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English literature from Elizabethan to Victorian
English literature from Elizabethan to Victorian
Essay about the victorian era in literature
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Bradstreet through a Modern Lens
The worldview presented by Bradstreet in her works both connects and disconnects to/from the prevailing 21st century worldview. In her work, “To My Dear and Loving Husband”, Bradstreet discusses her feelings to her husband regarding her deep love for him. She implies several times throughout the text that there is no wife who loves their husband more than she nor happier than she is. Bradstreet obviously values her husband in a way that can be compared to today’s worldview of love and marriage.
Background Information Regarding Bradstreet
According to Belasco and Johnson (2008), “Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England approximately in 1612”. Bradstreet’s parents were Dorothy and Thomas Dudley. Being that
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From reading, To My Dear and Loving Husband, tying in the background knowledge and reading other poems about her family, it is obvious that Bradstreet’s first obligation is her husband and family. Bradstreet’s dedication to honor her parents and husband is a value that is adopted from her worldview in England and possibly from reading extensive religious works. The Bible mentions in the commandments that you shall honor thy mother and father and also states that wives shall submit to their husbands. By all means, Bradstreet does just that and references her personal acts in her poems. In To My Dear and Loving Husband, Bradstreet says, “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold/ or all the riches that the East doth hold” (5-6). Overall, Bradstreet exclaims the extent of her value of her husband by proclaiming he’s worth more than any amount of money and jewels found on this Earth. Bradstreet differs from 21st century wives, something even more interesting is that Bradstreet distinguished from the women in her own era. Bradstreet often signals that there may be no women like her, and that may be true after analyzing the extent of her value of love, marriage and even …show more content…
Today husband and wife consider themselves spouses whose value is sometime estimated by household income and status. In addition, 21st century worldview of marriage lacks communication, long lasting-love, value, submitting wives, substance, trust, finance stability, and even reliability. Mothers of today spend maximum time focusing on their own careers and often place their family and children as next obligations in line and not first.
Personal Accounts of Love, Marriage, and
I think Mrs. Bradstreet loved her children more than herself even though when her children grew up and left her alone. In her poem, she wrote that she had eight birds - which were her eight children, after they grew up they left one by one and live with their partner. However, she must nurse them to grow up even though she had to take care of them twenty-four hours by seven days (In Reference to her Children, 23 June, 1659, Bradstreet, P. 264). She would not let her children get hurt by any chance, she would protect them forever. In the poem, she wrote that I bred you with my pain, I fed you with all my care because I wanted to keep you soft and warm. I opened my wings to protect you off from harm.
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
There appears to be widespread agreement that family and home life have been changing dramatically over the last 40 years or so. According to Talcott Parsons, the change in family structure is due to industrialization. The concept that had emerged is a new version of the domestic ideal that encapsulates changed expectations of family relations and housing conditions. The family life in the postwar period was highly affected. The concept of companionate marriage emerged in the post war era just to build a better life and build a future in which marriage would be the foundation of better life. Equality of sexes came into being after...
DeVault, C., Cohen, T., & Strong, B. (2011). The marriage and family experience: Intimate relationships in a changing society. (11th ed., pgs. 400-426). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth cengage learning.
In Letha Scanzoni’s book Men, Women, and Change: A Sociology of Marriage and Family she observes that a wife’s duty was “to please her husband...to train the children so that they would reflect credit on her husband”(205). Alongside the wife’s duties Scanzoni provides the husband’s duty to “provide economic resources”(207).These expectations have long been changed, since then these have become common courtesies. Today, we see less and less of the providing father, homemaking wife and respectable children family structure. We are now seeing what sociologists call the senior-partner/junior-partner structure. Women and mothers are now opting for the choice to work and provide more economic resources for the family. This has changed those expected duties of both men and women in a family scene. A working mother more or less abandons the role of homemaker, to become a “breadwinning” mother, and the father stays his course with his work and provide for the family. Suzanne M. Bianchi in her book Changing Rhythms of American Family Life comments on the effect of mothers working and the time they spend in the home. “Mothers are working more and including their children in their leisure time” (Chapter 10), now that ...
...e from her love to the world. Perhaps, she believed that in this love of her, she became God-like and God thus punishes her. Nevertheless, the presence of God in her poems is more than clear. Perhaps, it was due to religious beliefs that she though that it was wrong to feel too strong feelings to world and she considered herself to be a sinner who deserves punishment. Today, there are few followers of Bradstreet, but she, her ideas and her thoughts about sufferings still remain in modern books.
There was a time when women typically maintained the home and raised children while the husbands were the sole bread-winners for the family finances. However, times have changed and so have women’s rights and expectations for divorce, education, an...
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
Their entire definitions of love and marriage are being re-examined as we pass from one generation to another. The outlooks on modern marriage are introduced by Lahiri, Larson, and Guest. Lahiri shows how love these days is used as a temporary satisfying tool. Larson suggests that marriage is not required anymore, in contrast with the past, and Guest proves that marriage does not guarantee happiness. We live in a world where divorce is widespread, and many suggestions are being made to update the traditional family and marriage model. The future of the concept of marriage is hard to predict, and young adults are confused on the idea of marriage, but who can blame
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 ...
Bradstreet, in the first half of her poem The Prologue, states her inferiority in comparison to poets, historians, and Greeks in stanzas 1 and 3, but a tonal shift in the stanzas 5 and 6 indicates her declarations of humility are said only in spite and sarcasm. By using a strict poetic meter and frequently referencing historical and literary fact, but still calling herself unworthy, she mocks society’s expectations for women to stay humble. She signals to the readers through her inconsistency that her goal is to mock how the world wants her to be versus her actual merit. Bradstreet uses each stanza to her advantage by creating a push and pull effect between her demonstrated wit and knowledge of history and poetry in contrast to her declarations
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.