Anne Bradstreet - Poetry

Hello everyone and welcome to this mini lecture on Anne Bradstreet and an introduction to her poetry. So Anne Bradstreet is probably best known as the first poet of North America and she so happens to also be the first woman poet of North America. She was born in 1612 and she was originally born in England and she eventually moves to Massachusetts with her husband. And so she's the first, I guess we can say, published poet. I would imagine there were other people writing that did come to America but their work has either been lost or was never actually published. And as a person of the time, regardless of whether she is a woman or not, she's very well read and educated. There was some reports and some discussion of her having a very substantial library in her house and it's unfortunate at one point her house burns and some of that is lost. And what's interesting is even though she's a poet, or at least we remember her as a poet, her primary role in that time, in the 1600s, was that of a housewife. She raised the children, she took care of the home while her husband went off and was often involved in the politics and was a preacher and was very busy with various business affairs. So some of her stuff was published while she was alive but also there's other material that was discovered after she died and that was published too. So during her time she publishes the 10th Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America, in 1650. Which if we look at her age, we're looking at she's 38, by this point she has probably had at least a half a dozen children. And that's not an exaggeration, if I remember correctly she had I want to say 7 or 8 children, not all of them surviving to adulthood but she does have a reasonable amount of children. On the right here, this image is the front piece to that book of poetry, the 10th Muse. And it's worth looking at the description that it gives, several poems compiled with great variety of wit. When you see that VV, that's actually supposed to be the W. And learning, full of delight, wherein especially, and again there whenever you see an F in old writing it's actually an S, or sometimes it's an F but usually it's an S. So wherein especially is contained a complete discourse and description of the four elements, constitutions, ages of man, seasons of the year, together with an exact epitome of the four monarchies, vis the Assyrian, the Persian, Grecan, or Grecian in Roman. Also a dialogue between Old England and New England concerning the late Troubles, with diverse other pleasant and serious poems, by a gentle woman in those parts. So it's a very interesting front piece describing what's within the book, but also kind of a little bit about Bradstreet herself. So some of the major elements within Bradstreet's poetry include wit and attitude, we'll see when we look at the prologue, there's this just very, this attempt to flip things into, you know, for a woman of the time, Bradstreet has some very, very interesting ways of poking fun at society and those who undermine her or believe she isn't worth her writing. We also have some really interesting poetry of hers in which she's grappling the inner battle. And what I mean by this is really kind of thinking about, you know, temptation and what temptation looks like and how do you overcome it. There's just some really interesting and well-worded poetry of hers that play around with this idea. Of course, love. She has one of the most quoted love songs, love poems that are, that is around from those times, and it's certainly one of the ones that we read. And then she has a lot of poetry that's on birth and death, and this makes a lot of sense. As a woman of the 1600s, she was not oblivious to birth and death. In fact, she writes a poem to her child, believing, to her unborn child, believing that either she or the child may die before the child is born, right? We're dealing with a time in which infant mortality is high, and women, many women know or fear that giving birth is a potential death sentence, could potentially kill them. There are lots of complications, and there's lots of potential for that to occur. So let's take a look at the prologue and kind of play around with what's going on, or just get a brief sense of what Bradstreet is doing in her poetry. So this is the prologue. To sing of wars, of captains and of kings, of cities founded, commonwealths begun, for my mean pen are two superior things, or how they all, or each, their dates have run. Let poets and historians set these forth, my obscure lines shall not dim their worth. So what she's setting up right here is really attempting to undermine her writing before somebody else does, right? So she's talking about to sing of wars and captains of cities commonwealths begun, for my mean pen, and mean here doesn't mean a bad or malicious pen, it means an average, right? Mean is one other word for average, are two superior things. So she's saying all those things are above me, they're not, they're not, I cannot even touch those things. She's saying let poets and historians set these forth, and by giving those capital P and capital H, those official people, not herself. She's just this person writing, as she says in the bottom line, obscure lines, but her obscure lines should not dim the worth of other poems, right? So she's saying let me have mine, let them have theirs, I'm just writing what I'm writing, I'm not trying to capture what these other people are doing. I don't hold a light to their power. From schoolboy's tongue, no rhetoric we expect, nor yet a sweet concert from broken strings, no perfect beauty wears a main defect. My foolish, broken, blemished muse so sings, and this to mend, alas, no art is able, cause nature made it so irreparable. So again, here she's really playing with the reader, saying, you know, we don't expect a schoolboy to have perfect rhetoric, we don't expect any concert, any beautiful music to come from an instrument with