Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America's First Poet
When Anne Bradstreet (1612?-1672) published her first book of poetry,The Tenth Muse,in 1650, she called it the "ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain." Yet, as poet Gordon (Two Girls on a Raft) demonstrates in this plodding and unilluminating biography, Bradstreet uttered those words more out of self-defense than regret. From her adolescence to the publication of her book, the Puritan poet viewed her work as a vocation that enabled her to worship God in vivid homespun images and to express sometimes complex theological ideas in plain language. Gordon depicts Bradstreet as a woman of her time, required to submit to her father and husband in religious and social matters. Gordon demonstrates that Bradstreet nevertheless benefited from the privileges of a literary education. Her family's social and religious circle included the most important figures of the early 17th century, from John Winthrop to Roger Williams. While her book was very popular at its publication, Bradstreet's reputation waned after the Civil War, to be recovered in the 20th century by her influence on poets such as Anne Sexton and John Berryman. Regrettably, Gordon's wearisome focus on the well-known facts of Bradstreet's upbringing leaves little room for a significant exploration of her poetic life and works. 8 pages of b&w illus. not seen byPW.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.