Anne Bradstreet is recognized as the first accomplished female New World Poet. She is widely known for her volume of poetry, published in London in 1650, named The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America. She has several experiences that impacted and shaped her poetry, including her upbringing, family, and spiritual beliefs
Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 to Thomas Dudley who was a nonconformist former soldier of Queen Elizabeth (Biography of Anne Bradstreet). Although she did not having any formal schooling, her father took great care to see that she received an education that was superior to that of most young women of the time (Norton 207). She was taught history and literature, as well as many languages besides English including Greek, Latin,
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Preeminence in all and each is yours;
Yet grant some small acknowledgment of ours (Norton 209)
Her position as a woman in a puritan colony, and her doubts of the male hierarchy, a judgmental god and her love of her husband and community created much conflict within herself and her poetry. Her inner conflicts are expressed in a letter written to her children before she passed. In the letter she explains the first conflicts she had about her beliefs. “But as I grew up to be about 14 or 15 I found my heart more carnall, and sitting loose from God, vanity and the follyes of youth take hold of me” (Norton 235). She would battle this ‘looseness’ from God for the rest of her life, but she always found herself going back to her religion.
Anne Bradstreet was modest about her work, saying it was full of mistakes. Yet, she is known as the first female writer of the New World and one of the few published female poet in the centuries to come. She also received praise from Cotton Mather, who compared her to Hippatia, Sarocchia, and Empress Eudicia (Martin). Anne died on September 16, 1672, and although she had no portraits, and no grave marker, she is still remembered as an accomplished