broken strings, nor do we expect perfect beauty when there's a clear defect, so don't expect that from me, she says, right? My foolish, broken, blemished muse so sings, right? So she's telling you, nope, again, I'm not that valuable, and so what she's doing here is really, you know, is setting those low expectations. She's telling the reader, nope, nope, sorry, you're not going to find great work here, it's just, you know, myself who, no art is able, who, you know, and I'm not a great artist because nature made it that way, nature made me this way and therefore it cannot happen. I am obnoxious to each carping tongue who says my hand and needle fits better, a poet's pen all scorned I should thus wrong, for such despite they cast on female wits, if I do prove well, it won't advance, they'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance. So here she's starting to turn that conversation, and she's saying, okay, you know, people are saying I should be sewing, people are saying I should be doing all these things, and fine, I get, you know, this is Brad, she's saying fine, I get that. A poet's pen all scorned I should thus wrong, right? I'm going to mess up with a poet's pen because I have these female wits, right? She's really trying to say, or in this case, she's really kind of throwing that into light. I'm a woman, I can't do poetry, at least that's what I've been told. But those last two lines, if what I do prove well, it won't advance, right? So if I do really well, it won't matter. Because that bottom line, they'll say I stole it, or it was just by chance. Right, so again, she's really kind of fighting at this, you know, this view of other people about the value of her poetry, and really, in general, women's poetry. But sure, the antique Greeks were far more mild, else of our sex. Why fain those nine, in posy, made Calliope's own child? So amongst the rest, they placed the arts divine, but this week not, they will soon, they will fall soon on tie. The Greeks did not but play the fools and lie. So this, you have to know a little bit about ancient Greece. You have to know a little bit about Greek mythology to understand this, right? But sure, the antique Greeks were far more mild, else of our sex. Why fain those nine, in posy, made Calliope's own child? So this, that, those nine that he's talking about, those are the nine muses, right? There are nine muses in the Greek mythology, and they're the ones that give us the arts. They're the ones that give us, you know, they're the ones that are the inspiration. We've heard of that term muse before, right? And it was used in a line previously within this poem. But the idea of a muse is this artistic inspiration for this particular vein of art. So in this case, poetry. So what Anne's doing is actually very, very fascinating here. She's saying, you know, us women aren't valuable, and yet those ancient Greeks, those antique Greeks, the ones that we value so much and talk so much about, they said all the muses were women. And there's an interesting thing. So if the inspiration for all the arts, the creators of all the arts are women, well, if you go to that bottom line, the Greeks did not but play the fools and lie. The Greeks were either lying or they were fools for believing so. So it's very interesting. You know, she's calling into question the underpinning of Western society, in this case, you know, all the way up through England and in the colonies saying, you know, those Greeks who you value so much believed women were, you know, believed the muses were women. But if women can't do this kind of work, boy, those Greeks must be fools or they must be lying. Right? And so she's, in a very subtle way, throwing back at the culture saying, you know, you devalue me, but at the same time, the people that you value said that, you know, women had the potential to be muses. In O ye high-flown quills that soar the skies, and ever with your prey still catch your praise, if ever you design these lowly lines to your eyes, give time or parsley wreath, I ask no base. This mean and unrefined ore of mine will make your glistening gold but more to shine. So again, she's saying, you know, oh, you know, you true poets, again, in that mocking tone, you know, if those, if ye high-flown quills that soar the sky, you really powerful poets, and ever with your prey still catch your praise, if ever you deign these lowly lines, right, if you ever set eyes on my writing, give time or parsley wreath, I ask no base. And this is a, you know, time and parsley wreaths, I don't know enough about that at the time, but what I get from this sentence is time and parsley wreaths are more important or more valued than wreaths made of bay. And what I can imagine from that is just the ways in which the wreath actually holds together with something like time or parsley, because they are, they're much easier to create a wreath, whereas a bay is a bay, a bay wreath is a little bit more stiff. So she's saying, please give me, you know, at least give me something worth value. This mean and unrefined ore of mine. So again, she's saying, you know, if your eyes come across my stuff, it is unrefined ore. It's not valuable. It's only refined ore that people really seek. We'll make your glistening gold, but more to shine. So if my writing is bad, if you do not like my writing, you think it's a, you know, it's a blemish, don't, you don't have to insult me. All that does is make your writing that much better ore as a point of comparison to see that much shining. And so again, she leaves the reader in this situation where the reader has to say either acknowledge her writing, even if it is less, or try not to acknowledge it because it is glistening gold on its own. All right, that's a little bit of Anne Bradstreet. I hope this starts to make sense. And as you get into her poems, you can kind of see that wit at play in some of those other themes that we talked about. Thank you for listening and see you in the next video.