Imagery And Irony In Anne Bradstreet's Literature

In the 1600s a group of protestants who wanted to purify the church of ceremony and hierarchy fled to america after being persecuted back in england settling in the massachusetts bay colony. In the 1630 a group of settlers under the command of John Winthrop who became the first governor of Massachusetts land in Massachusetts, with them Anne Dudley, daughter of Thomas Dudley, marrying simon Bradstreet at the age of sixteen. As an educated woman she was taught to read and write and became the first female writer in the Americas. In her literature she used imagery, pathos and irony to portray the Puritan life and ethics of their belief in god.

Anne Bradstreet uses imagery to convey to image of heavens the puritans held. In bradstreet's poem of the flesh and the spirit she describes the pure and holiness of heaven through the spirit for example "the gates of pearl, both rich and clear, and angels are for porters there. The streets thereof transparent gold such as no eye did e're behold". in which puritan believed that they would transcend to heavens and they believed they would be welcomed by angels. In verses upon the burning of our house she describes the fire that burned her house “ i wakened was with thund’ring noise and piteous shrieks of dreadful …show more content…
the world no longer let me love, my hope and treasure lies above” in which she's stating how she no longer needs her money and her store because she’ll get all she needs in heaven. In the flesh and the spirit it seems that the spirit gets angry at the flesh because she's materialistic so she proceed to say “ but reach at things that are so high, beyond thy dull capacity” in which she's saying that flesh is too