Anne BradstreetEssay Preview: Anne BradstreetReport this essayAnne Bradstreet: American PoetAnne Bradstreet is seen as a true poetic writer for the seventeenth century. She exhibits a strong Puritan voice and is one of the first notable poets to write English verse in the American colonies. Bradstreets work symbolizes both her Puritan and feminine ideals and appeals to a wide audience of readers. American Puritan culture was basically unstable, with various inchoate formations of social, political, and religious powers competing publicly. Her thoughts are usually on the reality surrounding her or images from the Bible. Bradstreets writing is that of her personal and Puritan life. Anne Bradstreets individualism lies in her choice of material rather than in her style.
Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 to Thomas and Dorothy Dudley in Northampton, England. Her father and a young man named Simon Bradstreet were chosen by the Earl of Lincoln as stewards to manage the Earls affairs. Anne, unlike many women of her time, was well educated and it is presumed that she had access to the Earls vast library during this time. The Earls residence was known for its romantic background and this proved true in 1628 when Anne and Simon married. She was only sixteen to his twenty-five years but they were known to have a happy marriage as evidenced in “To my Dear and Loving Husband” where Bradstreet laments, “If ever two were one, than surely we” (125). In 1630, the Dudleys and the Bradstreets, along with other Puritans, sailed aboard the Arabella to settle the Massachusetts Bay Colony. These families journeyed to America as many Puritan settlers had before them, in the hopes of religious freedoms unattainable in England. In the colonies, Annes husband was frequently absent. Bradstreet still found time to write her poetry while raising her 8 children and carrying on the strenuous duties of colonial life.
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. Puritanism was more than a religious belief, but a way of life. Despite all of the pressures and persecution women of this age endured, Bradstreet displays a feminine consciousness in “The Prologue” by writing “I am obnoxious to each carping tongue who says my hand a needle better fitsFor such despite
Bradstreet’s poem “In the Heart of a Man” is the last of her most popular poems, but this she penned for the beginning of the twentieth century.[/p] A love and admiration for the beauty of her writing style is expressed in all her writing, each of which is made up of a narrative in every sentence. One of her own poems is “In the Heart of a Man”…[link from the Bibliography]
In the Heart of a Man is a poem written for, and composed by, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It can be seen as an important work for Stanton’s time. This is one of the best known of her works, which is also being sold to some major literary, graphic, and marketing organizations as well as to publications such as H. D. Stocks. The poem was written in 1946 by the writer’s daughter; it was published in a book format in 1946. Bradstreet was one of the first of her children to write, and wrote her own poetry, including a beautiful book, which has been featured in several magazines, magazines like, Cinefamily and, more recently, Life magazine. “In the Heart of a Man” is a short poem in which Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s writing style contrasts the more popular writing styles from earlier years. Bradstreet was also one of the lead authors and authors for the first volume of Henry Paulsen. She took several of the themes contained in “In the Heart of a Man” to heart, as compared to other writers of her generation.[/p] She also wrote many poems from her poems collection, including four “Shirder Than God” poems from her early life, “A Day in the Life of a Jew” (1892), “Rags to Riches” (1913), and five “The One in the Heart of a Man” poems from the collection called “The Bancroft Wife of Henry Cady Stanton” (1940). In fact, the poem was so popular that it became the first published American poet to write another story. She had written the following poem on the page:The writer’s son wrote to her, “When Thee said I came but a few years back, he cried with me: What I have to do. Let me ask you any questions. If he did indeed come this year, is he not so foolish as to do as I told him how to do this?” [http://www.cadetwork.net/TheLifeOfHugh_Cady_.html]The poem is composed for the audience. The book is based on the life of Andrew Cady Stanton, and is a collection of excerpts from him, including:A poem I wrote as a child. I felt the power through which its inspiration and form have come to me. I remember what a lovely poem it is. That’s the beauty of this book: it keeps you from feeling helpless. It makes you remember to be strong and to always let go of those feelings. One might find the poems and the books that fit in with that feeling very powerful. The poems that this book carries are many of the many. Some are a reflection of life. Some are reflections of life without a reason to believe them because you can never find something to believe in. But every one of them does something to open up an entirely new life. The ones that remain are wonderful, as do the ones that get up to the people of the future. I read these poems at the local elementary school the year I was born and they were so beautiful and full of meaning. They were so important to me. I would love to see those poems published and I will do everything I can to keep them as the best they can be