1st Lady of Massachusetts Bay Colony and 1st American Poet

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612 – September 16, 1672) was an English-American writer, the first notable American poet, and the first woman to be published in Colonial America. Her work was very influential to Puritans in her time.

Bradstreet was born Anne Dudley in Northampton, England, 1612. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, a steward of the Earl of Lincoln, and Dorothy Yorke.[1] Due to her family's position she grew up in cultured circumstances and was a well-educated woman for her time, being tutored in history, several languages, and literature. At the age of sixteen she married Simon Bradstreet. Both Anne's father and husband were later to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne and Simon, along with Anne's parents, immigrated to America aboard the Arbella as part of the Winthrop Fleet of Puritan emigrants in 1630.[2]

Despite poor health, she had eight children and achieved a comfortable social standing. Having previously been afflicted with smallpox, Anne would once again fall prey to illness as paralysis took over her joints.

On July 10, 1666, the Bradstreet home burned down in a fire that left the family homeless and without personal belongings for a time. By then, Anne Bradstreet's health was slowly failing. She suffered from tuberculosis and had to deal with the loss of her daughter Dorothy to illness as well, losing her son shortly afterwards. But her will remained strong, and perhaps, as a reflection of her religious devotion and her knowledge of Biblical scriptures, she found peace in the firm belief that her daughter was in heaven.

Anne Bradstreet died on September 16, 1672, in Andover, Massachusetts, at the age of 60. The precise location of her grave is uncertain as she may either have been buried next to her husband in "the Old Burying Point" in Salem, Massachusetts, or in "the Old Burying Ground" on Academy Road in North Andover, Massachusetts.

[edit] Works

Bradstreet's education allowed her to write with authority about politics, history, medicine, and theology. Her personal library of books was said to have numbered over 800, before many were destroyed when her home burned down. This event itself inspired a poem entitled "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666". She rejects the anger and grief that this worldly tragedy has caused her and instead looks toward God and the assurance of heaven as consolation, saying:

   "And when I could no longer look,

I blest his grace that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.
It was his own; it was not mine.
Far be it that I should repine."
Title page, second (posthumous) edition of Bradstreet's poems, 1678

Much of Bradstreet's poetry is based on observation of the world around her, focusing heavily on domestic and religious themes. Long considered primarily of historical interest, she won critical acceptance in the 20th century as a writer of enduring verse, particularly for her sequence of religious poems "Contemplations", which was written for her family and not published until the mid-19th century.[3] Bradstreet's work was deeply influenced by the poet Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, who was favored by 17th-century readers.

Nearly a century later, Martha Wadsworth Brewster, a notable 18th-century American poet and writer, in her principal work, Poems on Diverse Subjects, was influenced and pays homage to Bradstreet's verse.

Despite the traditional attitude toward women of the time, she clearly valued knowledge and intellect; she was a free thinker and some consider her an early feminist.

In 1647 Bradstreet's brother-in-law, Rev. John Woodbridge, sailed to England, carrying her manuscript of poetry without her knowledge. Anne's first work was published in London as "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up into America, by a Gentlewoman in such Parts".[2] [4]

The purpose of the publication appears to have been an attempt by devout Puritan men (i.e. Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet, John Woodbridge) to show that a godly and educated woman could elevate the position held by a wife and mother, without necessarily placing her in competition with men.

In 1678 her self-revised "Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning" was posthumously published in America, and included one of her most famous poems, "To My Dear and Loving Husband".[5]

A quotation from Bradstreet can be found on a plaque at the Bradstreet Gate into Harvard Yard: "I came into this Country, where I found a new World and new manners at which my heart rose." [6] Unfortunately the plaque seems to be based on a misinterpretation of the text; the following sentence is "But after I was convinced it was the way of God, I submitted to it and joined to the church at Boston." This suggests that her heart rose up in protest[7] rather than in joy.

[edit] Descendants

Descendants of Simon Bradstreet and Anne, daughter of Thomas Dudley:

   * Herbert Hoover[8][9]

* Wendell Phillips[8][9]
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.[8][9]
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.[8][9]
* William Ellery Channing[8][9]
* Richard Henry Dana, Sr.[8][9]
* Richard Henry Dana, Jr.[8][9]
* Elisha Williams[8][9]
* David Souter[8]
* John Lithgow[citation needed]
* Robert Edwin Seamount[citation needed]
[edit] Works

Search Wikisource Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Anne Bradstreet

Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Anne Bradstreet

   * Before the Birth of One of Her Children

* A Dialogue between Old England and New
* A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment
* Another
* Another (II)
* For Deliverance From A Fever
* Contemplations
* In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth
* In Reference to her Children, 23 June 1659
* The Author to Her Book
* The Flesh and the Spirit
* The Four Ages of Man
* The Prologue
* To Her Father with Some Verses
* To My Dear and Loving Husband
* Upon a Fit of Sickness, Anno 1632 Aetatis Suae, 19
* Upon Some Distemper of Body
* Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666
* Bradstreet, Anne Dudley, The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America (1650) and, from the Manuscripts. Meditations Divine and Morall, Letters, and Occasional Poems, Facsimile ed., 1965, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, ISBN 9780820110066.
[edit] References

  1. ^ "Anne Bradstreet biography". annebradstreet.com. http://www.annebradstreet.com/anne_bradstreet_bio_001.htm. Retrieved 2007-01-25. 

2. ^ a b Woodlief, A. (n.d.). Biography of Anne Bradstreet. Retrieved September 1, 2006.
3. ^ n. a. (2000). Anne (Dudley) Bradstreet. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Retrieved Septermber 1, 2006.
4. ^ White, Elizabeth Wade (1971). Anne Bradstreet, "the Tenth Muse.". New York: Oxford University Press. p. 255-6. ISBN 9780195014402.
5. ^ Ellis, J. H. (1867). The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse.
6. ^ http://www.hno.harvard.edu/guide/to_do/to_do9.html
7. ^ http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/bradbio.htm
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i William Addams Reitwiesner Genealogical Services.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h New England Ancestors

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(Facts abstracted from Wikipedia.)Due to my family's position, I grew up in cultured circumstances and was unusually well educated for the time, being tutored in history, several languages, and literature. I married my husband at 16. In 1630, my husband and I along with my parents emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony aboard the "Arabella" during the "Great Migration". Despite living in poor health, with paralysis in my joints, I still was able to have 8 children with my husband, and achieved a comfortable social standing in the colony. In 1647, my brother in law, Rev. John Woodbridge secretly took one of my poetry manuscripts to England and had it published, entitled, "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, by a Gentlewoman in Such Parts". On July 10, 1666 our home burned down which inspired my poem "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666". At that time I suffered from tuberculosis and my daughter Dorothy was lost to illness also. But I remained strong and found peace knowing that she was in heaven. Prior to the fire I had an extensive library of books, perhaps as many as 800."Poems Compiled With Great Variety of Wit and Learning" was posthumously published in America in 1678. I was the first American female writer and the first American female published author.

Works:

Before the Birth of One of Her Children

A Dialogue between Old England and New

A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment

Another

Another (II)

For Deliverance From A Fever

Contemplations

In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth

In Reference to her Children, 23 June 1659

The Author to Her Book

The Flesh and the Spirit

The Four Ages of Man

The Prologue

To Her Father with Some Verses

To My Dear and Loving Husband

Upon a Fit of Sickness, Anno 1632 Aetatis Suae, 19

Upon Some Distemper of Body

Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666

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Anne Bradstreet

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Anne BradstreetAnne Bradstreet (c. 1612 – September 16, 1672) was an English-American writer, the first notable American poet, and the first woman to be published in Colonial America. Her work was very influential to Puritans in her time

Contents [hide]

1 Biography

2 Works

3 Descendants

4 Works

5 References

6 External links

[edit] Biography

Bradstreet was born Anne Dudley in Northampton, England, 1612. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, a steward of the Earl of Lincoln, and Dorothy Yorke.[1] Due to her family's position she grew up in cultured circumstances and was a well-educated woman for her time, being tutored in history, several languages, and literature. At the age of sixteen she married Simon Bradstreet. Both Anne's father and husband were later to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne and Simon, along with Anne's parents, immigrated to America aboard the Arbella as part of the Winthrop Fleet of Puritan emigrants in 1630.[2]

Despite poor health, she had eight children and achieved a comfortable social standing. Having previously been afflicted with smallpox, Anne would once again fall prey to illness as paralysis took over her joints.

On July 10, 1666, the Bradstreet home burned down in a fire that left the family homeless and without personal belongings for a time. By then, Anne Bradstreet's health was slowly failing. She suffered from tuberculosis and had to deal with the loss of her daughter Dorothy to illness as well, losing her son shortly afterwards. But her will remained strong, and perhaps, as a reflection of her religious devotion and her knowledge of Biblical scriptures, she found peace in the firm belief that her daughter was in heaven.

Anne Bradstreet died on September 16, 1672, in Andover, Massachusetts, at the age of 60. The precise location of her grave is uncertain as she may either have been buried next to her husband in "the Old Burying Point" in Salem, Massachusetts, or in "the Old Burying Ground" on Academy Road in North Andover, Massachusetts.

Anne Bradstreet wanted to be a writer but she followed another dream later on.

[edit] Works

Bradstreet's education allowed her to write with authority about politics, history, medicine, and theology. Her personal library of books was said to have numbered over 800, before many were destroyed when her home burned down. This event itself inspired a poem entitled "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666". She rejects the anger and grief that this worldly tragedy has caused her and instead looks toward God and the assurance of heaven as consolation, saying:

"And when I could no longer look,

I blest his grace that gave and took,

That laid my goods now in the dust.

Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.

It was his own; it was not mine.

Far be it that I should repine."

Title page, second (posthumous) edition of Bradstreet's poems, 1678Much of Bradstreet's poetry is based on observation of the world around her, focusing heavily on domestic and religious themes. Long considered primarily of historical interest, she won critical acceptance in the 20th century as a writer of enduring verse, particularly for her sequence of religious poems "Contemplations", which was written for her family and not published until the mid-19th century.[3] Bradstreet's work was deeply influenced by the poet Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, who was favored by 17th-century readers.

