The Portrayal of Anne Bradstreet

The Portrayal of Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet was America's first poetry writer to have her works published. She is one of the most famous American poets. Her first volume of poetry "The Tenth Muse" was the first literary element to be published by a woman in America. She was a puritan and grew up with a strong puritan father. Her puritan beliefs show in many of her works. She spent most of her time in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. When she first arrived in the colony she did not have a good first impression. She did not like it and had a strong feeling of resistance. She felt that it was God's plan for her though and she stuck to it. She kept many of her poems personal and private and did not let anyone read them. Her writings were very close to her and she cherished them. She married Simon Bradstreet a graduate of Cambridge University when she was only sixteen. Anne wrote many poems about the things in life that she loved and cherished the most. Many of her writings are about her husband, her children, and her experiences and tribulations in her life.

Anne expresses and shows the reader in many of her poems and writings that she was very much in love with her husband Simon Bradstreet. Anne's poem " To My Dear and Loving Husband" shows the best description of her love for her husband. When she says "If ever two were one, then surely we." (108) She is expressing that she feel that she is only half of what she could be without her husband. Her husband is her other half and makes her complete and whole. In the next line she goes on to say "If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;." This is her telling her husband that if it ever was a woman her loved her husband to pieces that it would be her. Anne expresses that she never wants to be apart from her husband and she wants to spend eternity with him. She expresses this in the last line when she says "That when we live no more, we may live forever." (108)

She wrote poems and also wrote a long letter to her children. She lets us know that her children and her husband are the biggest loves in her life. In the letter to her children she is trying to give them guidance. She is sick and giving them advice and the keys to succeed. She also presents a strong faith towards God. She tells them that they will not get far without faith and guidance from God. Anne also strives to her children in this letter that no one knows the future but God and only God.

Anne has to watch her granddaughter get buried and this grieves her very much. She expresses her grief and shows the compassion she had for her granddaughter. She says in the first two lines of the poem : Farewell dear babe, my heart's too much content,