Anne Bradstreet Response

Anne Bradstreet…

In “The Author to Her Book” Anne Bradstreet uses a lot of metaphors to explain her feelings. She wrote her poems because her husband traveled a lot, due to his job. So to pass her time she wrote poetry. She kept them secret because in that time it was frowned upon that woman even had thoughts of their own. Her poems were based on life experience, love for her husband, and family. She wrote for herself, her family, and close circle of educated friends, and did not intend on publication. But one day her brother-in-law John Woodbridge copied her poems and took them to England where he had them published. “The Author to Her Book” talks about this experience.
In lines one and two she writes “Thou ill-filled of my feeble brain; who after birth didst my side remain” (lines 1-2). This is a metaphor for the poems that she wrote and the fact that she kept them secret so they were always by her side until “Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true” (line 3), which represented her brother-in-law secretly taking them and having them published in England “who thee abroad, exposed to public view” (lines 3 and 4). The poems were published in England “abroad” and so everyone there could see them “exposed to public view” and where they all could judge what she thought, felt, and experienced, “all may judge” (line 6).
“Thy visage so irksome in my sight; yet being my own” (lines 10 and 11) by this she meant that her poems were her things and they should only be seen been her. “Thy blemishes amend, if so I could I washed they face, but more defects I saw, and rubbing off a spot still made a flaw” (lines 12-14) There was always an imperfection to here. No matter how she edited it there was always something wrong with it to her. She didn’t think that it was that good for other people to read, especially since at that time women who created and aired their own views and opinions were frowned upon.
“In this array ‘mongst vulgars may’st thou roam, in critic’s hands beware thou dost not ccome, and take thy way where yet thou art not known” (lines 19-21). In these lines Bradstreet exposes that she doesn’t mind that her poems are exposed or read by the common people but she is firmly against critics reading her thoughts, emotions, and experiences. She doesn’t want it to be criticized by critics but enjoyed by people who may love it the most. People who may have experienced the same ups and downs as she did. “If for thy father asked; say thou hadst none; and for thy mother, she alas is poor, which caused her thus to send thee out the door”. (lines 22 – 24) It seems that by this she means that this may not be something that she wants her father to read or know about. Maybe because of the way women where treated. Or maybe she means the father of the poem, her husband, he doesn’t know about her poems and maybe she wants to keep it that way. And for the part about her mother being poor alas. She may either be referring to her actual mother or herself because she is the mother of this poem. She may be referring to the fact that she is very ill so she is poor alas.