Despite the traditional attitude toward women of the time, she clearly valued knowledge and intellect; she was a free thinker and some consider her an early feminist.

In 1647 Bradstreet's brother-in-law, Rev. John Woodbridge, sailed to England, carrying her manuscript of poetry without her knowledge. Anne's first work was published in London as "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up into America, by a Gentlewoman in such Parts".[2] [4]

The purpose of the publication appears to have been an attempt by devout Puritan men (i.e. Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet, John Woodbridge) to show that a godly and educated woman could elevate the position held by a wife and mother, without necessarily placing her in competition with men.

In 1678 her self-revised "Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning" was posthumously published in America, and included one of her most famous poems, "To My Dear and Loving Husband".[5]

A quotation from Bradstreet can be found on a plaque at the Bradstreet Gate into Harvard Yard: "I came into this Country, where I found a new World and new manners at which my heart rose." [6] Unfortunately the plaque seems to be based on a misinterpretation of the text; the following sentence is "But after I was convinced it was the way of God, I submitted to it and joined to the church at Boston." This suggests that her heart rose up in protest[7] rather than in joy.

[edit] Descendants

Descendants of Simon Bradstreet and Anne, daughter of Thomas Dudley:

(all can be found by Wikipedia search)

Herbert Hoover

David Souter

Benjamin Wade

William Putnam Bundy

McGeorge Bundy

Wendell Phillips

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Elisha Williams

William Ellery Channing

William Ellery Channing (1818–1901)

William Henry Channing

Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

Elliot Richardson

Oliver Partridge

Edward Partridge, Jr.

Robert Edwin Seamount

Andrew Wiggin (judge)

Jane Pierce

Edie Sedgwick

Kyra Sedgwick

Juliet Winters Carpenter

Steve Young

John Lithgow

Taylor Wishau

Works

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Anne Bradstreet Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Anne Bradstreet

Before the Birth of One of Her Children

A Dialogue between Old England and New

A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment

Another

Another (II)

For Deliverance From A Fever

Contemplations

In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth

In Reference to her Children, 23 June 1659

The Author to Her Book

The Flesh and the Spirit

The Four Ages of Man

The Prologue

To Her Father with Some Verses

To My Dear and Loving Husband

Upon a Fit of Sickness, Anno 1632 Aetatis Suae, 19

Upon Some Distemper of Body

Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666

Bradstreet, Anne Dudley, The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America (1650) and, from the Manuscripts. Meditations Divine and Morall, Letters, and Occasional Poems, Facsimile ed., 1965, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, ISBN 9780820110066.

References

^ "Anne Bradstreet biography". annebradstreet.com. http://www.annebradstreet.com/anne_bradstreet_bio_001.htm. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.

^ a b Woodlief, A. (n.d.). Biography of Anne Bradstreet. Retrieved September 1, 2006.

^ n. a. (2000). Anne (Dudley) Bradstreet. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Retrieved Septermber 1, 2006.

^ White, Elizabeth (1971). Anne Bradstreet, "the Tenth Muse.". New York: Oxford University Press. p. 255-6. ISBN 9780195014402.

^ Ellis, J. H. (1867). The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse.

^ http://www.hno.harvard.edu/guide/to_do/to_do9.html

^ http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/bradbio.htm

^ a b c d e f g h i William Addams Reitwiesner Genealogical Services.

^ a b c d e f g h New England Ancestors.

External links

Several Poems of Anne Bradstreet A Celebration of Women Writers

Full Text Links from the William Dean Howell Society

Genealogical Record

Audio: Robert Pinsky reads "To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet (via poemsoutloud.net)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bradstreet"

Categories: 1610s births | 1672 deaths | Colonial American poets | Dudley-Winthrop family | People from Northamptonshire | Muses | American women writers | 17th-century women writers | Women poets

Hidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since April 2008

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Anne is considered the first American poet

http://annebradstreet.com/

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Anne Dudley Bradstreet was born 1612? Northampton, England; emigrated to Salem, MA in 1630; died 1672.

Ann Dudley Bradstreet is considered the first American poet. Anne seems to have written poetry primarily for herself, her family, and her friends, many of whom were very well educated. Her early, more imitative poetry, taken to England by her brother-in-law (possibly without her permission), appeared as "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America" in 1650 when she was 38 and sold well in England. Her later works, not published in her lifetime although shared with friends and family, were more private and personal – and far more original – than those published in "The Tenth Muse." Her love poetry falls into this group that, in style and subject matter, was unique for her time, strikingly different from the poetry written by male contemporaries.

Although few other American women were to publish poetry for the next 200 years, her poetry was largely ignored until "rediscovered" by feminists in the 20th century. These critics have found many significant artistic qualities in her work. She could be humorous with her "feminist" views, as in a poem on Queen Elizabeth I:

   Now say, have women worth, or have they none

Or had they some, but with our Queen is't gone?
Nay, masculines, you have taxed us long;
But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong.
Let such as say our sex is void of reason,
Know 'tis a slander now, but once was treason.
One must remember that she was a Puritan, although she often doubted, questioning the power of the male hierarchy, even questioning God (or the harsh Puritan concept of a judgmental God). Her love of nature and the physical world, as well as the spiritual, often caused creative conflict in her poetry. Though she finds great hope in the future promises of religion, she also finds great pleasures in the realities of the present, especially of her family, her home and nature, though she realized that perhaps she should not, according to the Puritan perspective.

Another of her most renowned poems is

“To My Dear and Loving Husband”

   If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were lov’d 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 then 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 lets so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
You can hear this read aloud by the poet Pinsky (U.S. Poet Laureate from 1997 to 2000) at <http://poemsoutloud.net/blog/archive/americas_first_poet_anne_brads...>

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• Internet research only. Sources unverified.

Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 to a nonconformist former soldier of Queen Elizabeth, Thomas Dudley, who managed the affairs of the Earl of Lincoln. In 1630 he sailed with his family for America with the Massachusetts Bay Company. Also sailing was his associate and son-in-law, Simon Bradstreet. At 25, he had married Anne Dudley, 16, his childhood sweetheart. Anne had b een well tutored in literature and history in Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, a s well as English. The voyage on the "Arbella" with John Winthrop took three months and was quite difficult, with several people dying from the experience. Life was rough and cold, quite a change from the beautiful estate with its well-stocked library where Anne spent many hours. As Anne tells her children in her memoirs, "I found a new world and new manners at which my heart rose [up in protest]." However, she did decide to join the church at Boston. As White writes, "instead of looking outward and writing her observations on this unfamiliar scene with its rough and fearsome aspects, she let her homesick imagination turn inward, marshaled the images from her store of learning and dressed them in careful homespun garments of somewhat archaic meter, to the glory of God and for the expression of an inquiring mind and sensitive, philosophical spirit." Historically, Anne's identity is primarily linked to her prominent father and husband, both governors of Massachusetts who left portraits and numerous records. Though she appreciated their love and protection, "any woman who sought to use her wit, charm, or intelligence in the community at large found herself ridiculed, banished, or executed by the Colony's powerful group of male leaders."Her domain was to be domestic, separated

from the l inked affairs of church and state, even "deriving her ideas of God from the contemplations of her husband's excellencies," according to one document. This situation was surely made painfully clear to her in the fate of her friend Anne Hutchinson, also intelligent, educated, of a prosperous family and deeply religious. The mother of 14 children and a dynamic speaker, Hutchinson held prayer meetings where women debated religious and ethical ideas. Her belief that the Holy Spirit dwells within a justified person and so is not based on the good works necessary for admission to the church was considered heretical ; she was labelled a Jezebel and banished, eventually slain in an Indian attack in New York. No wonder Bradstreet was not anxious to publish her poetry an despecially kept her more personal works private. Bradstreet wrote epitaphs for both her mother and father which not only show her love for them but shows them as models of male and female behavior in the Puritan culture. An Epitaph on my dear and ever honoured mother, Mrs. Dorothy Dudley, Who deceased D ecember 27, 1643, and of her age, 61

Here lies

A worthy matron of unspotted life,

A loving mother and obedient wife,

A friendly neighbor, pitiful to poor,

Whom oft she fed, and clothed with her store;

To servants wisely aweful, but yet kind,

And as they did, so they reward did find:

A true instructor of her family,

The which she ordered with dexterity,

The public meetings ever did frequent,

And in her closest constant hours she spent;

Religious in all her words and ways,

Preparing still for death, till end of days:

Of all her children, children lived to see,

Then dying, left a blessed memory.

Compare this with the epitaph she wrote for her father:

Within this tomb a patriot lies

That was both pious, just and wise,

To truth a shield, to right a wall,

To sectaries a whip and maul,

A magazine of history,

A prizer of good company

In manners pleasant and severe

The good him loved, the bad did fear,

And when his time with years was spent

In some rejoiced, more did lament.

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from wiki

Bradstreet was born Anne Dudley in Northampton, England, 1612. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, a steward of the Earl of Lincoln, and Dorothy Yorke.[1] Due to her family's position she grew up in cultured circumstances and was a well-educated woman for her time, being tutored in history, several languages, and literature. At the age of sixteen she married Simon Bradstreet. Both Anne's father and husband were later to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne and Simon, along with Anne's parents, immigrated to America aboard the Arbella as part of the Winthrop Fleet of Puritan emigrants in 1630.[2]

Despite poor health, she had eight children and achieved a comfortable social standing. Having previously been afflicted with smallpox, Anne would once again fall prey to illness as paralysis took over her joints.

On July 10 1666 the Bradstreet home burned down in a fire that left the family homeless and without personal belongings for a time. By then, Anne Bradstreet's health was slowly failing. She suffered from tuberculosis and had to deal with the loss of her daughter Dorothy to illness as well, losing her son shortly afterward. But her will remained strong, and perhaps, as a reflection of her religious devotion and her knowledge of Biblical scriptures, she found peace in the firm belief that her daughter was in heaven.

