ENG BC3179x
Fall 2009
Gordis

READING ANNE BRADSTREET’S POETRY

For Bradstreet’s biography, I refer you to the Norton Anthology introduction. But I want to emphasize a few things in advance. First of all, note that she came from a background of wealth, prominence, education, and connections. Her father was Thomas Dudley, who was steward and manager of the estates in the household of the Earl of Lincoln. The Dudleys also claimed to be related to Sir Philip Sidney. The Earl of Lincoln was an important Puritan lord, and his house was a center of Puritan society. During the planning of the migration to the Massachusetts Bay colony, both John Winthrop and Roger Williams came to his estate, and John Cotton preached nearby. The household also had a very good library, which was probably accessible to Anne Dudley (later Bradstreet). She seems to have been very well educated; she knew Latin and Greek, and was also very widely read in English literature.

In 1628, Anne Dudley married Simon Bradstreet, the son of a Nonconformist minister and a graduate of Cambridge, which, you may recall, was a center of Puritan activity. When, in 1630, the Bradstreets and the Dudleys set out for New England, it was aboard the Arbella, the ship on board which John Winthrop sailed (and may have delivered A Modell of Christian Charity, depending on your take on the scholarly debate).

The Bradstreets and Dudleys were prominent in Massachusetts; Thomas Dudley served as the second governor of the colony. After his term, the family moved to Ipswich, which was physically a frontier community but had a very active intellectual and cultural life. In 1645-6, however, the Bradstreets moved to Andover, which was much more isolated--really just a farming settlement surrounded by dense forests. Some scholars have described Bradstreet as very lonely during this phase, especially since her husband remained very active in the political life of the colony, serving as secretary, deputy governor, and governor, requiring him to travel from home often. As you read “To My Dear Children” and the poems addressed to her husband, consider the ways that her experience of being both at the center and the margins of society might shape her narrative.

Bradstreet's poetry also helps us to consider the different modes of publication available to seventeenth-century authors. Bradstreet seems to have prepared a manuscript of her poems, which was circulated at least among her family and friends. Her brother-in-law John Woodbridge, who had the manuscript printed as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America, explains in his epistle to the reader:

. . . I fear the displeasure of no person in the publishing of these poems but the author, without whose knowledge, and contrary to her expectation, I have presumed to bring to public view, what she resolved should (in such a manner) never see the sun; but I found divers had gotten some scattered papers, affected them well, were likely to have sent forth broken pieces, to the author's prejudice, which I thought to prevent, as well as to pleasure those that earnestly desired the view of the whole.¹

What do Bradstreet's poems reveal about her attitude toward publication in manuscript and in print? Consider “The Prologue.” Does Bradstreet seem to consider her poems as private exercises? Or does she seem to envision a reading audience beyond her family? After the publication of the first edition of The Tenth Muse, Bradstreet wrote “The Author to Her Book.” How similar is it to “The Prologue”? How does Bradstreet represent her reaction to publication?

If you'd like to look at digital images of The Tenth Muse, follow the link from the schedule of readings to Early English Books On-line. There are also links to the 1678 and 1758 editions of Several Poems . . . in the Early American Imprints collection (Digital Evans).

We’ll also spend some time thinking about Bradstreet’s approach to weaned affections, as this is a central theme in her poetry and prose. In "Meditations Divine and Moral" 38 (follow the link), Bradstreet describes her understanding of weaned affections. How does this issue play out in her poetry? You’ll want to consider "To My Dear and Loving Husband," "Contemplations," "Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666. Copied Out of a Loose Paper," and "As Weary Pilgrim" to address this question. All of these poems negotiate in one way or another between the attractions of the world and the prospect of a higher spiritual order. How does Bradstreet represent the relative appeals of the world and heaven?

¹ John Woodbridge, Epistle to the Reader, in The Works of Anne Bradstreet, ed. Jeannine Hensley. (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard UP, 1967) 3.