Anne Bradstreet

A detailed Summary of Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet's Themes Lie Within The Rhyme That Does Not Rhyme

Mark Twain once said, "The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug." This quote defines Anne Bradstreet, for she has proven to be a master of word placement. Her ability to always create the perfect poetic structure was a necessity, not a luxury. Growing up and living as a woman in a man's world made it impossible for her to show her true feeling on paper, without first disguising them with a contradicting costume. Bradstreet lived in the 1600's as a Puritan. This was a time when women were not expected to be educated and more importantly, were not tolerated if they spoke against the strong, religious Puritan beliefs. So Anne, a highly educated woman, who did not agree with the Puritan's beliefs, very carefully rebelled with beautiful poetry and dynamic rhetorical strategies. The two poems that will be discussed here are "To My Dear and Loving Husband" and "Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our Houses." Though these two poems seem to focus on simplicity rather than complexity, there are many underlying meaning and rhetorical strategies that take place, such as Bradstreet's

In "Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House," Anne Bradstreet creates a work of art that has many similarities to the previously discussed poem. Though this poem is more in depth and offers much more insight than "To My Dear and Loving Husband," the theme is portrayed, again, with the distinction of putting together two lines that do not end in rhyme. This poem describes the tragedy of Anne's house burning down, and her reaction, a discretely happy reaction. Throughout the entire poem, there is a description of something or someone who she labels as "Him" and "He." It is for the reader to figure out that this character is God, or perhaps this character is vanity. Only once does Bradstreet refer to "Him" as God. She specifically wrote "my God," perhaps questioning the validity of her religion. She explains, most clearly, the theme of this poem by creating two lines that do not rhyme. The two lines that do not rhyme read as follows...

This entire poem is written to describe the horrors that vanity creates, and it is captured in these two lines. All is vanity that burned down, and she was happy to see it go. Another similarity between these two poems is the way that the theme was written.

That when we live no more, we may live ever."(Bradstreet 100)

Anne Bradstreet's talent was truly amazing. I have only described one rhetorical structure that Bradstreet used in the two poems above because it is the most interesting to me. However, Bradstreet used a surprising amount of rhetorical structures throughout both of the poems mentioned previously. Bradstreet used such rhetoric's as persuasive words through metaphors, tremendous rapport, emotional words, pacing and absolutes. Bradstreet also used genetic fallacies through past experiences and an us vs. them type of theme. She also used parallels with her word and syllables. The amount of rhetorica

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Approximate Word count = 1271
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English