Anne Bradstreet died on September 16, 1672, in Andover, Massachusetts

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Sailed with her father to Massachusetts. Her poems are known as the "Tenth Muse"

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ANNE DUDLEY BRADSTREET, 1612-1672

by Elizabeth Wade White

10 yrs after Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock, another ship docked few mi to south at Salem, MA. This vessel, Arabella, was flagship of John Winthrop's fleet. When passengers disembarked, America's 1st poet, Anne Dudley Bradstreet arrived. Anne Bradstreet was just 17 when she came to New World with her parents, Thomas & Sarah Dudley, & husband of 2 yrs, Simon Bradstreet. She had led genteel & ordered life of daughter of wealthy steward. In Eng, Dudley had managed vast estates of Earl of Lincoln, & Dudley family lived in Earl's Tattersall Castle. Here, young Anne Dudley studied under best tutors available & had access to Earl's vast library. Nothing, however, could have prepared her for conditions in MA that summer of 1630. Thomas Dudley recorded state of settlement upon their arrival: "Our 4 ships which set out in Apr arrived here in Jun & Jul, where we found Colony in sad & unexpected condition, above 80 of them being dead the winter before; & many of those alive weak & sick; all corn & bread amongst them all hardly sufficient to feed them a fortnight..Salem, where we landed pleased us not. It is no wonder Anne Bradstreet later wrote of that arrival: I...came into this Country, where I found new world & new manners, at which my heart rose. But after I was convinced it was the way of God, I submitted to it & joined to church at Boston. This ability to submit to what she felt to be God's will characterized her life & poetry. During next 8 yrs, Bradstreets moved into 4 houses until they were permanently settled at Andover, city north of Boston. Mrs Bradstreet's life in New World was as daughter & wife of 2 of most influential men in Colony. Father became 2nd gov of MA, & husband was permanent member of Crt of Assistants. Simon Bradstreet was often away from home helping arbitrate disputes among colonists. Mrs Bradstreet was left alone on edge of wilderness to tend their 8 children, accomplish various household duties, & fend off both disease & Indians. There is nothing in her poetry to indicate she feared either. She wrote poetry, not in idleness, but as serious pursuit. Her 1st collection of poetry, Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung up in America, was published in London in 1650 w/o Anne's knowledge or consent by her brother-in-law. This early poetry is pedantic, impersonal & generally uninteresting. She said of this publication, no doubt anticipating criticism from Puritans less appreciative of her art than her family: They say my hand a needle better fits." She persisted however in revising early works & writing new poems. Later works, published after her death, are generally regarded as her best. Writing of her family, home & faith, view of everyday life in early Puritan colony emerges as in no other contemporary work. She did all this in an environment from which any literary output would be astounding, from a woman, unthinkable. Perhaps part of reason for her success lies in person & attitude of Simon Bradstreet. Much of her poetry is about him, to him, & probably because of him. His portrait shows, not harsh Puritan of Hawthorne novel, but gentle face, curling mustache & slightly rotund figure. He evoked this loving tribute from his wife:

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.

Anne Bradstreet is incomparable. During her lifetime she minded her children, tended her home & husband, & honored her God. There is no extant portrait of her; but because of her, panorama emerges of early New Eng & those Puritans who influenced this country as no other group ever could. Her legacy chronicles characteristics that insured survival of these strangers in strange land: love of both man & God. On this foundation, Anne Bradstreet laid literary cornerstone of a nation.

IN REFERENCE TO HER CHILDREN

23 June, 1659

I had eight birds hatched in one nest,

Four cocks there were, and hens the rest.

I nursed them up with pain and care,

Nor cost, nor labour did I spare,

Till at the last they felt their wing,

Mounted the trees, and learned to sing;

Meanwhile my days in tunes I'll spend,

Till my weak lays with me shall end.

In shady woods I'll sit and sing,

And things that past to mind I'll bring.

And from the top bough take my flight

Into a country beyond sight,

Where old ones instantly grow young,

And there with seraphims set song;

No seasons cold, nor storms they see;

But spring lasts to eternity.

Farewell, my birds, farewell adieu,

I happy am, if well with you.

Anne Bradstreet

Though submissive wife, Anne Bradstreet could be humorous with somewhat non-conforming views, especially with regard to gender stereotypes, as in poem on Queen Elizabeth I:

Now say, have women worth, or have they none / Or had they some, but with our Queen is't gone? / Nay, masculines, you have taxed us long; / But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong. / Let such as say our sex is void of reason, / Know 'tis a slander now, but once was treason.

Legacy of Simon & Anne Bradstreet:

Simon & Anne Bradstreet left rich legacy in America. Many of their descendants have served in public life, most notably Supreme Crt Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr (1841-1935),& US President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964). Other illustrious descendants are Richard Henry Dana, US Atty for MA & popular author (1815-1882); William Ellery Channing, Universalist theologian & author (1780-1842); & noted abolutionist orator & crusader Wendell Phillips (1811-1884).

Simon's portrait graces state capitol building in NH, part of original MA Bay Colony, & Anne's poetry is still read enthusiastically. The 1st woman poet of Americas, her work is often analyzed & taught in college literature courses throughout US. Anne Bradstreet is honored as subject of stained glass window located in S. Botolphs Church in Boston, Lincolnshire, Eng. “Ladies” window portrays 4 famous women of Boston, Anne of Bohemia, Margaret Beaufort, Anne Bradstreet, & Jean Ingelow, also a poet. In addition to windows, nave at St Botolphs Church contains number of memorials including stone monument bearing names of 5 Boston area men who later became govs of MA, including Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet & 3 others.

Ann Bradstreet, Poet of Purity by G.M.Ella

A poet who helps you to find goodness, not just to feel good

It is an ancient maxim in literary criticism that all poets are liars and poetry provides an escape from the humdrum reality of life into the fantasies of Never-Never Land. Such critics have obviously not studied Anne Bradstreet who ranks with Milton, Herbert and Cowper as a poet of pure joy in contemplating God's amazing grace vouchsafed to believers in order to combat the lies and errors of fallen mankind. Few poets are as uplifting as Anne Bradstreet because few poets have encountered and shared in spiritual truths as much as she. Thus Puritan John Norton is not exaggerating in the least when he says that if Virgil had been privileged to read the seraphic poems of Anne Bradstreet, he would have committed his own efforts in soul-harmony to the flames. Anne Bradstreet had the 'one thing needed' to fit a human poet out for the divine task of speaking the unfallen language of Eden. This writer can heartily recommend his readers, who are longing for God, to curl up in a corner in a moment of prayerful relaxation with a volume of Bradstreet's in their hands. They will soon find themselves thinking, 'It is good to be here,' as this sweet, hard-working mother of eight children describes her amazement at God's revelation to her in His Word. As Anne Bradstreet shares her husband, children, adopted grandchildren and household chores with the Lord, she points to the goodness which is found solely in Christ who ever says, 'Cast your burden upon Me and I shall sustain you.'

An offspring of reformation pioneers - -

Anne Dudley was offspring of famous Dudleys who had played such a great role in history of English Reformation & Elizabethan Settlement. Her father, Thomas Dudley was sincere believer & had captained company of 80 volunteers in Protestant wars on Continent. Thereafter, he became steward to Theophilus, Earl of Lincoln & close friend of John Cotton, 1 of America's earliest & greatest Christian pioneers. Thomas m Dorothy, described as 'gentlewoman of good family & estate'. Anne b in Northampton, Eng c1612 & early took stand for Christ & was thrilled with stories of opportunities given Christians in New World. She had best tutor & mentor humanly possible in her father. Thomas Dudley was brilliant scholar & lover of edifying literature, history & poetry. Cotton Mather, in his multi-facetted history of North America, writes of Anne's father:

In books a prodigal, they say;

A living cyclopaedia;

Of histories of church and priest,

A full compendium, at least;

A table-talker, rich in sense,

And witty, without wit's pretence.

Thomas Dudley put his own affairs into capable hands of Simon Bradstreet, son of Puritan Lincolnshire minister. Simon was only a child when his father d & so Thomas Dudley took care of him & trained him both in ways of Lord & business & land-mgmt. When Anne was 16 yrs of age, Simon, 9 yrs her senior, proposed to her & was accepted. Anne was then struck down w/smallpox &, faced with prospect of losing her great beauty & possibly her betrothed through ugly scars, she turned to Lord in agony. Anne later confessed sadly & humbly, 'When I was in my affliction I besought Lord, & confessed my pride & vanity, & he was entreated of me, & again restored me. But I rendered not to him according to benefit received.'

True love whose course ran smooth - -

On Anne's recovery, couple were wed & embarked on life of deep love & mutual understanding & it was thru her most romantic & spirit-filled marriage that Anne 1st took up her pen to praise God in poetry, composing:

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.

Shortly after their marriage, in 1630, Anne & Simon joined Thomas & Dorothy Dudley & friend John Winthrop, & sailed in Arbella to set up plantation colony along coast of MA Bay. Winthrop was appointed Gov, Dudley Deputy-Gov & Bradstreet Chief-Admin. Dudley was to succeed Winthrop as Gov in 1634 & he also became colony's 1st Major-Genl. He, in turn, was succeeded by Simon Bradstreet, but this was after Anne's death. Journey to New World was terrible ordeal. Storms accompanied the vessel almost all the way, scurvy broke out & many pilgrims died. When land was reached at Charleston & tents set up, bad weather, lack of food & continued attacks of scurvy plagued colonialists. Death toll reached all families & over 100 previous settlers decided they had enough & returned dejected to Eng on Arbella. Even Dudley, disappointed, but not beaten by long way, wrote to Eng complaining that all talk abt new Promised Land had been greatly exaggerated. There must have been some pleasant moments, however, in long journey to New World. Times of grace when sun shone & hopes were raised. Thinking of such times & their temptations, Mrs Bradstreet wrote later to advise Simon, her son:

He that is to sail into a far country, although the ship, cabin, and provisions be all convenient and comfortable for him, yet he hath no desire to make that his place of residence, but longs to put in at that port where his business lies. A Christian is sailing through this world unto his heavenly country, and here he hath many conveniences and comforts, but he must beware of desiring to make this his place of abode, lest he should meet with such tossings that may cause him to long for shore before he sees land. We must, therefore, be here as strangers and pilgrims, that we may plainly declare that we seek a city above, and wait all the days of our appointed time till our change shall come.

