#Anne Bradstreet

[derangedrhythms]

If ever two were one, then surely we.

Anne Bradstreet, from ‘To My Dear and Loving Husband’

[litandlifequotes]

My love is such that rivers cannot quench

"To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet

[fidjiefidjie]

“S’il n’y avait pas d’hiver, le printemps ne serait pas si agréable : si nous ne goûtions pas à l’adversité, la réussite ne serait pas tant appréciée.”

Anne Bradstreet

Gif de Oamul Lu

[quontology]

ELA project from senior year.

[lezliebrooke]

If ever two were one, then surely we.

- Anne Bradstreet

[haggishlyhagging]

Anne Bradstreet (1612?-1672), an Englishwoman who with her family arrived in Massachusetts in 1630 and combined a traditional life of Puritan domesticity with the inner life of a poet, the first American poet in fact, offers a good example of adaptation to gender constraints. She wrote:

To sing of Wars, of Captaines, and of Kings, Of Cities founded, Common-wealths begun, For my mean Pen, are too superior 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. . . .

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 despight they cast on female wits: If what I doe prove well, it wont advance, They'l say it's stolne, or else, it was by chance. . . .

Let Greeks be Greeks, and Women what they are, Men have precendency, and still excel, It is but vaine unjustly to wage war; Men can doe best, and Women know it well; Preheminence in each and all is yours, Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours.

Bradstreet's sweet-tempered moderation can be read as ironic or conformist, but the significant fact is that she persisted all her life in working and publishing as a poet. At what cost to herself and her art can only be surmised. As Adrienne Rich observed: "To have written poems, the first good poems in America, while rearing eight children, lying frequently sick, keeping house at the edge of wilderness, was to have managed a poet's range and extension within confines as severe as any American poet has confronted."

Anne Bradstreet ignored the "carping tongues" and assured herself and the world that she was writing mostly to her children and to praise God. Yet, in every generation, everywhere women were struggling for intellectual expression, some "carping tongue" reminded them of their female limitation, their female duty. Over and over again, we find women directed toward the loom, the shuttle, the distaff, the embroidery frame rather than the pen. Many of them heeded these calls: the artful textiles, the glorious quilts, the richly varied embroideries, the fancywork that decorated churches and homes, all testify to the flourishing creativity of women. And, as Alice Walker reminded us, the creation of gardens was, for many women, a form of art. But the contested ground for men was that of literary creation, of definition. It was here they asserted their so-called prerogatives, claimed superiority of training and intellect, defined exclusionary standards, and used every form of psychological pressure possible to discourage women from claiming any of that terrain. Against such pressure only the strongest in character and motivation could hold their ground.

-Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness

[alyssa-grey]

Reading for comps continues

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I needed a win today and choosing a small book I could read in one sitting was exactly that! And I really like Bradstreet’s poetry.

*added a new tag*

[raointean]

I found a poem assigned in my American Lit class ("A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment" by Anne Bradstreet) that has SUCH strong Galadriel/Celeborn vibes! (RoP specifically, but it works for the Silm too) I just had to show you guys! (I've edited it a bit to make the parallels more obvious, but it's a really old poem, so you can probably just google the title to find the original.)

My head, my heart, mine Eyes, my life, nay more,

My joy, my warehouse of earthly store,

If two be one, as surely thou and I,

How stays thou away, whilst I 'cross Arda fly?

So many steps, head from the heart to sever

If but a neck, soon should we be together:

I, like the earth this season, mourn in black,

My Sun is gone so far in’s Zodiack,

Whom whilst I ’joy’d, nor storms, nor frosts I felt,

His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt.

My chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn;

Return, return sweet Sol, my Celeborn;

O strange effect! now thou art southward gone,

I weary grow, the tedious day so long;

But when thou northward to me shalt return,

I wish my Sun may never set, but burn

Within the summer of my glowing breast.

In your welcome house, I cannot rest,

I cannot stay, but go ever thence,

Till natures sad decree shall call thee hence;

Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,

I here, thou there, yet both but one.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

"Iron till it be thoroughly heated is incapable to be wrought; so God sees good to cast some men into the furnace of affliction, and then beats them on His anvil into what frame He desires." - Anne Bradstreet

[floridafemme]

[ragazzoarcano]

“Se non avessimo l'inverno, la primavera non sarebbe cosi piacevole: se a volte non assaggiassimo le avversità, la prosperità non sarebbe così gradita.”

— Anne Bradstreet

[ukdamo]

Winter

Anne Bradstreet

Cold, moist, young phlegmy winter now doth lie In swaddling clouts, like new-born infancy; Bound up with frosts, and fur’d with hail & snows, And, like an infant, still it taller grows. December is my first, and now the sun To the southward Tropick his swift race doth run. This month he’s hous’d in horned Capricorn, From thence he ’gins to length the shortened morn, Through Christendom with great festivity, Now’s held (but guessed) for blest Nativity. Cold, frozen January next comes in, Chilling the blood, and shrinking up the skin. In Aquarius now keeps the long-wish’d sun, And northward his unwearied course doth run. The day much longer than it was before, The cold not lessened, but augmented more. Now toes and ears, and fingers often freeze, And travelers their noses sometimes leese. Moist snowy February is my last, I care not how the winter-time doth haste. In Pisces now the golden sun doth shine, And northward still approaches to the line. The rivers ’gin to ope, the snows to melt, And some warm glances from his face are felt; Which is increased by the lengthen’d day, Until by’s heat, he drive all cold away. And thus the year in circle runneth round; Where first it did begin, in th’ end its found.

[jello-paws]

To My Dear and Loving Husband

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 that 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.

Before the Birth of One of Her Children

All things within this fading world hath end, Adversity doth still our joyes attend; No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet, But with death’s parting blow is sure to meet. The sentence past is most irrevocable, A common thing, yet oh inevitable. How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend, How soon’t may be thy Lot to lose thy friend, We are both ignorant, yet love bids me These farewell lines to recommend to thee, That when that knot’s untied that made us one, I may seem thine, who in effect am none. And if I see not half my dayes that’s due, What nature would, God grant to yours and you; The many faults that well you know I have Let be interr’d in my oblivious grave; If any worth or virtue were in me, Let that live freshly in thy memory And when thou feel’st no grief, as I no harms, Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms. And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains Look to my little babes, my dear remains. And if thou love thyself, or loved’st me, These o protect from step Dames injury. And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse, With some sad sighs honour my absent Herse; And kiss this paper for thy loves dear sake, Who with salt tears this last Farewel did take.

The Author to Her Book

Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad, expos’d to publick view, Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judg). At thy return my blushing was not small, My rambling brat (in print) should mother call, I cast thee by as one unfit for light, Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight; Yet being mine own, at length affection would Thy blemishes amend, if so I could: I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw. I stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet, Yet still thou run’st more hobling then is meet; In better dress to trim thee was my mind, But nought save home-spun Cloth, i’ th’ house I find. In this array ’mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam. In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come; And take thy way where yet thou art not known, If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none: And for thy Mother, she alas is poor, Which caus’d her thus to send thee out of door.

[papyrusandpaints]

365 Days of Poetry - Day 71:

*

TO MY DEAR AND LOVING HUSBAND

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.

*

Anne Bradstreet

[culturevulturette]

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."\

Anne Bradstreet

by niiloi