An American Triptych
In her book An American Triptych, Wendy Martin writes about three extraordinary women poets. Martin takes you through the history of the lives of Anne Bradstreet's Puritanism to Emily Dickinson's transdentalism to Adrienne Rich's modern feminism. In this book you will learn how much their lives were alike and different and how each lived in different time periods. "This book is an effort not only to understand the experience of three major women poets whose art spans the period of our nations history, but also suggests the outlines of an American female poetic"(11). Wendy Martin shows how each woman expressed their experience in context during their historical period. "Anne Bradstreet was the first woman poet in the New World; Emily Dickinson, in the nineteenth century, became a model for all women poets who followed, a model of eccentricity and isolation; Adrienne Rich, our contemporary, confronted the meaning of the American female poetic career"(3). All three of these women had to deal with dominant fathers, religion, and ways to find the time to write their poetry. Anne Bradstreet wrote poetry when all of her other obligations as wife and mother were done. This meant that most of her writing
Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich. The writing of this book is easy to understand and would be interesting to any reader interested in American literature, women poets or just to learn about the lives of three extraordinary women. She wanted to believe in her faith but than began to have doubts especially when she began experiencing tragedies in her life. She was shunned by most in her community because she defied religion and all that went with it. She gives you some insight and then details these women poets' lives in the chapters of her books which are divided into three sections. In the sections concerning Emily Dickinson, Martin writes, "Where as Anne Bradstreet continued to struggle against her! own impulses and inclinations, Emily Dickinson honors her feelings and does not permit her personal responses to be extinguished by extreme authority"(85). London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Adrienne Rich was influenced by the "modernist struggle for literary authority as well as the tradition of romantic individualism"(168). In this book An American Triptych by Wendy Martin, I found it to be a well-written and informative piece of work. It was easy reading and very knowledgeable. "Anne Bradstreet did not risk censure and exile, but her poetry reveals that she continues to have doubts about salvation and eternal like for much of her life"(21). I would recommend this book to anyone whose purpose it would serve. was done when she should have been sleeping. At the end of her life she felt that her faith was based on a profound desire to remain connected to life, whether in this world or the next. "Adrienne Rich has tried to create a poetic web that can sustain the weight of changed consciousness and a changed life"(171).
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