A life torn between 2 worlds - -

Anne was repulsed at New World but w/her husband & parents she could not believe God had deserted them. They pressed on, living from hand to mouth & helped constitute a new congregation at Boston. Yet, they still talked of 'our Britain' though realising they were perhaps cut off from old friends & relations for rest of their lives. Anne, however, was struck down by serious illness for 2nd time in her life & became paralysed in all her joints. By now, however, she had grown very much in grace & merely said of her great infirmities, 'I fell into a lingering sickness like a consumption, together with lameness, which correction I saw the Lord sent to humble & try me, & do me good; & it was not altogether ineffectual.'

Both Simon & Anne were very industrious &, despite ill health, soon had fine house built & prosperous affairs to manage. Anne's husband was appointed Sec of colony's company & Commissioner for United Colonies. Though Anne was often ill, she managed to bear & raise a large family so 1 day she could thankfully write:

I had eight birds hatch'd in the nest

Four cocks there were, and hens the rest;

I nurs'd them up with pain and care,

For cost nor labour did I spare,

Till at the last they felt their wing,

Mounted the trees, and learned to sing.

Anne Bradstreet's affections for Eng often troubled her as, though she praised faith of new militant Puritans under Cromwell, she was compelled to condemn their politics & attitude to other believers. In her long poem Four Ages of Man, she looks back over her life from failed Romanist attempt to kill James I & his Parliament to foul murder of Charles I:

I've seen from Rome an execrable thing,

A plot to blow up nobles and their king;

I've seen designs at Ru and Cades crost,

And poor Palatinate for ever lost;

I've seen a prince to live on others' lands,

A royal one, by alms from subjects' hands;

I've seen base men advanc'd to great degree,

And worthy ones put to extremity:

But not their prince's love, nor state so high,

Could once reverse their shameful destiny.

I've seen one stabb'd, another lose his head,

And others fly their country through their dread.

I've seen, and so have ye, for 'tis but late,

The desolation of a goodly state,

Plotted and acted, so that none can tell

Who gave the counsel, but the prince of hell.

Thinking of golden age of church in Elizabeth's reign she could write:

But happy England, which had such a queen,

O happy, happy, had those days still been!

More trials & testings - -

Not only poor health caused Mrs Bradstreet to grow closer to God but many a material plight which would have caused others to ask why God had forsaken them. After building a spacious house for the large family, Mrs Bradstreet was awakened 1 night by a terrible roar. Huge fire blazed around her & she could hear pitiful cries of her terrified family. All dashed out but no worldly goods could be saved. Fire devastated every chair, table & chest they possessed. Finding herself briefly cast down at this great loss, Mrs Bradstreet quickly took heart & wrote, after, describing terrible scenes in her Verses upon Burning of Our House:

Then straight I 'gan my heart to chide:

And did thy wealth on earth abide?

Did'st fix thy hope on mouldering dust,

The arm of flesh did'st make thy trust?

Raise up thy thoughts above the sky,

That dunghill mists away may fly.

Thou hast an house on high erect;

Framed by that mighty Architect,

With glory richly furnished,

Stands permanent though this be fled.

It's purchasèd, and paid for, too,

By Him who hath enough to do -

A price so vast as is unknown,

Yet, by His gift, is made thine own.

There's wealth enough; I need no more.

Farewell, my pelf; farewell, my store;

The world no longer let me love.

My hope and treasure lie above.

Times of loneliness & longing - -

Simon Bradstreet's diligence promoted him regularly & he climbed rapidly up administrative & political ladder. He was now often away from home on diplomatic journey or on tour throughout colony as its faithful steward. At times, Anne Bradstreet was very lonely, in spite of her children because she missed Simon dearly. Their honeymoon days never waned. However, Dudley had large library &, amidst household chores, gardening, acting as sick-nurse & caring for seemingly ever-growing crowd of children, Mrs Bradstreet found time to read, learn & inwardly digest literary & spiritual treasures of her father. History of Britain & Ancient East thrilled her as did works on science & medicine. No student ever devoured such literary food as eagerly as Mrs Bradstreet. Few students were so strengthened in spirit & instructed in mind by such repast. Nevertheless, periods of parting from her husband forced her to express her love for him in verse as she followed him from place to place with her thoughts & prayers. Daily seeing her husband's looks & mannerisms in her children, Mrs Bradstreet writes:

In this dead time, alas, what can I more

Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore?

Which sweet contentment yields me for a space

True living pictures of their father's face.

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 would never set, but burn

Within the Cancer of my glowing breast,

The welcome house of him, my dearest guest.

Where ever, ever, stay, and go not thence

Till nature's sad decree shall call thee hence:

Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,

I here, thou there, yet both but one.

Anne Bradstreet's mentors in literature & poetry would surprise & even shock those fuddy-duddies who believe blindly that early American Puritans had no thought for beauty in either expression or art or no longing for romantic but unholy fear of expressing emotion. Mrs Bradstreet's favourite reading was work of Sir Philip Sydney, one of this writer's childhood heroes, but so often denigrated by modern would-be Puritans for writing about human love in its reflection of divine affection. This sadly is also lot of John Donne whose love-poetry opens many windows to heaven. Even Anne Bradstreet's biographer, James Anderson, who often eulogises his subject, has no sympathy for her when she writes of great French soldier poet Du Bartas:

Amongst the happy wits this age hath shown,

Great, dear, sweet Bartas, thou art matchless known.

Becoming a public figure - -

Anne Bradstreet had written her poetry as an expression of secret feelings of her heart & had no intention of making them public, though in 1642, she did distribute number amongst her family with dedication to her father, concluding it with the words:

From her that to yourself more duty owes

Than waters in the boundless ocean flows.

However, John Woodbridge, a minister, m Mrs Bradstreet's sister Mercy, copied & collected Anne's poems as secretly as she wrote them. On travelling to London in 1650, he had them published & even wrote in a preface that his sister-in-law had no idea what he was doing & would have forbidden him if she had known. Woodbridge's lame excuse was if he did not publish his sister-in-law's verse, someone else would & thus make worse job of it. Though we must chide the over-enthusiastic minister for his indiscretion, Anne Bradstreet's poetry became quite a best seller in Britain & proved means of great blessing to many. Here was a woman of deep faith & high learning who used vehicle of poetry, so often discredited by worldly scribblers in rhyme, to reveal what is honest, true, pure, lovely & edifying to reader & honoring to God. Though now public figure, Mrs Bradstreet did not change her way of life 1 bit.

Mrs Bradstreet's Meditations - -

Anne Bradstreet is mostly remembered for her poems of experience, yet she was master of prose, though little of it has been preserved. Simon, her son, asked his mother to leave him greater inheritance than wealth at her death, indicating that he wished her to draw together all good advice she had given him as child & young man. Result was Mrs Bradstreet's Meditations, compiled from her own writings & put together during Mar 1664. Work is box of precious jewels. Here are but a few of them:

The finest bread hath the least bran; the purest honey, the least wax; and the sincerest Christian, the least self-love.

Downy beds make drowsy persons, but hard lodging keeps the eyes open. A prosperous state makes a secure Christian, but adversity makes him consider.

Diverse children have their different natures: some are like flesh which nothing but salt will keep from putrefaction; some again like tender fruits that are best preserved with sugar. Those parents are wise that can fit the nurture according to their nature.

A low man can go upright under a door where a taller is glad to stoop: so a man of weak faith and mean abilities may undergo a cross more patiently than he that excels him in gifts and graces.

Few men are so humble as not to be proud of their abilities; and nothing will abase them more than this: 'What hast thou, but what thou hast received? Come, give an account of thy stewardship.'

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 pleases.

That town which thousands of enemies without hath not been able to take, hath been delivered up by one traitor within; and that man, which all the temptations of Satan without could not hurt, hath been foiled by one lust within.

God hath by His providence so ordered that no one country hath all commodities within itself, but what it wants another shall supply, that so there may be a mutual commerce through the world. As it is with countries, so it is with men: there was never yet any one man that had all excellences. Let his parts, natural and acquired, spiritual and moral, be ever so large, yet he stands in need of something which another man hath-perhaps meaner than himself: which shows us perfection is not below, as also that God will have us beholden one to another.

Weary pilgrim rests in peace - -

Shortly after becoming well-known in both Old & New Worlds, Mrs Bradstreet, seldom a healthy woman, became terminally ill w/tuberculosis. When dtr Dorothy Cotton, (m Seaborn, John Cotton's son), d, rather than allow this to increase her sorrow, Mrs Bradstreet rejoiced to know she would soon join her in their Father's mansion. Viewing death with fearless faith, & looking back over all hardships her family had endured thru God's grace in the past, Anne Bradstreet continued her poem Weary Pilgrim Now At Rest:

A pilgrim I on earth, perplexed

With sins, with cares and sorrows vexed,

By age and pains brought to decay,

And my clay house mould'ring away.

Oh! how I long to be at rest

And soar on high among the blest!

This body shall in silence sleep;

Mine eyes no more shall ever weep;

No fainting fits shall me assail,

Nor grinding pains, my body frail;

With cares and fears ne'er cumbered be,

Nor losses know, nor sorrows see.

What though my flesh shall there consume?

It is the bed Christ did perfume;

And when a few years shall be gone,

This mortal shall be clothed upon;

A corrupt carcass down it lies,

A glorious body it shall rise;

In weakness and dishonor sown,

In power 'tis raised by Christ alone.

Then soul and body shall unite

And of their maker have the sight,

Such lasting joys shall there behold

As ear ne'er heard not tongues e'er told.

Lord, make me ready for the day!

Then come, dear bridegroom, come away!

Simon, now qualified physician realised his mother, though only 60 yrs of age, had run her course & her goal was in sight. Though but skin & bone & in great pain due to merciless illness, Anne Bradstreet remained in full assurance of faith & was more concerned in comforting her dear ones than feeling any need for comfort herself. When her eyelids closed in death, Simon wrote, 'O that the Lord would give me & mine a heart to walk in her steps, considering what the end of her conversation was; that so we might one day have a happy & glorious greeting!'

