Compare And Contrast Anne Bradstreet And Edwards

Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards are both early American authors. Bradstreet focuses her work on the poetic spin of writing, whereas Edwards focused his toward the sermon side of things. Two famous works of Bradstreet’s are “Upon Our Burning House” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband ”. She also wrote a short story called ”The Story of An Hour”. Edwards' has a famous sermon called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” that is long and has a lot of literary devices, such as imagery and diction. While their works are in different formats, Bradstreet with poems and Edwards with sermons, they are both heavily influenced by God and have good uses of literary devices. Along with this, they also have social influences of their faith and have

They show this with how they represent God and the way they use literary devices. Edwards and Bradstreet both talk about God in their works, but in different ways. Bradstreet talks about God in a more positive light, stating “And to my God my heart did cry, To strengthen me in my distress, And not to leave me succorless” (Bradstreet 8-10). She is saying that God woke her from her slumber, and if He hadn't done so, she would be dead. Bradstreet uses a lot of literary devices in her poems and short stories while talking about God in a positive light. She does this by using things such as diction and denotation. She states “It was His own, it was not mine, Far be it that I should repine; He might of all justly bereft, But yet sufficient for us left” (Bradstreet 17-20). Using words such as “repine” and “bereft” are examples of how she uses diction and denotation to support God's actions. The word “repine” is used to say how even though she lost her house and everything she owns, she shouldn't be upset because God has woken her up to get out of the fire. She also uses the word “bereft”, to which she is using in a literal sense. This shows the uses of denotation as it means to give and she is using it to say that God “might of all justly” give what he sees

Some of the same literary devices that they use is repetition and shift. In Bradstreets’ “The Story of an Hour” she shifts the tone from being sad and grieving to finding a sense of joy and happiness to be free from her husbands’ grasp on her. She goes from “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms [...]” (Bradstreet 786) to “[...] she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! ‘Free! Body and soul free!’” (Bradstreet 787). In the story, Louise finds the joy of being free to be able to do what she wants and say what she thinks accompanied by the absence of her husband. Much like Bradstreet, Edwards has a dramatic shift at the end of his sermon. Throughout his speech, Edwards talks in a way that would give one a feeling of distress as they look back on