Student Question
What events in Anne Bradstreet's life significantly shaped her poetry and what challenges did she face?
Quick answer:
Anne Bradstreet's poetry was significantly shaped by her challenging life in Colonial America, marked by fragile health, religious persecution, and the demands of motherhood. Her works often reflect her domestic life and strong Puritan faith. Despite facing criticism for writing as a woman, she published poems that conveyed deep personal feelings. Notable events like a devastating fire tested her faith, yet reinforced her belief that material possessions were secondary to spiritual wealth.
Both a meditative and a lyric poet, Anne Bradstreet lived a challenging life in Colonial America as a Puritan woman of fragile health, and as a mother of eight children.
Hardships were certainly not unfamiliar to Mrs. Bradstreet. As a child she
nearly died from smallpox, and her Puritan family suffered religious
persecution. At sixteen years old, Anne Dudley married Simon Bradstreet,
a graduate of Cambridge University, who later became one of the founders of the
Massachusetts Bay Company. As a Colonial woman, Anne was occupied with raising
children and dealing with the rather rugged conditions of life in a new, raw
country. Her domestic life, along with her strong religious faith, provided
topics for her poems.
Bradstreet did write poems of other genres such as epics, public and private elegies, dialogues, and love lyrics. Of course, as a woman who had the audacity to write and publish poems, some...
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of which even dared express her private feelings within the context of Puritanism, Mrs. Bradstreet faced much harsh criticism. Nevertheless, she had books of her poems published, and the lyricism, joy, and poignancy of her poetry was felt by all her family and others who read it.
In addition to the Bradstreets' coming to America and having a large family--four boys and four girls--there were other events which were monumental in their lives. One such incident was the tragic fire which burned the Bradstreets' home. Even in this poem which laments the family's loss, Bradstreet affirms her faith in God as she watches the flames consume her home, writing in the plain language of Puritans:
And when I could no longer look
I blest His name that gave and took.
That laid my goods now in the dust....
It was His own, it was not mine,
Far be it that I should repine;
He might of all justly bereft,
Yet sufficient for us left.
Also, in this poem Bradstreet acknowledges that worldly goods are not so important: "Yet by His gift [of life] /There's wealth enough."
Clearly, the religious faith and inner strength of Anne Bradstreet made her both a strong wife and loving mother, as well as the poet of great insight and feeling that she was.