The Author to Her Book: Anne Bradstreet’s Significant Uses of Diction
The Author to Her Book: Anne Bradstreet’s Significant Uses of Diction
After reading Anne Bradstreet’s, The Author to Her Book, I initially understood the poem to explain a complex feeling of the speakers’ disdain and love, but mostly disdain towards her child. I knew there was something more to this poem; I was drawn in so much further than the first understanding I got from it. I originally didn’t notice the title, and with the title came a whole other dimension, or layer. I then interpreted the author is not only explaining her struggles to finish a physical book, but also allowing the reader insight to her internal conflict of struggling to ultimately love and trust herself by externalizing as a book. This resonated with me. I wanted to have more of an intimate relationship with the Bradstreet, so I looked into her background. I was interested in the period she was writing, her culture, and her influences. Also, in literature, and particularly in poetry it is essential to understand the various layers of meaning assigned to words. So I found it significantly helpful to research certain words in the poem such as “feeble,” “feet,” “trim,” and “vulgar,” to understand their function in key phrases. My research involved the denotation, the etymology, and the connotations of these words. For me, this knowledge then orchestrated a clearer picture of the poem.
Anne Bradstreet deemed herself an American poet in the 1600’s, she was a puritan mother of eight children, and was the first women poet published in England and in America. She was strong in her religious beliefs, had pride in America, yet not so much in her home country of England, and can be considered an early feminist for having valued knowledge, and was a free thinker, in spite of the expectations for women at the time. She faced criticisms as a women poet, and so kept her ambitions a secret (Poets.org).
The Author to Her Book is Bradstreet’s preface to the second edition of the Tenth Muse and it
After reading Anne Bradstreet’s, The Author to Her Book, I initially understood the poem to explain a complex feeling of the speakers’ disdain and love, but mostly disdain towards her child. I knew there was something more to this poem; I was drawn in so much further than the first understanding I got from it. I originally didn’t notice the title, and with the title came a whole other dimension, or layer. I then interpreted the author is not only explaining her struggles to finish a physical book, but also allowing the reader insight to her internal conflict of struggling to ultimately love and trust herself by externalizing as a book. This resonated with me. I wanted to have more of an intimate relationship with the Bradstreet, so I looked into her background. I was interested in the period she was writing, her culture, and her influences. Also, in literature, and particularly in poetry it is essential to understand the various layers of meaning assigned to words. So I found it significantly helpful to research certain words in the poem such as “feeble,” “feet,” “trim,” and “vulgar,” to understand their function in key phrases. My research involved the denotation, the etymology, and the connotations of these words. For me, this knowledge then orchestrated a clearer picture of the poem.
Anne Bradstreet deemed herself an American poet in the 1600’s, she was a puritan mother of eight children, and was the first women poet published in England and in America. She was strong in her religious beliefs, had pride in America, yet not so much in her home country of England, and can be considered an early feminist for having valued knowledge, and was a free thinker, in spite of the expectations for women at the time. She faced criticisms as a women poet, and so kept her ambitions a secret (Poets.org).
The Author to Her Book is Bradstreet’s preface to the second edition of the Tenth Muse and it
Cited: "Anne Bradstreet." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. Arp, Thomas R., Greg Johnson, and Laurence Perrine. "Chapter Five: The Author to Her Book - Anne Bradstreet." Perrine 's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. 731+. Print. Conrey, Sean M. "Welcome to the Purdue OWL." Purdue OWL: Pattern and Variation: Aural. N.p., 03 Apr. 2013. Web. "Discover the Story of EnglishMore than 600,000 Words, over a Thousand Years." Home : Oxford English Dictionary. N.p., n.d. Web. "Trim." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. .