Anne Bradstreet: Changing the Country, One Work at a Time

When we were assigned this blog, I thought finding an interesting topic about Anne Bradstreet and the Puritans would be fairly easy, but I was proved wrong. I finally found a question that interested me about Anne Bradstreet when I was searching Anne Bradstreet on Google. 

How did Anne Bradstreet influence/change the country through her writings?

Anne Bradstreet, as we have already discussed slightly, was the first woman poet in America (New England), as well as the first "American" poet, period. She was also a Puritan, and their society was very hostile to any imagination whatsoever. According to http://www.english-e-corner.com/americanliterature/contents/ColonialPeriod/default.htm, her writings were unsurpassed by any American women until Emily Dickinson 200 years later. The first book published by an English settler was Bradstreet's The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650), and most of her poems were imitative. In http://www.reformation21.org/shelf-life/anne-bradstreet-the-guided-tour-of-the-life-and-thought-of-a-puritan-poet-1.php, Heidi L. Nichols allows Bradstreet's work to speak for itself in her book Anne Bradstreet: A Guided Tour of the Life and Thought of a Puritan Poet. According to Nichols, Bradstreet's deep intellectualism along with her love for her husband and children oppose the common misconceptions of Puritans as being unfriendly, narrow minded people. Bradstreet was also significant in church history because she can still relate to today's readers and emphasize the need for God. Nichols believes that Bradstreet's writings were a letter to the nation and about her faith that still speaks to us through her works. I found a website completely dedicated to Bradstreet's works at http://www.annebradstreet.com/. On this website, the authors say that Bradstreet's works serve as a testimony to the struggles of a Puritan wife against the adversity of New England colonial life in the seventeenth century. Most of Bradstreet's poems were written when she was lonely because her husband was away on political affairs. This website said that Bradstreet is a positive, inspirational role model because of her disregard to material wealth, humility, and spirituality (regardless of religion).

So, in conclusion, I think that Bradstreet's writings greatly influences our country because different works can relate to different emotions. I really enjoyed learning about her and how we can relate to her works even today. She was prominent in history both in literature and in the history of the church, and I really thought that was impressive considering what time period she lived in and the face that she was a woman.