Bradstreet Poems

The poems written by Bradstreet were incredibly relatable, when talking to her ‘offspring’ in The Author to Her Book, Anne Bradstreet discusses her feelings on how criticism affected her after her writings were released into the world. This expresses her emotions and fears about how the works that she birthed are going into the world with her name. They possess her errors and blemishes, they are out in the world for everyone to tear down. On the contrary, in her poem to her husband, she writes of the love that she feels for him and how their love makes them one. She compares herself in a positive light to other women and how she would out rank them in the way of love. She puts a greater value on her husband and their shared love, than she does her own “offspring”, and herself in the facade she puts forward. I share this point because the way she talks about herself in both of her poems is drastically different. Without the bluster of the love between her and her husband she finds herself weak and of “feeble brain” (Bradstreet). She is vulnerable to the criticisms of the world. She disowns the works that she created because of the insecurity she faces in herself and that insecurity is confirmed by her “friends, less wise than true”. Towards the end of the poem, I feel as though she is creating a warning to not only herself and her works but to her audience as well . I say that because she speaks about her flaws the way I have and the way I know women like me have done before. This warning is about the terrors that many women and young adults face all of their life, but most importantly when taking a leap, this leap may be career wise or one regarding growing pains, as Anne Bradstreet puts it, “Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet”. Although there is obvious judgments being made in The Author to Her Book, there is a certain air of confidence in To My Dear and Loving Husband and I think that that confidence comes from knowing that one person always has your back and is there even when you are falling and being criticized.

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