Anne Bradstreet

“ Most critics consider Anne Bradstreet America’s first authentic poet,” (Jill, 1). Since female poets were not commonly found in the 1600’s, she was viewed as an amazing poet. Her great writing styles helped to revolutionize the way for woman. She opened the doors of acceptance, for all women to enter through. Since Anne Bradstreet had, what seems, like a good life, she had a great background to produce her writings on.
Thomas and Dorthy Dudley gave birth to Anne Dudley, in Norhampton, England, around the year of 1612. At the age of eighteen, she married a man named, Simon Bradstreet. “ In 1630, the Bradstreets and Dudleys came to the New World,” (Jill, 1). Before they found their permanent home in North Andover, Massachusetts, in 1644, they had resided “ in Salem, Boston, Cambridge, and Ipswich,” (Jill, 1). When Simon Bradstreet was executing his duties as “ a judge, legislator, royal councilor, and twice a governor of the colony… Anne Bradstreet became a devoted wife and mother,” (Jill, 1) to her eight children. Reverend John Woodbridge, Anne Bradstreet’s brother-in-law, published some of her poetry, in England, in 1647 (The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Biography 137-138). Bradstreet created many various types of publications.
“Bradstreet’s first publication is entitled The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts,” (Jill, 2). “Her other publications include: Several Poems, a revision of Several Poems, and The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse,” (Jill, 2). With the case of these poems, they are written in heroic couplets and are in traditional subject matter, (Dictionary of American Biography 577-578). “ Her early work, largely imitative and influenced by that of the sixteenth-century French poet Du Bartas is conventional, dull, and easily forgotten (Webster’s American Biographies 129). She also wrote “ Contemplations”, “ The Flesh and the Spirit”, and “The Author to Her Book.” Bradstreet based many of her literary works on her lifetime experiences.
Since Anne Bradstreet had, what seems, like a good life, she had a great background to produce her writings on. Her literary works made, “ many readers enjoy her subjects and how they were treated,” (Jill, 3). Given that Bradstreet had provided her generation with so much, “her death on September 16, 1672, in North Andover, Massachusetts, was a great loss,” (Jill, 3).