Anne Bradstreet

"American"

America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer who set forth the then revolutionary concept that the lands that Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were part of a separate continent.

A Meeting of Old and New Worlds

(Beginnings to 1775)

Humans have populated the continents of the Americas since as early as 30,000 b.c.e... When Columbus landed in this new world, the land that became America was inhabited by an estimated 5 million natives, living in hundreds of tribes, many with rich traditions of myths and legends... the oral tradition.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/native-americans-conflict-conquest-and-assimilation-during-the-gilded-age.html

http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-indian-wars-struggle-between-native-americans-and-settlers.html

• First Published American Poet
• First Female American Poet
• First Protestant Poet

The poem appeared at the beginning of Bradstreet’s first volume of poetry, "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America" (1650), which was evidently published without Bradstreet’s knowledge.

Femininity

Religion

Poetry

To sing of Wars, of Captaines, and of Kings,

Of Cities founded, Common-wealths begun, For my mean Pen, are too superiour things, And how they all, or each, their dates have run: Let Poets, and Historians set these forth,

My obscure Verse, shal not so dim their worth.

But when my wond’ring eyes and envious heart

Great Bartas’ sugar’d lines do but read o’er,

Fool, I do grudge the Muses did not part

‘Twixt him and me that over-fluent store.

A Bartas can do what a Bartas will

But simple I according to my skill.

From School-boy’s tongue no Rhet’ric we expect,

Nor yet a sweet Consort from broken strings,

Nor perfect beauty where’s 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.

Nor can I, like that fluent sweet-tongued Greek

Who lisp’d at first, in future times speak plain.

By Art he gladly found what he did seek,

A full requital of his striving pain.

Art can do much, but this maxim’s most sure:

A weak or wounded brain admits no cure.

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue

Who says my hand a needle better fits.

A Poet’s Pen all scorn I should thus wrong,

For such despite they cast on female wits.

If what I do prove well, it won’t advance,

They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance.

But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild,

Else of our Sex, why feigned they those nine

And poesy made Calliope’s own child?

So ‘mongst the rest they placed the Arts divine,

But this weak knot they will full soon untie.

The Greeks did nought but play the fools and lie.

Let Greeks be Greeks, and Women what they are.

Men have precedency and still excel;

It is but vain unjustly to wage war.

Men can do best, and Women know it well.

Preeminence in all and each is yours;

Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours.

And oh ye high flown quills that soar the skies,

And ever with your prey still catch your praise,

If e’er you deign these lowly lines your eyes,

Give thyme or Parsley wreath, I ask no Bays.

This mean and unrefined ore of mine

Will make your glist’ring gold but more to shine.

Anne Bradstreet (née Dudley) was born in Northampton, England, daughter of a gentle-woman named Dorothy Yorke and of Thomas Dudley, a nonconformist minister who managed the business interests of the earl of Lincoln. Educated by private tutors in the earl's households, she married Simon Bradstreet, a future governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1628; in 1630, Bradstreet emigrated to America with her husband and parents. When she first came to the colonies, she "found a new world and new manners," as she later remembered. "But after I was convinced it was the way of God I submitted to it and joined to the church of Boston." While caring for her growing family (she had eight children), she continued to write. A volume of poems was published in London in 1650. Entitled "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America," the book was published by Bradstreet's brother-in-law without her knowledge (or so he claimed). It sold very well; a second edition, containing numerous corrections and additions, appeared six years after her death. She compiled but did not publish a collection of prose meditations on life and death for her son Simon when he was about to become minister

in 1664.

Immigration?

British colonization of the Americas began in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia and reached its peak when colonies had been established throughout the Americas. Many of the people who settled in the New World came to escape religious persecution. he Pilgrims fled England both to avoid punishment and to pursue the freedom to worship as they saw fit. The colonists flourished with some assistance from Native Americans.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/puritans-in-america-beliefs-religion-history.html

Puritan settlers in the colonies of New England lived extremely strict, religious lives. The colonies banned nonreligious entertainment, games, alcohol, and even the celebration of Christmas. They valued education, frugality, family, and hard work —values that would come to typify the American way of life. Anne Bradstreet’s work explores the struggles of being a woman, and particularly a literary woman, within the confines of the rigid and hierarchical Puritan society.

To My Dear and Loving Husband

Anne Bradstreet, 1612 - 1672

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me ye women if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay;

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,

That when we live no more we may live ever.

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay.

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let's so persever

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/women-in-puritan-society-roles-rights.html

CUSTOMIZE:

CREATE YOUR OWN PATH

Get this Prezi Template from:

http://prezibase.com

Anne Bradstreet

Demosthenes (322 BC)

a Greek orator born with a lisp.

Text

literature

The Prologue

Context

History, culture, society, philosophy, etc.

Guillaume Du Bartas

Greek 9 Muses

To My Dear and Loving Husband

Etymology (root) of the word America?

The Context of Bradstreet Poems