COMMENT ON A POEM BY ANNE BRADSTREET
Bradstreet regards her book as the product of her brain, saying that it is similar to a child that she has given birth to. At the same time she wishes to seem modest when she refers to it as something feeble. She alludes to her brother- in –law , who took her poems to a publishers ‘ presumably without her knowledge. She belonged to a society where women were supposed to give priority to their homes and families, so she was not responsible for the public viewing her poems. We don‘t know if this is true or not.
She says that she blushed when the poem was returned to her, as if it were a small child who had done something wrong, beyond her control. She calls the poem a brat. This is usually used for spoilt children, reinforcing her view of the poem being like her child. She goes on to say that the poem seemed to have an "irksome " visage, which is seen by her as unworthy and annoying.She "washed" its blemishes, meaning that she tried to tidy it and improve the structure, but in the process, only made more mistakes.Her ambition had been to "dress" the poem in fine clothing, but again, she couldn‘t, only finding home-spun cloth to dress it. She is extremely modest and is also worried about the future of her poem, warning it to be careful of critics and the places where the poem might end up. She finishes by saying that if anyone asks who its father is, it is to reply that it didn‘t have one and that the reason it is in the public's hands is because its mother was so poor that she had to send it away from home, meaning Anne Bradstreet‘s mind.
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