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.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Anne Bradstreet (1612-72) was the first poet, male or female, from America to have a book of poems published. As well as penning a touching poem about her husband, Bradstreet also wrote this poem, ‘To Her Father with Some Verses’, in honour of her father. Before we offer some words of analysis, here is Bradstreet’s poem.
To Her Father with Some Verses
Most truly honoured, and as truly dear,
If worth in me or ought I do appear,
Who can of right better demand the same
Than may your worthy self from whom it came?
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
In 1666, a great fire consumed much of the considerable library of books owned by Anne Bradstreet (1612-72), the first poet from the New World to have a book of poems published. This happened in July 1666 – two months before that other great fire that would destroy much of London – and it occurred on the other side of the Atlantic, in Massachusetts. But Bradstreet accepts the loss of her house and possessions with stoicism, detecting God’s hand in the disaster and interpreting the fire as a sign that she doesn’t need such worldly possessions.
Upon the Burning of Our House
Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning
of Our house, July 10th. 1666. Copied Out of
a Loose Paper.
In silent night when rest I took,
For sorrow near I did not look,
I wakened was with thund’ring noise
And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.
That fearful sound of “fire” and “fire,”
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) was the first person in America, male or female, to have a volume of poems published. She’d been born in England, but was among a group of early English settlers in Massachusetts in the 1630s. In 1650, a collection of her poems, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America, was published in England, bringing her fame and recognition.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) was the first person in America, male or female, to have a volume of poems published. She herself wasn’t American and had been born in England, but she was among a group of early English settlers in Massachusetts in the 1630s.