An Analysis Of Anne Bradstreet's The Author To Her Book

In Puritan society, even though education was offered to males and females, the number of Puritan women attending school was lower than the number of Puritan men. It is of our knowledge that Bradstreet was part of the women who received no formal education at all, however her father was well learned and had a large collection of books, therefore she grew up reading in great amounts. Puritans believed in humility, plainness, and different roles of men and women in society. In “The Author to Her Book”, Anne Bradstreet makes use of iambic pentameter and heroic couplets to convey disdain towards her writing. The poem’s speaker tenaciously deduces that content of her writing, in this case her poem, is not laudable as a result of her dearth of schooling (1). She reiterates that it is not worthy of being published or set out …show more content…
Bradstreet attempts to attack some Puritan beliefs but at the same time she demonstrates she adheres to them to be accepted in society. The poet uses false modesty to make the reader feel compassion towards the speaker since she blames her “feeble brain” (1) of the imperfect piece of literature. As previously stated, the author received no education at all but she must have had a particular literary skill for knowing how to implement different poetic techniques, such as stipulated rhymes and meter for her various works of poetry. These different techniques attack Puritan beliefs of women being less intelligent than men by putting them into use. Just as the author of this poem was able to use such elaborate techniques, any other Puritan woman could have make use of it as