Anne Bradstreet's Poem The Author To Her Book

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Recommended: Criticism on private poetry

Anne Bradstreet’s poem “The Author to Her Book” is her response to having her private poems published without her consent and having them be criticized by people that were not intended to see them. Bradstreet began to see the flaws in her work and wants to fix them but it is too late and they had already been released to the world. This experience by Bradstreet is something that is able to be related to at some extent by most individuals at some point in their life, including myself. In my life I have been forced to endure my fair share of betrayal, negative judgement for things that are out of my control, and developing a sense of dislike for something that I once loved because of influence of the loud opinions of others. To begin with, Anne …show more content…

Her differing view is apparent when says “I cast thee by as one unfit for light, / Thy visage was so irksome in my sight” meaning she began to dislike her work for its imperfections (9-10). The poem features an extended metaphor of her work being her child that she is unhappy with and wants to improve. Bradstreet applies this metaphor when she states “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, / And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw” in other words she tried to edit the poem and improve upon it like cleaning a child would better its appearance but the negative comments were so deeply imprinted in her mind that she was unable to develop a finished version that she was truly proud of (13-14). Similar to Bradstreet, I began to see flaws, even nonexistent ones, in myself following the constant condemnation by my peers when they learned of problems I was facing personally. I was my own creation that I longed to edit and improve but nothing I did seemed to make anything better, leaving me with an unquenchable desire to be completely proud of who I

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