Compare And Contrast Anne Bradstreet And Edwards

If we were to read about Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards’ lives, we would think they were fairly similar. Even though they both have devoted their lives to their Puritan religion, there is a notable difference in Bradstreet and Edwards’ writing styles and their view on the Puritan religion. They are both well respected writers from the early 1700s, but their writing styles are completely different. Bradstreet uses a great deal of figurative language and rhyming in her poems. This helps emphasize her use of emotional words or phrases. Her lines, "I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold/Or all the riches that the East doth hold.” (lines 5 and 6) from “To My Dear and Loving Husband” help express her emotion and feelings toward her
husband. Her poems are normally sad and her figurative language holds all the emotion. Edwards could not be any more different. While Bradstreet uses significant amounts of emotion and sadness, Edwards uses intense and scary words or phrases. He tries to get the attention of the reader by scaring them into focusing on what he has written. He is confident with what he is saying and also uses figurative language as examples. Edwards states, “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire…” (126 and 127). By combining both figurative language and the intense words, he catches even more interest. Edwards and Bradstreet both use figurative language and they might be the only element of their lives that is even comparable. Based off of their writings, they see their religion in different ways. Bradstreet did not know that her writings were ever going to be published so we have must think about the fact that she only wrote these for herself. In a way, she went against her religion by confessing her love for her husband in her poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband”. She states “My love is such that rivers cannot quench, /Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.” (lines 7 and 8). If she is truly a Puritan, she should only be feeling this love for her God. Also, it seems like after her house burns down in “Upon the Burning of Our House”, she is only acknowledging the fact that she has lost her prized items instead of realizing that everything happens for a reason. She cries, “Here stood that trunk and there that chest, /There lay that store I counted best./My pleasant things in ashes lie, /And them behold no more shall I./Under thy roof no guest shall sit, /Nor at thy table eat a bit.” (lines 25 through 30). Edwards, however, is very religious. He describes exactly how to get into hell and how easy it is. Instead of him describing heaven and all the good things to do, he describes hell and all the evil consequences that will happen if a sin is committed. He uses fear as a way to get the reader’s attention and prevent them from committing these sins. How much are they actually devoted to their religion?
Although Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards are both Puritan writers, they are not really anything alike. The differences are obvious in their view of their religion and their writing styles based off of Bradstreet’s writings “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and “Upon the Burning of Our House” and Edwards’ writings “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”.