Hi.
It’s Dr. Bernstein, and in this video—the first of two installments on Anne Bradstreet--I’m
going to provide you with some important background information on the publication history of
Bradstreet’s poetry and guide you into the process of analyzing one of her most well-known
poems—“The Author to Her Book.”
Bradstreet’s The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America—her first book of poetry—was
published in 1650—without her knowledge or permission—and
was the first published book of poetry written by someone living in the colonies.
The title of her book is interesting and significant.
Bradstreet did not come up with the title—her brother-in-law, John Woodbridge did, and he
was the one who got her work published.
Charlotte Gordon—one of Bradstreet’s biographers—suggests that it was “easier for men to envision
a woman as an inspiration, or a muse of poetry, than as an author” (249).
So the very title of the work—the first thing that most people see—doesn’t give
her credit as an author in her own right.
Somehow Woodbridge was positioning her as a muse—as a creative inspiration to others.
Keep this issue of the muse in mind when reading Bradstreet’s “The Prologue.”
I also want to call attention to the fact that Woodbridge—who was a pastor—felt
compelled to preface her book of poetry with an introduction because he thought people
might not believe the poetry was actually written by her.
If they did believe she wrote it, they might, in his mind, be suspicious of her and perhaps
imagine that she was not fulfilling her role as a woman and mother.
So, as Gordon points out, when he got to London, Woodbridge went around collecting “testimonials
from men with worthy reputations” and got them to attest to Bradstreet’s “merits
as a writer and as a pious Puritan” (243).
He also “gathered twelve pages of prefatory poems by well-respected pious men to supplement
the manuscript” and testify to her “faithfulness and modesty” (243).
Similar types of prefaces or introductions—ones that emphasized the credibility of the author—appeared
in the works of other women.
Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative, which was also published in the 17th century, was
prefaced in a similar manner.
In the 19th century, you’ll also notice that slave narratives—like the one Frederick
Douglass wrote—also had prefaces by white men that attested to the quality of his character
and intelligence.
So let’s take a quick look at an excerpt from Woodbridge’s
own preface to Bradstreet’s book of poetry.
Woodbridge writes: It is the Work of a Woman, honored, and esteemed
where she lives, for her gracious demeanor, her eminent parts, her pious conversation,
her courteous disposition, her exact diligence in her place, and discreet managing of her
family occasions; and more then so, these Poems are the fruit but of some few hours,
curtailed from her sleep, and other refreshments.
Contrary to her [Bradstreet’s] expectation, I have presumed to bring to public view what
she resolved should never in such a manner see the Sun; but I found that divers had gotten
some scattered papers, affected them wel, were likely to have sent forth broken pieces
to the Author’s prejudice, which I thought to prevent, as well as to pleasure those that
earnestly desired the view of the whole.
So we can see that he’s emphasizing how Bradstreet knows and keeps her place as a
woman.
She fulfills her duties as wife and mother and doesn’t take time away from them in
order to engage in her creative work.
This issue of “keeping her place” is something you should keep in mind when reading “The
Prologue.”
He also emphasizes how she wanted to keep her poetry private and claims responsibility
for bringing her work into the public eye.
Woodbridge also included his own poem in the preface.
Here it is:
If you shall think, it will be to your shame To be in print, then I must beare the blame:
If’t be a fault, `tis mine, `tis shame that might
Deny so faire an infant of its right, To looke abroad; I know your modest minde,
How you will blush, complaine, `tis too unkinde, To force a womans birth, provoke her paine,
Expose her Labours to the world’s disdaine: I know you’l say, you doe defie that mint,
That stampt you thus, to be a foole in print.
Let’s take a moment to contemplate what he’s doing in this poem.
I used boldface to call more attention to the multiple references to birthing in here.
To bear, obviously means to bear the burden of something.
He says he will bear responsibility for any shame or fault associated with the publication
of this work.
But it also refers to giving birth to something, and list a few lines later, he’s introducing
the concept of the book as an infant and then taking ownership of the birth of her work—he’s
forcing its “birth”—by getting it published.
Interestingly, she’s no longer responsible for birthing her poetry.
For him, the pain and the birth are associated with the act of publication rather than with
the writing—the creative act itself.
Okay, so if you’ve already read Bradstreet’s “The Author to Her Book”—which she wrote
when a second edition was being contemplated and which was in many ways a response to Woodbridge’s
preface—the information in this video should have opened your eyes to some new ways of
thinking about the poem.
If you haven’t read it yet, I suggest you do and then come check out the second installment
in this series on Bradstreet’s poetry.