Anne Bradstreet's Child

After the American Revolution, and almost like a child, American was born. And it was born from the hand of the dubbed Founding Fathers of the United States, a name that just reinforces the image of America as a child. However, the figure of the child was not introduced in the country by its revolution. It was already present in early literature, especially in Puritanism. Two of the authors that extensively wrote about children and their lives in Puritan American were Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor. However, even though they wrote in the same period of time, both used this figure in different manners. In Bradstreet’s case, the female author chooses to write about the child in a metaphorical sense, but also in a more literal manner. As for Taylor, who was a minister, he approaches the image of the child from a religious point of view.
In Bradstreet’s “The Author to Her Book”, the poem is introduced as the author’s child. Being a housewife and a mother, it is understandable that this comparison came almost naturally to Bradstreet. She addresses her poem as her “offspring” born from her “feeble brain” (l. 1) who was taken from her before it was ready for independence. Consequently, the poem contains all her faults and flaws, and even

22). By using the word “remains”, she identifies her children as her direct legacy. However, in line 27, when she asks her husband to kiss her poem if he finds it, she is also acknowledging her work as a part of herself that will remain with him even when she is gone. Both Bradstreet’s biological and artistic legacy are then intrinsically connected. “These O protect” (l. 24) seems to be directed to her biological children, nevertheless, the author could also mean the protection of her literary children (with her references to “this verse” [l. 25] and “this paper” [l.