Anne Bradstreet
Anne Bradstreet was among the most prominent of early English poets of North America and the first writer in England's North American colonies to be published. She is the first Puritan figure in American literature and notable for her large corpus of poetry, as well as personal writings published posthumously.
Born to a wealthy Puritan family in Northampton, England, Bradstreet was a well-read scholar especially affected by the works of Du Bartas. She was married at sixteen, and her parents and young family migrated at the time of the founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. A mother of eight children and the wife and daughter of public officials in New England, Bradstreet wrote poetry in addition to her other duties.
Her early works are less distinctive, but her later writings developed into her unique style of poetry which centers on her role as a mother, her struggles with the sufferings of life, and her Puritan faith. While her works were initially considered primarily of historical significance, she reached posthumous acclaim in the 20th century. Her first collection, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, was widely read in America and England.
Background
Bradstreet is described as "an educated English woman, a kind, loving wife, devoted mother, Empress Consort of Massachusetts, a questing Puritan and a sensitive poet."Bradstreet's first volume of poetry was The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, published in 1650. It was met with a positive reception in both the Old World and the New World.
Life
Anne was born in Comton, England in 1612, the daughter of Thomas Dudley, a steward of the Earl of Lincoln, and Dorothy Yorke.Due to her family's position, she grew up in cultured circumstances and was a well-educated woman for her time, being tutored in history, several languages, and literature. At the age of sixteen she married Simon Bradstreet. Both Anne's father and husband were later to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne and Simon, along with Anne's parents, emigrated to America aboard the Arbella as part of the Winthrop Fleet of Puritan emigrants in 1630.
She first came to the Americas on June 14, 1630, at what is now Pioneer Village in Salem, Massachusetts, with Simon, her parents, and other voyagers as part of the Puritan migration to New England. Upon their arrival, they found that many of the colonists had died from illness or starvation the previous winter. Her family shared a one-room house with very little furniture or supplies.
The Bradstreet family soon moved again, this time to what is now Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1632, Anne had her first child, Samuel, in "Newe Towne," as it was then called. Despite poor health, she had eight children and achieved a comfortable social standing. Having previously been afflicted with smallpox as a teenager in England, Anne would once again fall prey to illness as paralysis overtook her joints in later years. In the early 1640s, Simon once again pressed his wife, pregnant with her sixth child, to move for the sixth time, from Ipswich, Massachusetts, to Andover Parish. North Andover is that original town founded in 1646 by the Stevens, Osgood, Johnson, Farnum, Barker, and Bradstreet families, among others. Anne and her family resided in the Old Center of what is now North Andover, Massachusetts.
Both Anne's father and her husband were instrumental in the founding of Harvard University in 1636; her father was a founder, and her husband an overseer. Two of her sons, Samuel and Simon, were graduates. In October 1997, the Harvard community dedicated a gate in memory of her as America's first published poet. The gate was dedicated on the 25th anniversary of women being allowed in the Harvard Yard dorms. The Bradstreet Gate is located next to Canaday Hall in Harvard Yard.
In 1650, Rev. John Woodbridge had The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America composed by "A Gentlewoman from Those Parts" published in London, making Anne the first female poet ever published in both England and the New World. On July 10, 1666, their North Andover family home burned in a fire that left the Bradstreets homeless and with few personal belongings. Recent archaeological excavation may have located the site of this homestead, which had been the subject of uncertainty over the centuries. By then, Anne's health was slowly failing. She suffered from tuberculosis and had to deal with the loss of cherished relatives. But her will remained strong and as a reflection of her religious devotion and knowledge of the Bible, she found peace in the firm belief that her daughter-in-law Mercy and her grandchildren were in heaven.
Anne Bradstreet died on September 16, 1672, in North Andover, Massachusetts, at the age of 60. The precise location of her grave is uncertain but many historians believe her body is in the Old Burying Ground at Academy Road and Osgood Street in North Andover. In 1676, four years after the death of Anne, Simon Bradstreet married for a second time to a woman also named Anne. In 1697, Simon died and was buried in Salem. This area of the Merrimack Valley is today described as "The Valley of the Poets."
