Literary Analysis Of Bradstreet's The Prologue

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

Bradstreet is a master of balance, harnessing her love for God, her family, and her intelligence without ruining her creativity. Most will read her poems as if they contained “feminist irony,” but few explore how likely it is for this irony to be willingly placed--she is witty, and not excessively humble to the point of degrading herself (). According to The Works of Anne Bradstreet by Johnston, “Most of what [people] know about Anne herself [are from] her own writings,” because the lack of personal accounts about her character, but still, many have gathered a general construct about her character that literary analysts do not often deter from (). Given the evidence that The Prologue is a satire instead of a declaration of her humility, one can assume that Bradstreet, as an individual, was much more headstrong than many assume by drawing conclusions from the first half of the prologue and disregarding that what one assumes to be ironies and ignorance are more of wit and cleverness. Bradstreet does not fear strict convention or judgement like many interpreters believe, even though she lives with people who by heavily discomforted by her