Anne Bradstreet's Verses Upon The Burning Of Our House

Anne Bradstreet was a woman of the Puritan period (1612-1672) where, women were expected to do the household chores and take care of the children. She wanted to express her feelings, thoughts, concern, and emotions of her life by writing in the form of poems. Her poems consisted of settlement, family, home life, surroundings, nature, role of women and religious belief. She believed that anything that caused pain to her was by Gods will. Her poems talk about the people close to her life.
Anne Bradstreet’s poems convey a personal feeling about her life and believable to the reader. For example, in her poem “Verses upon the Burning of our House” her house had burnt down and she does feel bad about it, but believed it was the will of God to take away the material things with what she was attached to. She thought, God was teaching her a lesson not to get attached to the materialistic things and that to set her heart above. “Raise up thy thoughts above the sky. That dunghill mists away may fly. Thou hast an house in high erect, framed by that mighty architect”. (Line 41-44) She was not the only person to have strong faith, but every Puritan during that period strongly believed God.
Anne Bradstreet lived during the puritan time when, the people had a strong belief in the bible.
Their basic morale was they were born sinners. They believed those who were sinners and the ones who were not and did good would also suffer and die. This signifies how they carried on their livelihood by having powerful faith in God. In the poem “For deliverance from a fever” she wept and asked God not to hide his face. She believed God knew her heart and if she died that her soul should be offered before him. “Hide not thy face from me!” I cried! From burnings keep my soul. Thou know’st my heart, and hast me tried; I on thy mercies roll”. (Line 13-16) This was the culture of the puritans who presumed that their pain would bring them closer to
god.
Anne Bradstreet’s father was an influential man in her life. Because of him she began to write poems for the education she gained. She appreciates her father for teaching her during childhood in the poem “To her father with some verses”. As Anne Bradstreet grew up, she noticed and believed the dreams and desires of the women shattered by men. Women were to look after the house, relatives, and children and, meet the husband’s needs. She was distracted by the culture that was common at her time. Because of the education that she gained, it helped her to communicate and organize the ideas related to her in the form of poems though she was a puritan. She also began writing to let people know, women can also achieve their aspirations.
By reading Anne Bradstreet poems the reader has the idea of the puritan life. Her works are important as it illustrates her hardships struggled to be a woman. She expressed her feelings in the form of poems that charms the present day readers. Her poems show that women must be given education and the political and social equality for women. She wanted to bring about change in the society and the thinking of the people for women by expressing her thoughts through the poems during the Puritan period.