Anne Bradstreet
...mon became a judge, legislator, royal councilor, and twice a governor of the colony, which he and his family lived in. At first dismayed by the rude life of the colony, she soon reconciled herself to it and, in the midst of her husband’s public duties and her private ones as a mother, she found time to write poetry (Webster’s). Anne wrote poetry for herself, but it was also distributed among family and friends (as was the custom), (Poetry Exhibits). She wrote epics, dialogues, love lyrics, public elegies, private elegies, a long meditative poem, and religious verses. In 1650, her brother-in-law published a volume of The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America. The Tenth Muse did fairly well in England and was the only collection of her poetry to appear during her lifetime (Poetry Exhibits). In 1678, it was printed in America under a new title: Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning. Anne wrote about her experiences as a wife, mother and woman in seventeenth century New England. She reflected upon her life and her work. Her style stands in harsh contrast to what we would consider the Puritan ideal. Anne’s husband played a important role in many of her works. She wrote love poems about him when he was around as well as when he was away on trips. In Anne’s Puritan culture, the love between husband and wife was supposed to be slightly withdrawn, so it would not distract from the devotion to God. Yet, some of her poems went against this idea. A good example of this is the poem, To My Dear and Loving Husband. Anne was also strongly influenced by the sixteenth century French poet Guillaume du Bartas. Anne’s most highly regarded work, a sequence of religious poems entitled Contemplations, was not published until the middle of the nineteenth century. Anne Bradstreet is one of the most important figures in the history of American Literature for several reasons. She is considered by many to be the first American poet, and her first collection of poems, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, doesn’t contain any of her best known poems, but it was the first book written by a woman and to be published in the United States. Anne’s love for poetry, falls in the group which in style and subject matter was unique for her time. It was unusually different from the poetry written by ma...