page_title: Anne Bradstreet
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Anne Bradstreet / Writing / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: "The Tenth Muse," a collection of poems and writings by American poet Anne Bradstreet.
context_page_description: Anne Bradstreet was the most prominent of early English poets of North America and first writer in England's North American colonies to be published. She is the first Puritan figure in American Literature and notable for her large corpus of poetry, as well as personal writings published posthumously.
  Born to a wealthy Puritan family in Northampton, England, Bradstreet was a well-read scholar especially affected by the works of Du Bartas. Married at 16, her parents and young family migrated at the time of the founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. A mother of eight children and the wife and daughter of a public officials in New England, Bradstreet wrote poetry in addition to her other duties. Her early works read in the style of Du Bartas, but her later writings develop into her unique style of poetry which centers on her role as a mother, her struggles with the sufferings of life, and her Puritan faith. Her first collection, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, was widely read in America and England.
context_section_description: Anne Bradstreet's education gave her advantages that allowed her to write with authority about politics, history, medicine, and theology. Her personal library of books was said to have numbered over 9000, although many were destroyed when her home burned down. This event itself inspired a poem titled "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666". At first, she rejects the anger and grief that this worldly tragedy has caused her;she looks toward God and the assurance of heaven as consolation, saying:
  And when I could no longer look,
  
  I blest His grace that gave and took,
  
  That laid my goods now in the dust.
  
  Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.
  
  It was his own; it was not mine.
  
  Far be it that I should repine.
  However, in opposition to her Puritan ways, she also shows her human side, expressing the pain this event had caused her, that is, until the poem comes to its end: 
  Farewell my pelf; farewell my store. 
  
  The world no longer let me love
  
  My hope, and treasure lies above.
  As a younger poet, Bradstreet wrote five quaternions, epic poems of four parts each (see works below) that explore the diverse yet complementary natures of their subject. Much of Bradstreet's poetry is based on observation of the world around her, focusing heavily on domestic and religious themes, and was considered by Cotton Mather a monument to her memory beyond the stateliest marble. Long considered primarily of historical interest, she won critical acceptance in the 20th century as a writer of enduring verse, particularly for her sequence of religious poems "Contemplations", which was written for her family and not published until the mid-19th century. Bradstreet's work was deeply influenced by the poet Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, who was favored by 17th-century readers.
  Nearly a century later, Martha Wadsworth Brewster, a notable 18th-century American poet and writer, in her principal work, Poems on Diverse Subjects, was influenced and pays homage to Bradstreet's verse.
  Despite the traditional attitude toward women of the time, she clearly valued knowledge and intellect; she was a free thinker and some consider her an early feminist; unlike the more radical Anne Hutchinson, however, Bradstreet's feminism does not reflect heterodox, antinomian views.  Based on her poems, Bradstreet could also be considered to be a complementarian. An example of this is in her poem "In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory", in which she praises Queen Elizabeth as proof that the common perceptions men held about women were wrong. She tends to focus on Elizabeth's ability to excel in more masculine areas, such as war, as we see in the lines below.
  Her Victories in foreign Coasts resound?
  
  Ships more invincible than Spain's, her foe
  
  She rack't, she sack'd, she sunk his Armadoe.
  
  Her stately Troops advanc'd to Lisbon's wall,
  
  Don Anthony in's right for to install.
  
  She frankly help'd Franks' (brave) distressed King,
  
  The States united now her fame do sing.
  In 1647 Bradstreet's brother-in-law, Rev. John Woodbridge, sailed to England, carrying her manuscript of poetry. Although Anne later said that she did not know Woodbridge was going to publish her manuscript, in her self-deprecatory poem, ""The Author to Her Book"", she wrote Woodbridge a letter while he was in London, indicating her knowledge of the publication plan. Anne had little choice, however— as a woman poet, it was important for her to downplay her ambitions as an author. Otherwise, she would have faced criticism for being "unwomanly." Anne's first work was published in London as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America "by a Gentlewoman of those Parts".
  The purpose of the publication appears to have been an attempt by devout Puritan men (i.e. Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet, John Woodbridge) to show that a godly and educated woman could elevate her position as a wife and mother, without necessarily placing her in competition with men.
  In 1678 her self-revised Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning was posthumously published in America, and in
caption: Title page, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, printed at London, 1650
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