My Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet Elegy

Puritans, according to William Lloyd Cohen believed that: “Before the beginning was God, and in the Puritan imagining of time and fate. His will dictates the history of all creation(pg.79)”. Puritans believed that they should accept whatever life throws at them because it is God’s will. Anne Bradstreet, who was also a Puritan by heart, can be seen as one of the most influential female writers from the seventeenth century. Anne Bradstreet lost her three grandchildren within four years. For each of them she wrote an elegy: “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth, Who Deceased August, 1665, Being a Year and a Half Old”, “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet Who Deceased June 20, 1669, Being Three Years and Seven Months Old and

The poets usually addressed the problem of death in generalities: they reminded readers of the sovereignty of God and deaths regard for earthly rank, power and wealth”(page 152). In Anne Bradstreet’s elegy “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet”, Who Deceased August, 1665, Being a Year and a Half Old the struggle with this notion is displayed clearly. The speaker knows that she should accept this notion of “deaths regard for earthly rank, power and wealth”(152), but when she experiences it first hand it becomes increasingly harder with every loss. Different from the first poem, which was in memory of Elizabeth, where the speaker question God, in the poem for Anne the focus is shifted towards the speaker. Throughout the poem, the speaker questions why it is still so hard to accept the death of her grandchildren. This is despite her thinking that “Experience might ‘fore this have made me wise”(l.5) and her knowing that “I knew she was but as a withering flower” (l.9). Then a sequence of metaphors continues for a few lines. By comparing her grandchild with a “bubble”(l.11) and “a brittle glass”(l.11) the speaker illustrates awareness that life is not eternal. In spite of this awareness, the “throbbing heart’s” in line 17 suggest that there is still a lot of pain included with the loss. In the

The poem starts by describing the short amount of time that Simon lived on earth. Although his stay was short, in line two the speaker says, “parting caused us weep”(l.2). Whereas in the other two poems the speaker’s grief was displayed by more abstract notion, line two is especially important because it is the first mentioning of tangible grief by the speaker. Meaning, that the loss still caused the family a lot of pain. This illustrates that even though it has been the speaker’s third loss it has not become any easier. The third poem functions as a conclusive one, referencing to all three grandchildren: “Three flowers, two scarcely blown, the last i’ th’ bud, Cropped by th’ Almighty’s hand: yet is He good” (l.4). This line illustrates a very clear display of how the speaker feels. God is personified as a gardener who “cropped”(l.4) the grandchildren from the bodily to the spiritual world. It could be argued that “cropped”(l.4) sounds as though there is a negative connotation with it. However, the line ends with: “yet is He good”(l.4). The contrast between the word “cropped” and the follow-up, that God is good emphasises the theme on how the speaker feels. “Cropped”(l.4) displays the speaker finding it increasing difficult to accept the losses. Nevertheless, the continuance that God