Throughout her poetry, Anne Bradstreet had always been fascinated by interplay of eternity on time. Closing words of her long poem Contemplations, on death & burial of Christian, serve as fitting epitaph to her own eternal life, always longing whilst in her time-span to be freed from her earthly burden:

O Time! thou fatal wrack of mortal things,

That draws oblivion's curtains over kings,

Their sumptuous monuments, men know them not,

Their names without a record are forgot,

Their parts, their ports, their pomp's all laid in th'dust,

Nor wit, nor gold, nor buildings 'scape time's rust;

But he whose name is graved in the white stone

Shall last and shine when all of these are gone.

Anne Bradstreet has certainly a message for today & every day--

John Fiske in his important & oft praised work Beginnings of New England or Puritan Theocracy in its Relation to Civil & Religious Liberty, pulling, as it were, drawer out of cupboard of history, briefly says of Anne Bradstreet she 'was a woman of quaint learning & quainter verse, which her contemporaries admired beyond measure.' He then shuts the drawer & continues in his praise of Mrs Bradstreet's husband after telling his readers Anne Bradstreet merely inherited her gifts from her father. Thus greatest poet English Puritan Colonies ever produced & 1 of their finest illustrations of faith triumphing over every human difficulty is squeezed as tiny 'aside' into account relating political feats of 2 men who had so much relied & built on Anne Bradstreet's faith, comfort & Christian exhortation. Both Thomas Dudley & Simon Bradstreet certainly would not have been men they were if Anne Bradstreet had not been woman she was. Far more objective is Cotton Mather in his insistence, whatever Dudley's merits, his dtr was his crown & her poetry 'a monument for her memory beyond the stateliest marbles'. Mather also reminds men who believe their sex monopolises the muses they have due cause to blush with shame when faced w/Mrs Bradstreet's accomplishments. He then joins Benjamin Woodbridge, 1st graduate of Harvard in putting such men in their place:

In your own arts confess your selves outdone;

The moon hath totally eclips'd the sun:

Not with her sable mantle muffling him,

But her bright silver makes his gold look dim.

Sadly, our school history books paint a sable-mantled, muffled picture of their imagined dark & dismal Puritans, depicting them as fog-covered sun set to rise no more. How necessary it is to balance this artificial picture with Mrs Bradstreet's brave, colourful, cheerful, entertaining & uplifting verse. Her words, reflecting her experience of life give true & lasting picture of spirit of Puritan men & women who sought to build heaven on earth against great odds. Her never-dying verse, reflecting her deep taste of God's eternal love, is still fully equipped to lead & accompany modern mankind on way to heavenly bliss. It is great pity indeed her complete works are scarcely known & have not been reprinted for generations.

1.This was written in Latin on Dudley's epitaph & later translated by Mather.

Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 to nonconformist former soldier of Queen Elizabeth, Thomas Dudley, who managed affairs of Earl of Lincoln. In 1630 he sailed with his family for America with Massachusetts Bay Company. Also sailing was his associate & son-in-law, Simon Bradstreet. At 25, he had married Anne Dudley, 16, his childhood sweetheart. Anne had been well tutored in literature & history in Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, as well as English.

Voyage on "Arbella" w/John Winthrop took 3 mo & was quite difficult, with several people dying from experience. Life was rough & cold, quite a change from beautiful estate with its well-stocked library where Anne spent many hrs. As Anne tells her children in her memoirs, "I found a new world & new manners at which my heart rose up in protest". However, she did decide to join the church at Boston. As White writes, "instead of looking outward & writing her observations on this unfamiliar scene with its rough & fearsome aspects, she let her homesick imagination turn inward, marshaled images from her store of learning & dressed them in careful homespun garments."

Historically, Anne's identity is primarily linked to her prominent father & husband, both governors of MA who left portraits & numerous records. Though she appreciated their love & protection, "any woman who sought to use her wit, charm, or intelligence in community at large found herself ridiculed, banished, or executed by Colony's powerful group of male leaders." Her domain was to be domestic, separated from linked affairs of church & state, even "deriving her ideas of God from the contemplations of her husband's excellencies," according to 1 document. This situation was surely made painfully clear to her in fate of her friend Anne Hutchinson, also intelligent, educated, of prosperous family & deeply religious. Mother of 14 children & dynamic speaker, Hutchinson held prayer meetings where women debated religious & ethical ideas. Her belief the Holy Spirit dwells within justified person & so is not based on good works necessary for admission to church was considered heretical; she was labeled Jezebel & banished, eventually slain in Indian attack in NY. No wonder Bradstreet was not anxious to publish her poetry & especially kept her more personal works private. Bradstreet wrote epitaphs for both her mother & father which not only show her love for them but shows them as models of male & female behavior in Puritan culture.

An Epitaph on my dear & ever honored mother, Mrs Dorothy Dudley, Who deceased Dec 27 1643 & of her age, 61

Here lies/ A worthy matron of unspotted life,/ A loving mother & obedient wife,/ A friendly neighbor, pitiful to poor,/ Whom oft she fed, & clothed with her store;/ To servants wisely aweful, but yet kind,/ And as they did, so they reward did find:/ A true instructor of her family,/ The which she ordered with dexterity,/ The public meetings ever did frequent,/ And in her closest constant hours she spent;/ Religious in all her words & ways,/ Preparing still for death, till end of days:/ Of all her children, children lived to see,/ Then dying, left a blessed memory.

Compare this with the epitaph she wrote for her father:

Within this tomb a patriot lies/ That was both pious, just & wise,/ To truth a shield, to right a wall,/ To sectaries a whip & maul,/ A magazine of history,/ A prizer of good company/ In manners pleasant & severe/ The good him loved, the bad did fear,/ And when his time with years was spent/ In some rejoiced, more did lament./ 1653, age 77

There is little evidence about Anne's life in MA beyond that given in her poetry-no portrait, no grave marker (though there is a house in Ipswich, MA). She & her family moved several times, always to more remote frontier areas where Simon could accumulate more property & political power. They would have been quite vulnerable to Indian attack there; families of powerful Puritans were often singled out for kidnapping & ransom. Her poems tell us she loved her husband deeply & missed him greatly when he left frequently on colony business to Eng & other settlements (he was competent administrator & eventually gov). However, her feelings about him, as well as about her Puritan faith & her position as woman in Puritan community, seem complex & perhaps mixed. They had 8 children within abt 10 yrs, all of whom survived childhood. She was frequently ill & anticipated dying, especially in childbirth, but she lived to be 60 years old. Anne seems to have written poetry primarily for herself, her family, & her friends, many of whom were very well educated. Her early, more imitative poetry, taken to Eng by her brother-in-law (possibly w/o her permission), appeared as 10th Muse Lately Sprung Up in America in 1650 when she was 38 & sold well in Eng. Her later works, not published in her lifetime although shared w/friends & family, were more private & personal & far more original, than those published in 10th Muse. Her love poetry, of course, falls in this group which in style & subject matter was unique for her time, strikingly different from poetry written by male contemporaries, even those in MA such as Edward Taylor & Michael Wigglesworth. Although she may have seemed to some strange aberration of womanhood at the time, she evidently took herself very seriously as intellectual & poet. She read widely in history, science, & literature, especially works of Guillame du Bartas, studying her craft & gradually developing confident poetic voice. Her "apologies" were very likely more ironic than sincere, responding to those Puritans who felt women should be silent, modest, living in private rather than public sphere. She could be humorous with her feminist views, as in poem on Queen Elizabeth I:

Now say, have women worth, or have they none

Or had they some, but with our Queen is't gone?

Nay, masculines, you have taxed us long;

But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong.

Let such as say our sex is void of reason,

Know 'tis a slander now, but once was treason.

One must remember she was Puritan, although she often doubted, questioning power of male hierarchy, even questioning God (or harsh Puritan concept of judgmental God). Her love of nature & physical world, as well as spiritual, often caused creative conflict in her poetry. Though she finds great hope in future promises of religion, she also finds great pleasures in realities of present, especially of her family, her home & nature (though she realized perhaps she should not, according to Puritan perspective). Although few other American women were to publish poetry for next 200 yrs, her poetry was generally ignored until "rediscovered" by feminists in 20th Cent. These critics have found many significant artistic qualities in her work.

"To My Dear & Loving Husband," "A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment" & "The Prologue" & "The Author to Her Book" (with study materials)

Selected Poems by Bradstreet (Univ of Toronto)

Related Web sites:

Context of Puritanism, from Paul Reuben's Perspectives on Am Literature-Research & Reference Guide

"Puritan Woman, A Tribute to Anne Bradstreet," poem by Rose Shade

Bibliography of Criticism about Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet, 1612-1672 by Ramon Gonzalez, Student, Univ NC at Pembroke:

Anne Bradstreet b Anne Dudley in Northhampton, Eng, in 1612. She was dtr of Thomas Dudley & Dorothy Yorke. She lived in time when amount of education woman received was little to none. Even though she did not attend school, she was privileged enough to receive her education from 8 tutors & her father, Thomas Dudley, who was always more than willing to teach her something new. She was very inquisitive young person who satisfied her hunger for knowledge through extensive reading of some of greatest authors ever known. Thanks to her father's position as steward of Earl of Lincoln estate, she had unlimited access to great library of manor. This is where she became exposed to writings of many well known authors. In 1628 she m Simon Bradstreet, her father's assistant. In 1629, her father & husband had joined group of very successful men, whose goal was to protect Puritan values from people like Bishop of Laud & establish their own society in new land. Mar 29, 1630, Bradstreet & her family immigrated to New World. Bradstreet was not too happy with idea of giving up all the benefits of Earl's manor for what wilderness of New World had to offer. Nevertheless, Bradstreet spent 3 mo on her ship, Arbella, before she reached Salem Jun 12, 1630. 10 other ships reached Salem port soon after hers. When Bradstreet stepped foot on soil of New World, she was overwhelmed by sickness, lack of food, & primitive living conditions. Regardless of all this hardship, she refused to give in & return to Eng & instead made best of her new life. She struggled to raise 8 children, take care of her home, & still find time to write. Bradstreet lived hard life, but she proved to be strong woman & this internal resolve is reflected in her writing. Bradstreet was bothered by cultural bias toward women common in her time; belief was woman's place was in home attending to family & her husband's needs. Women were often considered intellectual inferiors & because of this, critics believed Bradstreet stole her ideas for her poems from men. Her writing was severely criticized because it was that of woman, receiving different kind of criticism than that of her male counterparts. Public had a similarly harsh reaction to Bradstreet's role as female writer. When her 1st publication of 10th Muse Lately Sprung Up in America was released, idea she was virtuous woman had to be stressed. John Woodbridge, her brother-in-law, had to write: "By a Gentle Women in Those Parts" on title page to assure readers Bradstreet did not neglect her duties as Puritan woman in order to write, by making it clear she found time for her poetry by giving up sleep & using what little leisure time she had. We can see anger Bradstreet feels towards this kind of criticism about her writing in following lines of her work "The Prologue":

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 despite they cast on female wits.

