Anne Bradstreet Poetry

While reading Anne Bradstreet’s poems, I found myself trying to go beyond what she was saying and capture exactly what she meant. As a Puritan woman, she was a deep writer which makes her different because women back in the 17th century were not able to express themselves as well as she did. Anne was very educated, using affluent vocabulary in her poetry. I found these poems interesting because of her use of words. I could tell these poems contained a lot of emotion.
Before I read each poem, I first looked and analyzed each title. I couldn’t quite get the title for the first poem. Though I do think it means “her story”. I believe this poem is referring to her life in general. In the first poem she says, “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain…” I think she is relating this to herself, maybe talking about an illness she has had since she was born. She also says “I washed my face, but more defects I saw”. I could tell she was not happy with something about herself. The second poem she starts off poignant and somewhat depressing. She refers to death and says that they will meet and it cannot be avoided; on the other hand, the title of the poem is Before the Birth of One of Her Children. I believe she feels like she is going to die after she had the baby. In this poem, she also refers to a last farewell. That statement really makes me believe she feels is going to die. The third poem she wrote to her husband. She really expresses her feelings toward him. There is a line in the poem where she compares her love for him and shows she’s very compassionate. “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold”. She refers to them as one and wants to be with him forever which somewhat goes against her Puritan beliefs.
Anne Bradstreet’s poetry definitely establishes pathos. She basically pours out her heart in her poetry. She tells about her struggles and what she’s going through. Her illness seems to take a major toll on her. Throughout the poems, it seems as if she’s writing a farewell letter and almost writing her own obituary. The audience reading these poems would feel the emotion she incorporates. Her writing is deep which makes the audience think deeper than the words. The persona is not different than the author. I know this because this is poetry about her life. She doesn’t have any characters in her poems to display her struggles.
I really enjoyed Anne Bradstreet’s poems. They were heartfelt and emotional. The poems taught me something about her as a person. When it came to her feelings about her husband and the love they had, the beliefs of her religion didn’t matter to her. She stood up for what she believes in and expresses her feelings the way she wanted. She is a great poet. I really appreciate her writing.