A General Approach upon Anne Bradstreet's "The Author to her Book"

A general approch upon Anne Bradstreet's "The author to her book"

Puritans was the name given in the 16th century to the more extreme Protestants within the Church of England who thought the English Reformation had not gone far enough in reforming the doctrines and structure of the church; they wanted to purify their national church by eliminating every shred of Catholic influence.Early in the 17th century some Puritan groups separated from the Church of England. Among these were the Pilgrims, who in 1620 founded Plymouth Colony. Ten years later, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Bay Company, the first major Puritan migration to New England took place. The Puritans brought strong religious impulses to bear in all colonies north of Virginia, but New England was their stronghold, and the Congregationalist churches established there were able to perpetuate their viewpoint about a Christian society for more than 200 years.

The term "puritanism"is also unsed in a broder sense to refer to attitudes and values considered characteristic to Puritans.Thus,the Separatists in the 16th century, the Quakers in the 17th century, and Nonconformists after the Restoration may be called Puritans, although they were no longer part of the established church.

One of the puritan poets is Anne Bradstreet.She was born near Northampton,England, where her father,Thomas Dudley,was steward of the Puritan Earl of Lincoln.Anne Bradstreet was America’s first noteworthy poet in spite of the fact that she was a woman. Both the daughter and wife of Massachusetts governors, Bradstreet suffered all of the hardships of colonial life, was a mother, and still found time to write. Her poem, “The Author to Her Book,” is an example of Bradstreet’s excellent use of literary techniques while expressing genuine emotion and using domestic subject matter.

In Anne Bradstreet's poem "The Author to Her Book," the central metaphor is the image of a baby being born and cared for. The first effect of the birth imagery is to present the speaker's book as a reflection of what she sees in herself. Unfortunately, the "child" displays blemishes and crippling handicaps, which represent what the speaker sees as deep faults and imperfections in herself. She is not only embarrassed but ashamed of these flaws, even considering them "unfit for light". Although she is repulsed by its flaws, the speaker understands that her book is the offspring of her own "feeble brain", and the lamentable errors it displays are therefore her own.

When the speaker's book is returned by the publisher, the speaker's attempt to "wash (the) face" of her child only worsens the image of herself that she sees in it. Washing the child, rubbing off a blemish, and stretching its joints but failing to improve his imperfections all contribute to an image of the speaker rewriting her book, desperately trying to raise its quality up to her high standards, but discovering in the process that its imperfections and errors run too deep to be corrected, as do her own.

In the second half of the poem, a new facet of the speaker's attitude is displayed. In line seventeen, she wants to improve the ugliness of her "child" by giving him new clothes; however, she is too poor to do so, having "nought save homespun cloth" with which to dress her child. In the final stanza, the speaker reveals poverty as her motive for allowing her book to be sent to a publisher (sending her "child" out into the world) in the first place. This makes her attitude seem to contradict her actions. She is impoverished, yet she has sent her "child" out into the world to earn a living for her.

"The Author to Her Book" is dominated largely by a single metaphor: the portrayal of the speaker's book as a newborn baby with repulsive defects. This "baby"'s physical flaws mirror the speaker's own inner flaws, the existence of which explains why her decision to submit her book for publication contradicts her feelings of shame and embarrassment toward the work Anne Bradstreet's poem, Her first two lines early off allude to a parental comparison by the words offspring and birth."The Author to her Book", is a twenty-four-line metaphor comparing the relationship of an author and her writings to the relationship between a parent and a child. The meaning of this lighthearted poem can clearly be seen as she traces the growth of a piece of work to the growth of the child. The significance of the poem, however, lies in the fact that this poem is a glimpse of the emotions felt by Anne Bradstreet an American female poet, and how it conflicts with the puritan society that frowns upon her appreciation of her talents and role as a poet.