If what I do prove well, it won't advance;

They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance.

Simon Bradstreet played crucial role in many of Bradstreet's works. She wrote love poems about him when he was around as well as when he was away on trips. In Bradstreet's Puritan culture, love between husband & wife was supposed to be slightly repressed, so as not to distract 1 from devotion to God. Yet, some of Bradstreet's sonnets work against this idea. Good example of this is poem, "To My Dear & Loving Husband," which contains following lines:

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.

Another theme in Bradstreet's works was her religious experiences. In her writing Bradstreet gives insight of Puritan views of salvation & redemption. She writes about how she feels God has punished her thru her sicknesses & her domestic problems. Puritans believed suffering was God's way of preparing heart for accepting His grace. Idea plagued Bradstreet, & she wrote about how she struggled to do everything she could to give in to His will, in order to save her wondering soul. However, she thought God was so hard on her because her soul was too in love with the world. She also wrote some poems where she asked God to watch over her children & husband. Bradstreet was not successful with her 1st publications. 1st edition of 10th Muse Lately Sprung Up in America was not very well received by critics. In writing 10th Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, as with some of her later works, she tried to incorporate style of male authors she respected. By doing so she was limiting her abilities & denying her feelings. Publication of her 1st works gave her confidence & experience to be more free with her writing. In her later works, she began to write in her own style, where her own emotions were now more clearly expressed in her writings. One of these later works is "In Honor of That High & Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory", in which Bradstreet proclaims women are worth something. Use of her emotions in her writings is technique that chged Anne Bradstreet from good writer into great writer.

Bibliography

1) Elliott Emory, ed, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol 24: "American Colonial Writers, 1606-1734." Detroit: Gale Research Co, 1984.

Dictionary of Literary Biography is well credited resource. In comparing info in this volume to that found in other resources, found it to be rather similar. Most beneficial part about this resource was it offered more in-depth info abt this author than ones used before it.

2) Amore, Adelaide P, ed Woman's Inner World. Boston: Univ Press of America, 1982.

3) Vinson, James, ed St James Reference Guide to American Literature: American Writers to 1900. Chicago: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1980

St James Reference Guide to American Literature is not as detailed as Dictionary of Literary Biography, but still good source of factual info. It is very good place to find dates & events abt an author. Dictionary of Literary Biography has more personal info.

4) Reuben, Paul P "Chapt 1: Early American Literature to 1700-Anne Bradstreet." PAL:Perspectives in American Literature-Research & Reference Guide. www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap1/bradstreet (March 27, 2000)

• Ann Dudley was considered 1st poet of New Eng. Bradstreet, Anne Dudley 1612-1672 English-born colonial poet who wrote several collections of verse, including 10th Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650). Husband, Simon (1603-1697), was colonial admin & Gov of MA (1679-1686 & 1689-1692). Bradstreet, Anne (Dudley), c1612-1672, Am poet; b Northampton, Eng; came to MA w/father & husband, both later govs of colony. 1st important woman author in Am, known for poems that, while derivative & formal, are often realistic & genuine. Volumes of verse include 10th Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650) & Several Poems (1678).
• Silex Scintillans by Henry Vaughan includes his poem "They are all gone into the world of light"; 10th Muse Lately Sprung Up in America by English colonist Anne Bradstreet, 38, is published at London with metaphysical Puritan poems that include "To My Dear & Loving Husband" & "Upon the Burning of Our House."
• Sample of her work as poet: 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 despite they cast on female wits; If what I do prove well, it won't advance, They'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance. (Columbia Dictionary of Quotations)
• Ann Dudley b c1612 & m bef leaving Eng to Simon Bradstreet, later Gov. She was lady of great literary powers. She d 16 Sep 1672 (Genealogical Directory of 1st Settlers of New England, Vol II, pp 77-78).
• American Heritage Dictionary of English Language, 3rd Ed, 1992, Houghton Mifflin Co. Electronic version version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc.

6) People's Chronology is licensed from Henry Holt & Co, 1994 by James Trager, Inc, 1994

• Columbia Dictionary of Quotations licensed from Columbia University Press, 1993
• Family tree prepared by Stanwood E Flitner, Englewood, NJ, 1934 for Orlando Nelson Dana & Clara H Lequin. Copies in possession of Diane Blanton Bargeron & June Blanton.
• Genealogical Directory of 1st Settlers of New England, Vol I, James Savage, Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co, 1990, pp 235-236, (Tifton Co Public Library, Tifton, GA).
• Genealogical Directory of 1st Settlers of New England, Vol II, James Savage, Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1990, pp 77-78, (Tifton Co Public Library, Tifton, GA).
• Broderbund World Family Tree Archive, CD ROM, Vol 3.

From findagrave.com:

Birth: 1612

Death: Sep 16 1672

Poet. Born Anne Dudley to nonconformist parents Thomas Dudley & Dorothy Yorke Dudley in Northampton, Eng. Father was steward for Earl of Lincoln & afforded his daughter an unusually complete education. About 1620 she m Simon Bradstreet, her father's assistant. Mar 29 1630, Bradstreet & her family sailed for New World. After several yrs, they finally settled on farm in N Andover, MA in 1644. Simon Bradstreet became judge, royal councilor, & twice gov of colony. Anne Bradstreet became mother to 8 children & wrote only privately. She was frequently ill & apparently developed a vaguely morbid mind set & was continually distressed by culturally ingrained condescension toward women. 1st public work may well have been epitaph she penned for her mother in 1643. 4 yrs later, her brother-in-law carried collection of her poems with him to Eng where he had them published. They appeared as ‘10th Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By Gentlewoman of Those Parts' in New World in 1650. While it did sell in Eng, volume was not well received in MA. Although she continued to write for herself & her family, no more of her work was published in her lifetime. She was purportedly buried in Old Burying Point in Salem, MA beside her husband, though other locations for her grave have also been proposed. In 1678 her ‘Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit & Learning' was posthumously published followed by ‘Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose & Verse.' She is now considered earliest of Am poets & among finest of her age. (bio by: Iola at findagrave.com)

Note: Some think she was buried in Salem, MA, but many historians believe she was buried in cemetery est. in 1660 in Andover, MA. She died 25 yrs before her husband, they both lived in Andover.

Burial: Old North Parish Burying Ground, North Andover Center, Essex Co, MA, USA

Also from findagrave.com:

Birth: 1612, Northampton, Northamptonshire, Eng

Death: 1672, North Andover, Essex Co, MA, USA

Anne Dudley Bradstreet b in Northampton, Eng, in 1612, dtr of Thomas Dudley & Dorothy Yorke; father was leader of volunteer soldiers in English Reformation & Elizabethan Settlement, & steward to Earl of Lincoln; mother was of noble heritage & well educated. Anne (16) m Simon Bradstreet, 25 year old asst in MA Bay Co & son of Puritan minister, who had been in care of Dudleys since death of his father. Anne & her family emigrated to Am in 1630 on Arabella, amongst 1st ships to bring Puritans to New Eng in hopes of setting up plantation colonies. Anne was well educated girl, tutored in history, several languages & literature, was ill prepared for such rigorous travel, & would find journey very difficult. They initially lived in Salem, then Cambridge, Ipswich, & finally North Andover, MA. Her husband & father were involved in local govt for Boston settlement--Dudley became Deputy-Gov & Simon Bradstreet took role of Chief-Admin. In Cambridge, they lived in cabin in heart of Harvard Sq, & house which is marked by Cambridge Historical Commission's blue oval marker at 1380 Massachusetts Av. While in Ipswich, her husband was frequently away, & Anne was left to care for their 8 children. It was during this time she wrote her poem, "Letter to her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment," Anne pleads, "If two be one, as surely thou and I, / How stayest there, whilst I in Ipswich lie?" Anne's work was compiled by her bro-in-law & published in Eng in 1650 w/out Anne knowing... under title Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America. She was upset & updated publication few yrs later, w/poem of apology for its original publication: "The Author to Her Book." Anne let no more of her work be published; only circulating later work amg friends & family. Her most highly regarded work was written later in life, & published posthumously. In 1645, her family moved to North Andover, known as Andover at time. In 1666, their home burned down, prompting her to write 1 of her best well-known poems, "Verses upon the Burning of our House." Anne did not enjoy good health. She survived smallpox when she was young, & had tuberculosis which was cause of her death in 1672. Altho location of her grave remains is under contention. (Tradition in Bradstreet's time was for Puritan women to be buried in unmarked graves, alongside their husbands. Her husband's grave is in North Pt Burying Grd in Salem, MA.) He d aft her, in 1697. Simon Bradstreet's 2nd wife also named Anne & that Anne Bradstreet is probably buried beside him. North Andover Historical Soc is almost certain Anne's remains lie in Old Burying Ground on Academy Rd in North Andover, MA not far from where she lived at time of her death. They possess document from overseeing minister which records: "Anne Bradstreet died. She was buried 3 days later," making North Andover most likely place for her burial.

Inscription: Anne Dudley Bradstreet 1612-1672

"Mirror of Her Age, Glory of her Sex, whose Heaven-born-Soul leaving its earthly Shrine, chose its native home, and was take to its Rest." by Reverend John Norton in 1672

Note: Poetry Landmark erected in 2000 on anniversary of Anne's death & 350th anniversary of her 1st publication.

