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Anne bradstreet in memory of
Anne bradstreet biography final essay
Anne bradstreet in memory of
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"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." This famous quote by Robert Heinlein is Anne Bradstreet’s poem To My Dear and Loving Husband in one sentence. Being the first women to be recognized as an accomplished poet, Bradstreet wrote that poem to, of course, her husband. The poem expresses her never-ending love and gratitude for her husband. It shows the appreciation she has towards her spouse. The love is so grand that no one else but the two can fathom. And no matter how much time passes by, the love continues to grow and does even after life. The poem starts off with, “If ever two were one, then surely we” (1). Bradstreet says that if ever two people were one person, then she …show more content…
It’s clear to see that she is happy with her marriage unlike her peers. Bradstreet surely doesn’t mean this in any demeaning or bragging way, she is just so infatuated with who is clearly her soul mate and the love of her life that she wrote and dedicate a poem to. She also states in the poem that, “My love is such that rivers cannot quench, / Nor ought but love from thee give -recompense” (7-8). These two lines are great worldly comparisons. She can’t get enough of her husband. Her husband brings her this happiness and form of bliss that she can’t find anywhere else. No supply of water can satisfy the thirst she has. It’s common to see a husband be loved by his wife, but it is shocking and quiet satisfying to see the amount of love Bradstreet has for her husband. Tying back to her background of being a Puritan, “the Puritans acknowledged the importance of love, as long as one did not lose sight of God, and they believed that wealth could be a sign of being among God’s chosen” (Gordon 2). Even though there is thoughts of Puritans being old-fashioned and aren’t allowed to be affectionate, Bradstreet breaks that …show more content…
When a wife declares, “Thy love is such I can no way repay; / The heaven reward thee manifold, I pray” (9-10), the husband is doing something right. She explains how, no matter how much love she gives back, no matter how much of the sacrifices he does and time her husband’s give, she can no way be equal to him and no way could she pay him back. Bradstreet hopes and prays that heaven, where assumingly her husband will be, rewards and gives him back all he has done for her. There is no better place to be valued and rewarded in than heaven. Bradstreet wants nothing more than heaven being where her beloved ends up in the afterlife. Bradstreet carries on in the poem elucidating that, “Then while we live, in love let’s go preserver, / That when we live no more we may live ever” (11-12). With this quote, she make a vast connection with spirituality and humanity. In the Puritan world, it is believed that, “they had no control over their final destiny. Their fate was in God’s hands,” (Gordon 3). By means of the last two lines of the poem, Bradstreet is strong believer of her faith. She is confident that her husband is going to heaven and that in heaven, she prays, that he will be granted rewards for what he has done for his wife out of love and
Bradstreet was a Puritan and was therefore raised with a simplistic view of the world. This, combined with the fact that she was a woman, carried over into her way of writing. Her writing style was not eloquent but plain, humble, and pleasant to read. Her poems dealt with topics such as faith, family, and adversity and were easy to understand. Bradstreet had great faith which she gained through the experiences she encountered in life.
Anne Bradstreet?s poem, ?To my Dear and Loving Husband? presents a beautiful love theme. "Of ever two were one, then surely we" (1). This quotation is important because Bradstreet is pointing out that she does not feel as though she is one individual person. And one of the first questions that come to my mind is if Bradstreet was trying to make a point for all wives to be that way or she felt insecure about her own self. The poem itself portrays a loving wife, but the fact is she sounds like she is afraid to be alone, that her husband is the one who makes her complete, in another words, it makes her be a full person.
She writes a letter to husband, almost instructing him on what to do after her death. Unlike other demure housewives of her time, she acknowledges the risk birthing her child brings by saying, “And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains / Look to my little babes, my dear remains” (107). Bradstreet also approaches a taboo subject by acknowledging that her husband might remarry. Bradstreet does not tread lightly on this subject either by writing, “And if thou love thyself, or loved’st me, / These o protect from step Dames injury” (107). In this poem, Bradstreet faces the possibility of not only the loss of her life but the loss of her husband’s love. Bradstreet challenges Puritan beliefs by showing that she will still be concerned with her earthly life after her
Ironically, Bradstreet describes life after her death in her poem “Before the Birth of One of Her Children” and states that husband to look for her love by looking at her children stating, “And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains, / Look to my little babies, my dear remains” (Before the Birth of One of Her Children lines 21-22). She also speaks of her husband’s next wife by stating, “These O protect from stepdame’s injury”, hoping that their step mother does not hurt her children (Before the Birth of One of Her Children line 24). Taylor shows more about planting his seeds in his wife approach when speaking about his children. He writes “One knot gave one tother the tother’s place. / Whence Chuckling smiles fought in each other’s face”, he’s describing the joy of watching his children playing with each other
Anne Bradstreet, whom most critics consider America’s first “authentic poet”, was born and raised as a Puritan. Bradstreet married her husband Simon at the tender age of eighteen. She wrote her poems while rearing eight children and performing other domestic duties. In her poem “Upon The Burning Of Our House, July 10th, 1666”, Bradstreet tells of three valuable lessons she learned from the fire that destroyed her home.
