To My Dear and Loving Husband

To my dear and loving husband
Anne Bradstreet –

Context
Anne Bradstreet was born in September 16th, 1612 in Northampton, England. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, a steward of the Earl of Lincoln, and Dorothy Yorke. Due to her families position she grew up in cultured circumstances and was a well-educated woman for her time, being tutored in history, several languages and literature. At the age of sixteen she married Simon. Both Anne’s father and husband were later to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne and Simon, along with Anne’s parents, emigrated to America abroad the Arbella as part of the Winthrop Fleet of Puritan emigrants in 1630. . She was the first poet and first female writer in the British North American colonies to be published. Her first volume of poetry was ‘The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America which was published in 1650. It was met with a positive reception in both the Old World and the New World. Despite poor health, she had eight children and achieved a comfortable social standing. Having previously been afflicted with smallpox as a teenager in England, Anne would once again fall prey to illness as paralysis overtook her joints in later years. On July 10th, 1666, their North Andover family home burned in a fire that left the Bradstreets homeless and with few personal belongings. By then, Anne’s health was slowly failing. She suffered from tuberculosis and had to deal with the loss of cherished relatives. But her will remained strong and as a reflection of her religious devotion and knowledge of Biblical scriptures, she found peace in the firm belief that her daughter-in-law Mercy and her grandchildren were in heaven. Anne Bradstreet died on September 16th, 1672 in North Andover, Massachusetts at the age of 60. The precise location of her grave is uncertain but many historians believe her body is in the Old Burying Ground at Academy Road in Osgood Street in North Andover.

Rhyme, Form and Meter
The poem is written in Iambic pentameter.
The scheme for this poem is: AABBCCDDEEFF – rhyming couplets. There is near rhyme with the “-en” sounds of “quench” and “recompense” rhyme, but “ch” and “se” sounds are hardly the same.
In this poem, the couplets reinforce the theme of love between two people. Bradstreet speaks as herself in this poem. To emphasize the wife and husband’s mutual love, the poet has used internal rhyme, parallelism, or phrases with repeated syntax.

The Title
"To My Dear and Loving Husband" is exactly a poem addressed to Anne Bradstreet's "dear and loving husband." The word "dear" refers to the speaker's feelings about her husband. Her husband is "dear" to her, which means she is very fond of him. The word "loving," on the other hand, refers to her husband himself (he is a very "loving" man). So the title then points to both the speaker's feeling and her husband's feelings, and illustrates in miniature what the poem claims: that the speaker and her husband are very deeply in love. They both feel the same way about each other, and have a pretty good, harmonious, marriage.

THE POEM - The first stanza presents her heartfelt feelings within a logical argument, the repeated use of if/then statements. - The second stanza releases the logical argument and becomes truly heartfelt with its metaphors and religious imagery. - The last stanza returns to the reasoned nature of the first stanza and concludes with a unique logical element, a paradox. Their love is so enduring that even in death it will survive.

The subject of Anne Bradstreet’s poem is her professed love for her husband. She praises him and asks the heavens to reward him for his love. The poem is a touching display of love and affection which is uncommon for the Puritan era of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in which Anne Bradstreet lived. The poem was written as a response to her husband’s absence.

- The opening lines of the poem show how strong her feelings are for her husband. Bradstreet shows this by the use of a paradox, “if two were one, then surely we.” This shows that the magnitude of her love and affection is so deep that she’s comparing two beings as one.
- She praises her love for her husband so much that she is challenging and stating that, “If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye woman, if you can.” The statement that “compare with me, ye woman, if you can” is Bradstreet challenging any woman to compare their happiness with hers. It has an imperative sentence structure and a challenging tone.
- noun “prize” Bradstreet is not only showing how blessed and satisfied she is, but also how she praises her husband like a trophy. She is not ashamed or reserved like the other puritan women.
- Bradstreet uses a hyperbole and imagery on likes 5-8 as she describes the love for her husband. “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense”
- Bradstreet shows how much love and affection she has for her husband, “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold”. Puritan woman are supposed to be reserved, domestic, and obedient to their husbands. Bradstreet is challenging this tradition, she is praising her husband and showing her loyalty and strong affection towards him.
- The archaism, ‘perserver’ suggests continuation after death.
- Repetition of the adverb, ‘ever’ and end focus of the word give the idea of eternity and ever lasting love.