Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Poem analysis
In “The Author to Her Book,” Bradstreet is awash in indecision and internal conflicts over the merits and shortfalls of her creative abilities and the book that she produced. This elaborate internal struggle between pride and shame is manifested through a painstaking conceit in which she likens her book to her own child. An essential step in analyzing a poem is to provide a structural outline of the poem. Anne Bradstreet’s poem, “The Author to Her Book,” can be divided into seven sections. First, line one provides the general description of how she views her creation. She repeatedly speaks directly to her work in apostrophe, as if it were her own child. Second, lines two through five depict how she feels embarrassed that her private works were published without her consent and before she was finished editing and correcting them. Then in lines six through nine, Bradstreet equates the embarrassment she feels due to her as-yet-unperfected work to the shame a parent feels due to an ill-tempered child. She continues in line 10 through 14 to tell her desire to erase any error in the poem, but in lines 15 through 17 she realizes that this cannot be done because it is already in print. Finally in lines 19 and 20, a mother’s unconditional love shows as she sends her child away with admonitions. In the end, Bradstreet leaves her child with the thought, be known for your own value. A second step in analyzing a poem is to identify the main idea or point of the poem. In “The Author to ...
Anne Bradstreet’s inability to perfect her work before it was released frustrated her to the point where she internalizes the book’s imperfections as a reflection of herself. Bradstreet uses an extended metaphor of a mother and a child to compare the relationship between herself as the author and her book. Rather than investing her spirit in God, she repeatedly focuses on trying to improve the quality of her writing with no success, “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw” (Bradstreet 13). Like a mother protecting her child, Bradstreet’s attempts to prevent critics from negatively analyzing her work of art (20). Her continuous obsession about people’s opinions consumed in the Earthly world and essentially distracted her from developing a spiritual relationship with God. Bradstreet was enveloped by her dissatisfaction with her to the point of ridiculing herself, “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble mind” (1). It was obvious that her mind and spiritual
Bradstreet was a Puritan and was therefore raised with a simplistic view of the world. This, combined with the fact that she was a woman, carried over into her way of writing. Her writing style was not eloquent but plain, humble, and pleasant to read. Her poems dealt with topics such as faith, family, and adversity and were easy to understand. Bradstreet had great faith which she gained through the experiences she encountered in life.
In Anne Bradstreet's poem "The Author to Her Book," the controlling metaphor is the image of a baby being born and cared for. This birth imagery expresses the complex attitude of the speaker by demonstrating that the speaker's low regard for her own work and her actions are contradictory.
In all of Bradstreet’s works she is constantly expressing herself through her figurative language that whoever reads the poetry can’t help but sense the feelings through any piece. An...
Anne Bradstreet is seen as a true poetic writer for the seventeenth century. She exhibits a strong Puritan voice and is one of the first notable poets to write English verse in the American colonies. Bradstreet’s work symbolizes both her Puritan and feminine ideals and appeals to a wide audience of readers. American Puritan culture was basically unstable, with various inchoate formations of social, political, and religious powers competing publicly. Her thoughts are usually on the reality surrounding her or images from the Bible. Bradstreet’s writing is that of her personal and Puritan life. Anne Bradstreet’s individualism lies in her choice of material rather than in her style.
The speakers and audience in poem are crucial elements of the poem and is also the case in these poems. In the poem Untitled, it can be argued that the poem is being written by Peter based on what his father might say to him...
...e from her love to the world. Perhaps, she believed that in this love of her, she became God-like and God thus punishes her. Nevertheless, the presence of God in her poems is more than clear. Perhaps, it was due to religious beliefs that she though that it was wrong to feel too strong feelings to world and she considered herself to be a sinner who deserves punishment. Today, there are few followers of Bradstreet, but she, her ideas and her thoughts about sufferings still remain in modern books.
When Bradstreet’s next grandchild, Anne, passed away, she was unable to resist it. She lost her control and become disappointed. She wrote a poem under “In Memory of My dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet, Who Deceased June 20, 1669.”5 The poem starts with the speaker
After almost four decades ago Anne Bradstreet wrote her two now famous poems “To My Dear Loving Husband” and “Upon the Burning of Our House”. Today, we recognize these poems as one of the first women’s writing to be published. Although today we admire Anne Bradstreet’s poems four decades ago people did not have the same opinion. With the Puritans strongly disapproving of women writers think that at one point the Puritan community found Anne Bradstreet’s poems praise worthy because in her poems and writing she shows over and over how she loves her husband and how she loves God even after he was responsible for burning down her house and all of her possessions. Puritans would give Anne Bradstreet’s poems praise for example, “I prize thy love
The construction of the poem is in regular four-line stanzas, of which the first two stanzas provide the exposition, setting the scene; the next three stanzas encompass the major action; and the final two stanzas present the poet's reflection on the meaning of her experience.
The speaker reflects on the teenage girl’s childhood as she recalls the girl played with “dolls that did pee-pee” (2). This childish description allows the speaker to explain the innocence of the little girl. As a result, the reader immediately feels connected to this cute and innocent young girl. However, the speaker’s diction evolves as the girl grew into a teenager as she proclaims: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). The speaker applies polished language to illustrate the teen. This causes the reader not only to see the girl as an adult, but also to begin to grasp the importance of her situation. The speaker expresses what the bullies told this girl as she explains: “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty” (12-13). The sophisticated diction shifts towards the girl’s oppressors and their cruel demands of her. Because of this, the reader is aware of the extent of the girl’s abuse. The speaker utilizes an intriguing simile as she announces: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). The maturity of the speaker’s word choice becomes evident as she uses a simile a young reader would not understand. This keeps the mature reader focused and allows him to fully understand the somberness of this poem. The speaker concludes the poem as she depicts the teenage girl’s appearance at her funeral: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay / with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (19-20). The speaker elects not to describe the dead girl in an unclear and ingenuous manner. Rather, she is very clear and
Bradstreet, Anne. “The Prologue”, “The Author to Her Book”, “Before The Birth Of One Of
Bradstreet established the comparison of a mother to a child at the beginning of the poem when she mentions her ‘offspring’, meaning her book. The author believes that her book is ‘ill-formed’ and immature and is embarrassed by her work. The author is ashamed because she believes that her book is a reflection of herself, just as children are thought to be a reflection of their parents. The author’s friends ‘snatched’ her book from her and brought it to a publisher without her consent. The act of ‘snatching’ is a negative activity, however, it was done by ‘friends’ who are mainly positive influences in one’s life. This conflicted attitude of positive and negative actions allows for the metaphor of control to be present.
The New Critics, just like Wimsatt and Beardsley put forward in their essay, also believed in the ‘organicity’ of the text. In the essay, they write, “A poem should not mean but be.” And, since the meaning of the poem or the text is the medium through which it can exist, and words, in turn, is the medium through which the meaning is expressed, the poem or the text b...
In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference. South Africa, one of the most advanced countries in Africa, with a thriving economy based on technology and agriculture, is currently facing a downward slope in terms of water availability.