Summary Of The Author To Her Book By Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet uses reverse psychology in the poem “The author to her book” by criticizing and rejecting her own poems. Since Bradstreet wants to receive encouragement, she creates a sense of pity towards herself so that the audience would not have a need to do it. Reverse psychology is a method in which someone does the opposite of what it is being suggested in order for that person to actually do what the other really wants or desires. Throughout the poem, Bradstreet proceeds in describing her book of poems as a flawed one, but it is uncertain if she really meant it. She portrays her book as an “ill-form’d offspring of [her] feeble brain” (Bradstreet 1). This book which represents Bradstreet’s child is considered to be an ugly creation of her brain that

At the end of the poem, Bradstreet says” If for thy father askt, say, thou hadst none: And for thy Mother she alas is poor, which caus’d her thus to send thee out of door” (Bradstreet 22-24). There was no male intervention in the creation of this poem, she is the only one who created the poem. As Bradstreet mentions, she is poor, so she sold her poems because she needed the money. If she sold her poems, she knew that they were good enough that she will even receive money for them. Throughout the poem, she emphasizes in criticizing her poems and she also affirms that “[she] cast thee by as one unfit for light” (Bradstreet 9). According to Bradstreet, her poems should not be shown to people because they are not good and therefore will be judged, but still, after everything she said in the poem, she sold them for money, and she knew that she would get the money because her poems are actually great, and the only thing she wanted was people to praise her work. Bradstreet liked her poems and her way of receiving encouragement was a good method because people love her work and she is a very admirable and well-known