By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Before the Birth of One of Her Children’ is a poem by Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612-72), who was the first poet, male or female, from America to have a book of poems published: The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America appeared in 1650. As well as penning a touching poem about her husband, Bradstreet also wrote this poem, written before one of her children was born.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666’ is a poem by Anne Bradstreet (1612-72), a Puritan poet who was the first person in America, male or female, to have a book of poems published. In 1650 her volume The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America appeared; sixteen years later, she wrote this poem in response to the fire that destroyed her home in Massachusetts.
‘The Prologue’ is a poem by Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612-72), who was the first poet, male or female, from America to have a book of poems published: The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America appeared in 1650.
Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612-72), who was the first poet, male or female, from America to have a book of poems published: The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America appeared in 1650.
Although she had been born in England in 1612, by the 1660s Bradstreet was living in Andover, Massachusetts. In 1630, just ten years after the Pilgrim Fathers sailed from England to the New World on the Mayflower, Anne and her husband left behind Boston, England and travelled across the Atlantic on the Arbella to establish a new settlement in Massachusetts.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Anne Bradstreet (1612-72) holds a special place in American literature, and has a notable claim to fame. Her life as one of the first immigrants to the New World in the 1630s helped to inform the poetry she wrote, which often deals with everyday themes: family life, her marriage and her children, and the various challenges and tribulations faced by early colonial settlers in America.