A marker in the North Andover cemetery commemorates the 350th anniversary of the publishing of The Tenth Muse in London in 1650. That site and the Bradstreet Gate at Harvard, the memorial and pamphlets inside the Ipswich Public Library in Ipswich, MA, as well as the Bradstreet Kindergarten in North Andover may be the only places in America honoring her memory.
Writing
Background
Anne Bradstreet's education gave her advantages that allowed her to write with authority about politics, history, medicine, and theology. Her personal library of books was said to have numbered over 800, although many were destroyed when her home burned down. This event itself inspired a poem titled "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666". At first, she rejects the anger and grief that this worldly tragedy has caused her; she looks toward God and the assurance of heaven as consolation, saying:However, in opposition to her Puritan ways, she also shows her human side, expressing the pain this event had caused her, that is, until the poem comes to its end:
Image:Bradstreet first edition.jpg|thumb|right|220px|Title page, second edition of Bradstreet's poems, 1678
As a younger poet, Bradstreet wrote five quaternions, epic poems of four parts each that explore the diverse yet complementary natures of their subject. Much of Bradstreet's poetry is based on observation of the world around her, focusing heavily on domestic and religious themes, and was considered by Cotton Mather "a monument to her memory beyond the stateliest marble". Long considered primarily of historical interest, she won critical acceptance in the 20th century as a writer of enduring verse, particularly for her sequence of religious poems "Contemplations", which was written for her family and not published until the mid-19th century.
Nearly a century later, Martha Wadsworth Brewster, a notable 18th-century American poet and writer, in her principal work, Poems on Diverse Subjects, was influenced and pays homage to Bradstreet's verse.
Despite the traditional attitude toward women of the time, she clearly valued knowledge and intellect; she was a free thinker and some consider her an early feminist; unlike the more radical Anne Hutchinson, however, Bradstreet's feminism does not reflect heterodox, antinomian views.
In 1647, Bradstreet's brother-in-law, Rev. John Woodbridge, sailed to England, carrying her manuscript of poetry. Although Anne later said that she did not know Woodbridge was going to publish her manuscript, in her self-deprecatory poem, ""The Author to Her Book"", she wrote Woodbridge a letter while he was in London, indicating her knowledge of the publication plan. Anne had little choice, however—as a woman poet, it was important for her to downplay her ambitions as an author. Otherwise, she would have faced criticism for being "unwomanly." Anne's first work was published in London as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America "by a Gentlewoman of those Parts".
The purpose of the publication appears to have been an attempt by devout Puritan men to show that a godly and educated woman could elevate her position as a wife and mother, without necessarily placing her in competition with men. In 1678, her self-revised was posthumously published in America, and included one of her most famous poems, "To My Dear and Loving Husband". This volume is owned by the Stevens Memorial Library of North Andover and resides in the Houghton Library vault at Harvard.
A quotation from Bradstreet can be found on a plaque at the Bradstreet Gate in Harvard Yard: "I came into this Country, where I found a new World and new manners at which my heart rose." Unfortunately the plaque seems to be based on a misinterpretation; the following sentence is "But after I was convinced it was the way of God, I submitted to it and joined to the church at Boston." This suggests her heart rose up in protest rather than in joy.
Role of women
Marriage played a large role in the lives of Puritan women. In Bradstreet's poem, "To My Dear And Loving Husband," she reveals that she is one with her husband. "If ever two were one, then surely we." The Puritans believed marriage to be a gift from God. In another of Bradstreet's works, "Before the Birth of One of Her Children", Bradstreet acknowledges God's gift of marriage in the lines, "And if I see not half my days that's due, what nature would, God grant to yours, and you".Throughout "Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment," Bradstreet states how she feels lost when her husband is not around and that life is always better when he is around. In Bradstreet's poems, it can be assumed she truly loved her husband and missed him when he was away from her and the family. Bradstreet does not resent her husband for leaving her with the family and with all of the household needs; she just misses him and wants him back with her.
Various works of Bradstreet are dedicated to her children. In works such as "Before the Birth of One of Her Children" and "In Reference to Her Children", Bradstreet articulated the love that she has for her children, both unborn and born. In Puritan society, children were also gifts from God, and she loved and cared for all of her children just as she loved and cared for her husband. She always believes they too are bound with her to make "one."