Though Bradstreet accepted the tenets of Puritanism, anti-Puritan texts are found in her poetry in terms of religious doubts as in “Meditations” to her children where she speculates if the Scriptures are true or contrived. Anne Bradstreet also deviates from traditional Puritan writings of the time by composing poetry for pleasure and self expression as opposed to writings of preaching and teaching as was the standard. Bradstreet is not truly unorthodox in that she did not dissent from accepted beliefs and doctrine, but lived in an intensely religious, male dominated society which put many limitations on women and their roles.
Bradstreet tested the boundaries of the Puritan beliefs and chose to write about life as a wife and mother. The love for her husband was more important than what others thought of her. She was proud of their relationship and stated, “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” a verse from her poem titled To My Dear and Loving Husband (226). Her poems stood as a movement for all radical feminists that admired Bradstreet and her confidence to express her opinions publicly. Religion was a common topic throughout Bradstreet’s poem, but there was a time as
Bradstreet’s poetry is fully religious. Being a pious woman, as everyone was at that time period, she wrote poems claiming high morals and religious motifs. Her writings were very popular among puritans who started colonizing America. His Puritan belief was the reason of her special attitude to her life, soul and sufferings. “She thought that God was so hard on her because her soul was too in love with the world. She also wrote some poems where she asked God to watch over her children and husband” (Gonzalez, 2000).
Anne Bradstreet wrote poetry in a time when only Puritan men were publishing writing, mostly about their faith and religion. Thus, she was the first woman in the colonies to be published and received a lot of criticism for it. At this time, there were roles that women were expected to fill, specifically wife and mother roles, and going against these roles could have grand consequences. While her poems may seem simple and domestic, they contain a more complex meaning when looked at closely. Through many of her poems, Bradstreet expressed her frustration towards her society’s gender norms and went against the Patriarchal ideas of the Puritan society.
Anne Brasdstreet uses a metaphor illustrating her place in heaven. Bradstreet says, “My hope and treasure lies above” (54). She is referring to her treasure as eternal life in heaven. She feels that God created a mansion for her in heaven. Anne Bradstreet’s relationship with God is very strong. Bradstreet says, “ And to my God my heart did cry. / To straighten me in my Distress” (8-9). Even though she lost everything, she did not
Marriages in Puritan society were based on the biblical scripture; ‘wives submit to your husbands’ , with the sincere belief that women were to subject to the husbands and support their needs before their own. ‘My Dear and Loving Husband’ captures Bradstreet’s relationship with her husband as it is plain and simple. Typical of a Puritan marriage, Bradstreet submits to her husband and shows her duty in loving him. ‘If ever man were loved by wife’ then wife is never loved by man but endures to find happiness in submitting to her husband. Bradstreet is setting her own desires aside and replaces them with her responsibilities to her husband; that ‘man were loved by wife’.
God; whereas Taylor wrote solely on his love for God. Bradstreet was a pioneer in the idea of writing about loving your husband and self. This was one of her greatest achievements and also greatest gifts to the world, even though it was not appropriate to write about such subjects she did anyway. The combination of Bradstreet and Taylors poetry about love prove to the world that love can exist in any part of life and should be appreciated and
By reading Bradstreet’s work, a fair sense of what Mrs. Bradstreet was like can be grasped. She clearly stated her opinion of those who objected to her writing: “I am obnoxious to each carping tongue, / Who says my hand a needle better fits.” (Bradstreet,“ The Prologue”155). Bradstreet refused to give up her passion for writing even if it meant going against the opinions of anyone in her colony, including religious leaders. Although Bradstreet referred to herself as being obnoxious, her written works portray an entirely different Bradstreet. She seeks no reward or fame for her writing: “Give thyme or parsley wreath, I ask no bays” (155). Bradstreet seeks no reward for her writing because she doesn’t think her work is very good: “My foolish, broken, blemished Muse so sings” (154). She refers to her writing as her: “ill-formed offspring” (“The Author To Her Book”165). Even after her work is published she is ...
When Bradstreet’s next grandchild, Anne, passed away, she was unable to resist it. She lost her control and become disappointed. She wrote a poem under “In Memory of My dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet, Who Deceased June 20, 1669.”5 The poem starts with the speaker
According to BellaOnline, Bradstreet was, “married to the governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony and had eight children.” Even though her marriage might have become filled with routines and lost a little passion, the poet never lost the love for her husband. She states that the power of her “.love is such that rivers cannot quench”(Bradstreet, 7). Bradstreet expresses her emotions to be so strong that not even a roaring river can possibly satisfy them. She prizes her husband’s “.love more than whole mines of gold/ Or all the riches that the East doth hold,” (Bradstreet, 5-6) meaning she values his affection more than any amount of money she could obtain.