Burial: Old Burying Grd, North Andover, Essex Co, MA, USA

---

Laurel Logan:

There is a copy of Anne's revision of her first published work accessible online at http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bradstreet/1678/1678.html

Notice that Rev. John Woodbridge (our direct ancestor and her brother-in-law) wrote some introductory words included in the publication. It's very interesting to read because he defends her right and ability to produce literature, even though she's a woman. He assumes that some will deny that a woman is capable of writing as well as she did. John was responsible for carrying her works (without her knowledge) to England to be published as "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up into America, by a Gentlewoman in such Parts".

--Laurel Logan

Laurel Logan:

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bradstreet

Bradstreet was born Anne Dudley in Northampton, England, March 20, 1612. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, a steward of the Earl of Lincoln, and Dorothy Yorke. Due to her family's position she grew up in cultured circumstances and was an unusually well-educated woman for her time, being tutored in history, several languages, and literature. At the age of sixteen she married Simon Bradstreet. Both Anne's father and husband were later to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne and Simon, along with Anne's parents, immigrated to America aboard the Arbella during the "A WAR" in 1630.

Her 1630 immigration to Salem aboard the Arbella was a difficult three-month journey during which many of her fellow shipmates perished, unable to survive the harsh climate, poor living conditions and bouts of scurvy. Bradstreet was ill-prepared for such rigorous travel and found the journey very difficult. The migrants' trials and tribulations did not end upon their arrival, however, as many of the survivors died shortly thereafter or elected to return to England. Thomas Dudley and his friend John Winthrop made up the Boston settlement's government: Winthrop was Governor, Dudley Deputy-Governor and Simon Bradstreet Chief-Administrator.

Having previously been afflicted with smallpox, Anne would once again fall prey to illness as paralysis took over her joints; however, she did not let her predicament dim her passion for living, and creating a home and family with her husband. Despite her poor health, she had eight children and achieved a comfortable social standing.

Tragedy struck one night in 1666 when the Bradstreet home was engulfed in flames; a devastating fire that left the family homeless and devoid of personal belongings for a time. By then, Anne Bradstreet's health was slowly failing. She suffered from tuberculosis and had to deal with the loss of her daughter Dorothy to illness as well. But her will remained strong, and perhaps, as a reflection of her religious devotion and her knowledge of Biblical scriptures, she found peace in the firm belief that her daughter was in heaven.

Bradstreet's education allowed her to write with authority about politics, history, medicine, and theology. Her personal library of books was said to have numbered over 800, many of which were destroyed when her home burned down on July 10, 1666. This event itself inspired a poem entitled "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666", wherein Bradstreet rejects the anger and grief that this worldly tragedy has caused her and instead looks toward God and the assurance of heaven as consolation, saying:

"And when I could no longer look,

I blest his grace that gave and took,

That laid my goods now in the dust.

Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.

It was his own; it was not mine.

Far be it that I should repine."

Anne Bradstreet died on September 16, 1672, in Andover, Massachusetts, at the age 60. The precise location of her grave is uncertain as she may either have been buried next to her husband in "the Old Burying Point" in Salem, Massachusetts, or in "the Old Burying Ground" on Academy Road in North Andover, Massachusetts.

Works

Much of Bradstreet's poetry is based on observation of the world around her, focusing heavily on domestic and religious themes. Long considered primarily of historical interest, she won critical acceptance in the 20th century as a writer of enduring verse, particularly for her sequence of religious poems "Contemplations", which was written for her family and not published until the mid-19th century. Bradstreet's work was deeply influenced by poet Guillaume du Bartas, who was favored by 17th-century readers.

One of the most interesting aspects of her work is the context in which she wrote: an atmosphere in which women were relegated to traditional roles. Yet we cannot help but feel the love and intense devotion she had for both God and her husband, as well as for her family. Despite the traditional attitude toward women of the time, she clearly valued knowledge and intellect; she was a free thinker and some consider her an early feminist.

In 1647 Bradstreet's brother-in-law, Rev. John Woodbridge, sailed to England, carrying her manuscript of poetry without her knowledge. Anne's first work was published in London as "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up into America, by a Gentlewoman in such Parts".

The purpose of the publication appears to have been an attempt by devout Puritan men (i.e. Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet, John Woodbridge) to show that a godly and educated woman could elevate the position held by a wife and mother, without necessarily placing her in competition with men.

In 1678 her self-revised "Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning" was posthumously published in America, and included one of her most famous poems, "To My Dear and Loving Husband".

--Laurel Logan

---

In 1630, Anne came to America with her husband and father on the Arbella, joined the Puritans who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America.

She wrote poetry and they were published in England as “The Tenth Muse” in 1650. Anne, therefore became America's first published poet, although it was not until 1678, after her death, until they were published in America. Another collection of poems, “Great Variety of Wit and Learning” was published posthumously.

---

"...noted as the 'First Poetess' of the New World."

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet (born Anne Dudley; c. 1612 – September 16, 1672) was the first poet and first female writer in the British North American colonies to be published. Her first volume of poetry was The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, published in 1650. It was met with a positive reception in both the Old World and the New World

---

Anne Bradstreet was the first poet and first female writer in the British North American colonies to be published. Her first volume of poetry was The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, published in 1650.

---------------------------

AMERICA'S FIRST POET: ANNE BRADSTREET Bradstreet was born Anne Dudley in Northampton, England, 1612. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, a steward of the Earl of Lincoln, and Dorothy Yorke. Due to her family's position she grew up in cultured circumstances and was a well-educated woman for her time, being tutored in history, several languages and literature. At the age of sixteen she married Simon Bradstreet. Both Anne's father and husband were later to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne and Simon, along with Anne's parents, immigrated to America aboard the Arbella as part of the Winthrop Fleet of Puritan emigrants in 1630.

Picture Anne Bradstreet first touched American soil on June 14, 1630 at what is now Pioneer Village (Salem, Massachusetts) with Simon, her parents and other voyagers, part of the Migration to New England (1620-1640). Their stay was very brief due to the illness and starvation of Gov. John Endecott and other residents of the village. Most moved immediately south along the coast to Charlestown, Massachusetts for another short stay before moving south along the Charles River to found "the City on the Hill," Boston, Massachusetts. 

The Bradstreet family soon moved again, this time to what is now Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1632, Anne had her first child, Samuel, in Newe Towne, as it was then called.

Both Anne's father and her husband were instrumental in the founding of Harvard in 1636. Two of her sons were graduates, Samuel (Class of 1653) and Simon (Class of 1660). In October 1997, the Harvard community dedicated a gate in memory of her as America's first published poet (see last paragraph below). The Bradstreet Gate is located next to Canaday Hall, the newest dormitory in Harvard Yard.

Despite poor health, she had eight children and achieved a comfortable social standing. Having previously been afflicted with smallpox, Anne would once again fall prey to illness as paralysis overtook her joints in later years.

In the early 1640s, Simon once again pressed his wife, pregnant with her sixth child, to move for the sixth time, from Ipswich to Andover Parish. North Andover is that original town founded in 1646 by the Stevens, Osgood, Johnson, Farnum, Barker and Bradstreet families among others. Anne and her family resided in the Old Center of North Andover. They never lived in what is now known as "Andover" to the south.

In 1650, Rev. John Woodbridge had The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America composed by "A Gentlewoman from Those Parts" published in London, making Anne the first female poet ever published in both England and the New World.

On July 10, 1666, their North Andover family home burned (see "Works" below) in a fire that left the Bradstreets homeless and with few personal belongings. By then, Anne's health was slowly failing. She suffered from tuberculosis and had to deal with the loss of cherished relatives. But her will remained strong and as a reflection of her religious devotion and knowledge of Biblical scriptures, she found peace in the firm belief that her daughter-in-law Mercy and her grandchildren were in heaven.

Anne Bradstreet died on September 16, 1672 in North Andover, Massachusetts at the age of 60. The precise location of her grave is uncertain but many historians believe her body is in the Old Burying Ground at Academy Road and Osgood Street in North Andover.

From poemhunter.com

Poems to read: The Prologue To My Dear and Loving Husband The Author to Her Book

http://cballenglish.weebly.com/early-america.html

---

Anne Bradstreet (born Anne Dudley ; c. 1612 – September 16, 1672) was the first poet and first female writer in the British North American colonies to be published. Her first volume of poetry was The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, published in 1650. It was met with a positive reception in both the Old World and the New World.

Anne Bradstreet Poems: http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/anne_bradstreet/poems

To My Dear And Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were lov'd 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 recompetence. 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.

Biography:

Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 to a nonconformist former soldier of Queen Elizabeth, Thomas Dudley, who managed the affairs of the Earl of Lincoln. In 1630 he sailed with his family for America with the Massachusetts Bay Company. Also sailing was his associate and son-in-law, Simon Bradstreet. At 25, he had married Anne Dudley, 16, his childhood sweetheart. Anne had been well tutored in literature and history in Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, as well as English.

The voyage on the "Arbella" with John Winthrop took three months and was quite difficult, with several people dying from the experience. Life was rough and cold, quite a change from the beautiful estate with its well-stocked library where Anne spent many hours. As Anne tells her children in her memoirs, "I found a new world and new manners at which my heart rose [up in protest.]"a. However, she did decide to join the church at Boston. As White writes, "instead of looking outward and writing her observations on this unfamiliar scene with its rough and fearsome aspects, she let her homesick imagination turn inward, marshalled the images from her store of learning and dressed them in careful homespun garments."

Historically, Anne's identity is primarily linked to her prominent father and husband, both governors of Massachusetts who left portraits and numerous records. Though she appreciated their love and protection, "any woman who sought to use her wit, charm, or intelligence in the community at large found herself ridiculed, banished, or executed by the Colony's powerful group of male leaders."Her domain was to be domestic, separated from the linked affairs of church and state, even "deriving her ideas of God from the contemplations of her husband's excellencies," according to one document.

This situation was surely made painfully clear to her in the fate of her friend Anne Hutchinson, also intelligent, educated, of a prosperous family and deeply religious. The mother of 14 children and a dynamic speaker, Hutchinson held prayer meetings where women debated religious and ethical ideas. Her belief that the Holy Spirit dwells within a justified person and so is not based on the good works necessary for admission to the church was considered heretical; she was labelled a Jezebel and banished, eventually slain in an Indian attack in New York. No wonder Bradstreet was not anxious to publish her poetry and especially kept her more personal works private.

