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Anne Bradstreet
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Even as Puritanism mandated self-subordination to God, Anne Bradstreet invested herself in numerous roles, among them not only dutiful daughter and Puritan, but also devoted wife, mother, grandmother, poet, admirer of nature, and advocate of womens worth. Numerous attempts to hold one of these positions over others suggest efforts to disclose the "real" Anne Bradstreet, but such readings tend toward simplification of her complexity. Needless to say, however, Bradstreet predates the twentieth-century decentering of the self by some 300 years. ... Yet in response to the strictures of her era, Bradstreet cultivates her identity of self, in a manner both deliberate and intricate. ... In subsequent poems, Bradstreet reacts against patriarchys same restraints on herself by engaging in disparate roles one at a time. ... Bradstreet negotiates this conflict between self-assertion and its prohibition through various aspects of the performative that she employs in the quaternions. ...
At the conclusion of the quaternions dedication to her father, Bradstreet breaks into a separate couplet that shifts from first person, used throughout the poem, into third person: "From her that to yourself more duty owes / Than water in the boundless ocean flows". This ending marks a split between Bradstreet in the prescribed role of dutiful daughter, and Bradstreet speaking about herself as the poet who writes what follows. ... In these initial variations on the idea of the performative, Bradstreet first engages in a real interest as if merely playing a role, then conveys the impression of fulfilling an expected role while simultaneously undermining it. ... By keeping open these alternatives, however, between natural weakness and imposed debilitation, Bradstreet strongly implies that patriarchal suppression accounts for womens assumed inferiority. ... Setting up a contrast between her unrefined substance--her inherent yet disallowed capacities--and the glittering surface of eminent mens writing, Bradstreet attributes a superficial quality to the latter that her less polished verse makes shine by comparison. ...
With "A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment," Bradstreet goes even further by invoking the pagan zodiac, expressing desire for time not to bring the death that begins eternal life. ... In a different poem entitled "Another," Bradstreet states outright that with her husband gone, "I lead a joyless life". ... Bradstreet describes herself in the quaternions dedication to her father as "her that to yourself more duty owes / Than water in the boundless ocean flows"; she likewise begins "To the Memory of My Dear and Ever Honoured Father Thomas Dudley" with the phrase "By duty bound. ... Dorothy Bradstreet" likewise praises her mothers virtuous life, Mrs. Bradstreet leaves her daughter "a blessed memory" rather than an insurmountable debt. Dwelling on her female parent, Bradstreet becomes free to focus not on a subordinate relationship, but on her mothers accomplishments.
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Paper Information
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Title: Anne Bradstreet
Words: 2231
Rating: None
Pages: 8.9
submitted by: GreatE
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