature of her "bonds"--her debts, duties, and loving connections to her mother, father, husband, children, and God.” (pg 1). Most of Anne’s work involved some kind of a lesson or optimism. The morale of her stories reminded humans to keep intact to their bonds. In the case of my particular poem, we understand that Anne reflects back on the events of her life that left her sometimes without hope or any kind of morale. Of course her poem ends with the lesson to love your work as you love