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The Author To Her Book Summary

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In Anna Bradstreet’s poem, “The Author to Her Book,” the speaker is a woman whose book has been stolen by her friends to be published. Since she is not proud of the writing, she tries to fix it, but to no avail, and eventually she gives up her efforts. Bradstreet illustrates the complex relationship of this author and her book through the use of an extended metaphor that demonstrates a mother’s relationship with her child throughout time. With this metaphor, Bradstreet conveys the speaker’s shifting tones and negative attitudes towards her book that culminate in a feeling of resignation.
The title of the poem, “The Author to Her Book,” gives readers insight into the content of the poem: simply, it is about an author and her book. It also suggests …show more content…

Similarly, the speaker recognizes that she cannot change the fact that the book is her own creation and she is responsible for it; as her maternal feelings take over, she decides that she can at least try to fix its flaws with some form of affection. Like a mother frustratingly rubbing dirt off of an unclean child, she attempts to fix the book: “I washed thy face, yet more defects I saw/And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw” (13-14). She keeps trying: “I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet” (line 15). But it does not work: “Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet” (line 15). The word “defects” denotes imperfection but has a negative connotation; to her, the child’s flaws cannot be overlooked and must be fixed. The author desperately wants to turn the book into something that she is not disappointed in and she would be proud to publish. In the context of the life cycle of a mother-child relationship, this part of the metaphor represents the childhood years. The mother attempts to fix her child’s flaws and imperfections but she cannot change the way the child is. Correspondingly, the speaker’s attempts at fixing her flawed writing are without success. While the speaker’s intentions are in the right place, she cannot deliver: “In better dress to trim thee was my mind/But nought save homespun cloth in the house I find” (17-18). The mother wants the best for her child, but is too poor to provide the new clothes. Likewise, the author is too poor - in mind and in skill - to help her book; meaning, just like the mother only has “homespun cloth” in the house to give to the child, the speaker’s only means are the writing

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