Bradstreet wrote epitaphs for both her mother and father which not only show her love for them but shows them as models of male and female behavior in the Puritan culture.

An Epitaph on my dear and ever honoured mother, Mrs. Dorothy Dudley, Who deceased December 27, 1643, and of her age, 61

Here lies/ A worthy matron of unspotted life,/ A loving mother and obedient wife,/ A friendly neighbor, pitiful to poor,/ Whom oft she fed, and clothed with her store;/ To servants wisely aweful, but yet kind,/ And as they did, so they reward did find:/ A true instructor of her family,/ The which she ordered with dexterity,/ The public meetings ever did frequent,/ And in her closest constant hours she spent;/ Religious in all her words and ways,/ Preparing still for death, till end of days:/ Of all her children, children lived to see,/ Then dying, left a blessed memory.

Compare this with the epitaph she wrote for her father:

Within this tomb a patriot lies/ That was both pious, just and wise,/ To truth a shield, to right a wall,/ To sectaries a whip and maul,/ A magazine of history,/ A prizer of good company/ In manners pleasant and severe/ The good him loved, the bad did fear,/ And when his time with years was spent/ In some rejoiced, more did lament./ 1653, age 77

There is little evidence about Anne's life in Massachusetts beyond that given in her poetry--no portrait, no grave marker (though there is a house in Ipswich, MA). She and her family moved several times, always to more remote frontier areas where Simon could accumulate more property and political power. They would have been quite vulnerable to Indian attack there; families of powerful Puritans were often singled out for kidnapping and ransom. Her poems tell us that she loved her husband deeply and missed him greatly when he left frequently on colony business to England and other settlements (he was a competent administrator and eventually governor). However, her feelings about him, as well as about her Puritan faith and her position as a woman in the Puritan community, seem complex and perhaps mixed. They had 8 children within about 10 years, all of whom survived childhood. She was frequently ill and anticipated dying, especially in childbirth, but she lived to be 60 years old.

Anne seems to have written poetry primarily for herself, her family, and her friends, many of whom were very well educated. Her early, more imitative poetry, taken to England by her brother-in-law (possibly without her permission), appeared as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America in 1650 when she was 38 and sold well in England. Her later works, not published in her lifetime although shared with friends and family, were more private and personal--and far more original-- than those published in The Tenth Muse. Her love poetry, of course, falls in this group which in style and subject matter was unique for her time, strikingly different from the poetry written by male contemporaries, even those in Massachusetts such as Edward Taylor and Michael Wigglesworth.

Although she may have seemed to some a strange aberration of womanhood at the time, she evidently took herself very seriously as an intellectual and a poet. She read widely in history, science, and literature, especially the works of Guillame du Bartas, studying her craft and gradually developing a confident poetic voice. Her "apologies" were very likely more a ironic than sincere, responding to those Puritans who felt women should be silent, modest, living in the private rather than the public sphere. She could be humorous with her "feminist" views, as in a poem on Queen Elizabeth I:

Now say, have women worth, or have they none
Or had they some, but with our Queen is't gone? Nay, masculines, you have taxed us long; But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong. Let such as say our sex is void of reason, Know 'tis a slander now, but once was treason.

One must remember that she was a Puritan, although she often doubted, questioning the power of the male hierarchy, even questioning God (or the harsh Puritan concept of a judgmental God). Her love of nature and the physical world, as well as the spiritual, often caused creative conflict in her poetry. Though she finds great hope in the future promises of religion, she also finds great pleasures in the realities of the present, especially of her family, her home and nature (though she realized that perhaps she should not, according to the Puritan perspective). Although few other American women were to publish poetry for the next 200 years, her poetry was generally ignored until "rediscovered" by feminists in the 20th century. These critics have found many significant artistic qualities in her work.

---

Birth: 1612 Northampton Borough Northamptonshire, England Death: Sep. 16, 1672 Andover Essex County Massachusetts, USA

Poet. Born Anne Dudley to nonconformist parents Thomas Dudley and Dorothy Yorke Dudley in Northampton, England. Her father was the steward for the Earl of Lincoln and afforded his daughter an unusually complete education. About 1620 she married Simon Bradstreet, her father's assistant. On March 29, 1630, Bradstreet and her family sailed for the New World. After several years, they finally settled on a farm in North Andover, Massachusetts in 1644. Simon Bradstreet became a judge, royal councilor, and twice a governor of the colony. Anne Bradstreet became mother to eight children and wrote only privately. She was frequently ill and apparently developed a vaguely morbid mind set and was continually distressed by the culturally ingrained condescension toward women. Her first public work may well have been the epitaph she penned for her mother in 1643. Four years later, her brother-in-law carried a collection of her poems with him to England where he had them published. They appeared as ‘The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts' in the New World in 1650. While it did sell in England, the volume was not well received in Massachusetts. Although she continued to write for herself and her family, no more of her work was published in her lifetime. She was purportedly buried in the Old Burying Point in Salem, Massachusetts beside her husband, though other locations for her grave have also been proposed. In 1678 her ‘Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning' was posthumously published followed by ‘The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse.' She is now considered the earliest of American poets and among the finest of her age. (bio by: Iola)

Family links:

Parents:

 Thomas Dudley (1576 - 1653)

 Dorothy Yorke Dudley (1582 - 1643)

Spouse:

 Simon Bradstreet (1603 - 1697)

Children:

 Dorothy Bradstreet Cotton (1633 - 1672)*

 Dorothy Bradstreet Cotton (1634 - 1672)*

 Simon Bradstreet (1640 - 1684)*

 Hannah Bradstreet Wiggin (1641 - 1707)*

 Mercy Bradstreet Wade (1646 - 1714)*

 Dudley Bradstreet (1647 - 1706)*

 John Bradstreet (1652 - 1697)*

Siblings:

 Thomas Dudley (1605 - ____)*

 Samuel Dudley (1608 - 1683)*

 Anne Dudley Bradstreet (1612 - 1672)

 Patience Dudley Denison (1612 - 1690)*

 Patience Dudley Denison (1616 - 1690)*

 Mercy Dudley Woodbridge (1621 - 1691)*

 Deborah Dudley Wade (1644 - ____)**

 Joseph Dudley (1647 - 1720)**

 Paul Dudley (1650 - ____)**

*Calculated relationship

• *Half-sibling

Note: Some people think she was buried in Salem, Massachusetts, but many historians believe she was buried in the cemetery est. in 1660 in Andover, Massachusetts. She died 25 years before her husband, and they both lived in Andover.

Burial: Old North Parish Burying Ground North Andover Essex County Massachusetts, USA GPS (lat/lon): 42.68786, -71.11568

Maintained by: Find A Grave Record added: Jan 01, 2001 Find A Grave Memorial# 126

---

Anne Dudley Bradstreet Original name: Anne Dudley Memorial

Birth: Mar. 20, 1612 Northampton Borough Northamptonshire, England Death: Sep. 16, 1672 Andover Essex County Massachusetts, USA

Poet. Born Anne Dudley to nonconformist parents Thomas Dudley and Dorothy Yorke Dudley in Northampton, England. Her father was the steward for the Earl of Lincoln and afforded his daughter an unusually complete education. About 1620 she married Simon Bradstreet, her father's assistant. On March 29, 1630, Bradstreet and her family sailed for the New World. After several years, they finally settled on a farm in North Andover, Massachusetts in 1644. Simon Bradstreet became a judge, royal councilor, and twice a governor of the colony. Anne Bradstreet became mother to eight children and wrote only privately. She was frequently ill and apparently developed a vaguely morbid mind set and was continually distressed by the culturally ingrained condescension toward women. Her first public work may well have been the epitaph she penned for her mother in 1643. Four years later, her brother-in-law carried a collection of her poems with him to England where he had them published. They appeared as ‘The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts' in the New World in 1650. While it did sell in England, the volume was not well received in Massachusetts. Although she continued to write for herself and her family, no more of her work was published in her lifetime. She was purportedly buried in the Old Burying Point in Salem, Massachusetts beside her husband, though other locations for her grave have also been proposed. In 1678 her ‘Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning' was posthumously published followed by ‘The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse.' She is now considered the earliest of American poets and among the finest of her age. (bio by: Iola)

Family links:

Parents:

 Thomas Dudley (1576 - 1653)

 Dorothy Yorke Dudley (1582 - 1643)

Spouse:

 Simon Bradstreet (1603 - 1697)

Children:

 Dorothy Bradstreet Cotton (1634 - 1672)*

 Dorothy Bradstreet Cotton (1636 - 1672)*

 Simon Bradstreet (1640 - 1684)*

 Hannah Bradstreet Wiggin (1641 - 1707)*

 Mercy Bradstreet Wade (1646 - 1714)*

 Dudley Bradstreet (1647 - 1706)*

 John Bradstreet (1652 - 1697)*

Siblings:

 Thomas Dudley (1605 - ____)*

 Samuel Dudley (1608 - 1683)*

 Anne Dudley Bradstreet (1612 - 1672)

 Patience Dudley Denison (1612 - 1690)*

 Patience Dudley Denison (1616 - 1690)*

 Mercy Dudley Woodbridge (1621 - 1691)*

 Deborah Dudley Wade (1644 - ____)**

 Joseph Dudley (1647 - 1720)**

 Paul Dudley (1650 - ____)**

*Calculated relationship

• *Half-sibling

Note: Some people think she was buried in Salem, Massachusetts, but many historians believe she was buried in the cemetery est. in 1660 in Andover, Massachusetts. She died 25 years before her husband, and they both lived in Andover.

Burial: Old North Parish Burying Ground North Andover Essex County Massachusetts, USA GPS (lat/lon): 42.68786, -71.11568

Maintained by: Find A Grave Record added: Jan 01, 2001 Find A Grave Memorial# 126

• Reference: FamilySearch Genealogy - SmartCopy: Sep 9 2019, 20:13:33 UTC