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Anne Bradstreet's Poem Verses Upon The Burning Of Our House

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Anne Bradstreet through several of her poems does not show true Puritan beliefs. In “Verses Upon the Burning of our House”, Bradstreet is caught in the internal conflict between her faith and accepting the loss of her earthly possessions. She used personification to state that her heart “cried” to God not to leave her helpless but it delivers the idea that she only prays to him when she is in need (8). All the luxuries that Puritans have are given by God’s grace and belong to him. Anne is a materialistic person because she says, “When by the ruins oft I past, my sorrowing eyes aside did cast, and here and there the places spy, where oft I sate and long did lie” (21), thus she is still sorrowing about losing her things even though she knows …show more content…

According to Puritan beliefs, self-love or love to somebody else should not be superior to our love to God. In the poem, “To My Dear and Loving husband”, Anne Bradstreet boasts about the love she and her husband share. Anne exaggerates her love for her husband and thinks they are the perfect couple with a powerful connection. She expresses how her husband’s love is more important than “whole mines of gold or all the riches that the East hold” (Bradstreet, 5-6). With this phrase, she gives the idea that she does not care about any other love rather than her husbands and even makes us think that she loves her husband more than she loves God and that this love was distracting her from her commitment to him. Anne’s marriage should have been centered in worshiping God not only their love. She desires her husband so much that not even “rivers can quench” that thirst (Bradstreet, 7). Anne believes that God will pay her husband for his love towards her. She suggests that the big love she and her husband share is the pathway for eternal life. By the end she uses the paradox, “That when we live no more, we may live ever” (Bradstreet, 12), to reassure the idea that the love they share will live

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An intelligent midwife by the name of Anne Hutchinson wanted to contest many of these firmly held beliefs that had been accepted as standards in the Puritan religion. Hutchinson was well known at the time for her “ready wit and bold spirit” . Anne also had an incredible knowledge of the scripture that allowed her to hold court in her own home and debate commonly held beliefs with prominent church members. She began to challenge local ministers for their views that behavior and church attendance were keys to salvation. Like Roger Williams, Anne believed that religion was a personal affair and people should listen to God directly, and not through the Bible or clergy.

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The 1600’s and the 1700’s held many differences socially and spiritually than we have today. The 1600’s was hectic in the sense that Christianity underwent massive tension and division. The Puritan faith was an outcome of the religious division which the poet, Anne Bradstreet, later adopted as her own. Along with the newly found Puritan faith also came social division between men and women. The Puritans, the groups that first migrated and dominated New England’s coast in the mid 1600’s, interpreted the Bible literally word by word.

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Material Possession vs Religion In “Verses upon the Burning of our House”, about the religious and human view of material things, Anne Bradstreet tries to hide the fact that during the burning of her house she secretly grieves the lost of her material things. The poet struggles in the debate of spiritualism and non spiritualism as she goes on in the poem describing her feelings and thoughts about her house burning down. As I read the poem I felt a bit of controversy from Bradstreet point of view because of her seesaw in how she illustrates the importance of possession, contrary of her religious beliefs. Bradstreet´s final point is that unlike the importance of possession, people, including the poet herself, craves and desires all material things. Bradstreet opens her poem by telling her readers about the impact caused on her when she woke up form a “silent night” (1), term she uses to later express the great impact made on her by the roaring sound of fire burning down her house, and that awakens her from her sleep.

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In this essay, I will analyze the poem Verses Upon the Burning of Our House (July 10th, 1666) by Anne Bradstreet, a puritan who most critics consider to be America’s first “authentic poet. The poem is based on a true story as Anne’s house really did burn down and illustrates her meditations on this event, the pain she felt after losing her home and the effect it had on her faith. The main theme is Anne’s struggle to not become attached to material things. I will begin by explaining the rhyme, style, and tone of the poem, continue by explaining which literary devices and interesting features we can find and the effect they have on the reader, then I will analyze the poem and finally I will give a brief conclusion. Verses Upon the Burning of Our House is a poem written in couplets in iambic tetrameter scheme which makes the story flow nicely.

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By going against what the Puritan leaders in the church believed, she was also going against the “fathers of the common wealth” (253). Tobin continues to explain how Hutchinson went against the normal standards of woman in her time era by standing up against her male leaders and voicing her views. Hutchinson defended herself in such an orderly manner, as she quoted biblical verses in which she indirectly indicated examples of sexism (255). At the point of Anne Hutchinson’s trial the Puritan churches’ main focus in attempting to excommunicate her was to use religion and the laws bound by God to win their case. The Puritan group leaders used metaphors to further justify their argument, such as comparing God to be the father to the select leaders of the church, who then must act as a father to the public (237).

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Anne Bradstreet is one of the most controversial poets of her time. Choosing her lover and materialistic items over religion. This is best shown in her works "To my dear loving husband" and "Upon the burning of our house" Which solely focuses on her Ironic lover as well as her home. In these poems she talks about how nothing can replace the happiness she feel with the main topic of each poem. While very similar in black and white.

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The poem, To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet, she describes the never ending love she has for her husband. She expresses her Puritan ideologies by stating “The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray”(3.2). Since Bradstreet and her husband had the capacity to remain in marriage and affection here on earth, she trusts God will compensate them by letting their love be eternal in heaven. She appeals to her husband, praising their unity and saying there is no man in the planet whose wife cherishes him more. In the Puritan society marriage was a serious commitment.

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Puritans are a people with a very strong belief in both God and the power of God. When people see power, they interpret it in different ways. Some know of power through anger and impulse, while others see power through the goodness the powerful one shows. Although Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards are both puritan poets, their writings convey mainly different, though sometimes similar, views on God because they have different perceptions of His will and the use of His power. Anne Bradstreet listens to and accepts anything that God wishes, and that is shown through her poem Upon the Burning of my House.

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In the poems “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and “Upon the Burning of Our House” the author Anne Bradstreet allows the reader a glimpse of what she values. The two poems are alike because they both explore her religion and show her love for God. In these two poems they let you get a glimpse of the way she looked at things and saw the good side of everything. For example, in “ To My Dear and Loving Husband” it says “ if ever a man were loved by wife, then thee; if ever wife was happy in man,”.

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According to Thomas Brooks, "Sin in a wicked man is like poison in a serpent; it is in its natural place. " Many can argue that the Puritan democracy was very corrupt. Stephen Foster, the author of the essay, “Puritanism and Democracy: A Mixed Legacy” states, “New Englanders admitted that no man could read the law of nature alright, that all men were equally corrupt.” Because of this corruptness, Puritans struggled to create a democracy, never viewed others as equals, and even after trying to create a democratic government, they acted as hypocrites.

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