The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation
An Introduction to Anne Bradstreet:
Anne Bradstreet, née Anne Dudley, (born c. 1612, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England – died September 16, 1672, Andover, Massachusetts Bay Colony (U.S.]), one of the first poets to write English verse in the American colonies. Long considered primarily of historical interest, she won critical acceptance in the 20th century as a writer of enduring verse, particularly for her sequence of religious poems, “Contemplations,” written for her family and not published until the mid-19th century.
She wrote her poems while rearing eight children, functioning as a hostess, and performing other domestic duties. The Bradstreets moved frequently in the Massachusetts colony, first to Cambridge, then to Ipswich, and then to Andover, which became their permanent home. Bradstreet’s brother-in-law, without her knowledge, took her poems to England, where they were published as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650). The first American edition of The Tenth Muse was published in revised and expanded form as Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning (1678). Most of the poems in the first edition are long and rather dully imitative works based on the standard poetic conventions of the time, but the last two poems— “Of the Vanity of All Worldly Creatures” and “David’s Lamentation for Saul and Jonathan” – are individual and genuine in their recapitulation of her own feelings.
Her later poems, written for her family, show her spiritual growth as she came fully to accept the Puritan creed. She also wrote more personal poems of considerable beauty, treating in them such subjects as her thoughts before childbirth and her response to the death of a grandchild. These shorter poems benefit from their lack of imitation and didacticism. Her prose works include “Meditations,” a collection of succinct and pithy aphorisms. A scholarly edition of her work was edited by John Harvard Ellis in 1867. In 1956 the poet John Berryman paid tribute to her in Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, a long poem that incorporates many phrases from her writings.
An Introduction to The Prologue:
“The Prologue” mostly focuses on what the speaker thinks it means for a woman like her to write poems. She starts out by saying that she won’t focus on the big subjects of history like kings, or war, or politics, since she’s not up to the challenge. She promises to leave the big subjects to the pros (the men), since she feels like Nature didn’t give her (a woman) the brains or the chops to make great art. Then she shifts gears a little, and starts to talk about the critics, who she imagines would rather see her sewing than writing. She points out (maybe just a little bitterly?) that, even if she writes great poems, the male critics will just say she stole them. She also reminds her reader that the ancient Greeks believed women could be poets. Finally, she tells her imagined critics, and the world, that there’s no reason for men to feel threatened by female poets. She’s not trying to be the best; she just wants her work to be acknowledged for its own worth. She’s happy, she tells us, to play second fiddle to the guys, as long as they let her play.
The Paraphrase of The Prologue :
For my humble pen, to sing of Wars, of Captains, and of Kings, of Cities founded and the establishment of Common-wealths are too superior things. Let the Poets and Historians keep the chronology of those events. My obscure lines shall not fit their worth.
But whenever my roaming eyes and envious heart read the ‘sugared lines’ of Great Bartas (Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas [1544-1590), a French poet who wrote epic poem on Christian history), Fool I am, I resent the Muses for not endowing me with that over-fluent treasure like him. A Bartas can do what a Bartas wants to do.
We cannot expect rhetoric from a school-boy’s (untrained) tongue, nor yet a sweet harmonious tune from broken strings, nor perfect beauty where there is a basic defect. My foolish, broken, flawed Muse (literary ability) sings thus, and, alas, there is no art to mend this, because Nature has made it so unrectifiable.
I am not capable even like that fluent sweet-tongued Greek (Demosthenes [384-322 BC), a notable Greek orator, who was particularly notable for his use of rhetoric) who had a speech impediment at first, (but) in future times he trained himself to speak plain. By art he joyously found what he sought, a full compensation of his striving pain. Art can do much, but this dictum is absolute: A weak or wounded brain cannot be cured.
I am hostile to each critical tongue who opines that å needle fits better than a pen in my hand. They advise me to scorn a Poet’s Pen. By this, they actually, cast a negativity on female wits. If I prove myself well, even then it will not be accepted and they will say it is stolen (imitated), or else it was by chance.
I consider the antique (ancient) Greeks surely were more compassionate (to women), else of our sex (female), why did affect those nine (Muses) and poesy is made Calliope’s (the Muse of epic poetry) own child? So among the rest they placed the arts divine, but they will soon untie this weak knot fully. The Greeks did nothing but paly the fools and lie.
Let Greeks remain and Women what they are. Men have superiority and they still excel; it is futile to wage war on this subject. Men can do best, and women know it very well. I accept that preeminence in all and is yours (men’s); yet (men should) grant some small acknowledgement of our talent.
And oh you high flown quills (lofty poetry) that soar the skies, and still catch your praise ever with your prey, if ever you decend your eyes below these lowly lines (literary standards), give me thyme or parsley garland, I claim no (garland of) Bays. This ore of mine, mean and unrefined, will still make your glistering gold shine more brightly.
A Summary of The Prologue :
The poet does not think she will write about wars, captains, kings, or cities pen, of commonwealths. She believes that these topics are too “superior” for her and should be written by historians. Her lines, meanwhile, would be too “obscure.” However, when she lets her eyes wander over Bartas’ work, she wishes the Muses had not given him so much more talent. She feels that her work is simple compared to the work of that great man. She claims that readers do not expect fancy words from schoolboys or sweet music from broken instruments, and blames her Muse for giving her “broken, blemished” words.
She does not think she is capable of ever harnessing Bartas’ talent, and feels that a “weak or wounded brain admits no cure.” She is angry, however, with people who tell her that her hand is better with a needle in it, and advise her to scorn the “poet’s pen.” Even if she does write something worthy, she knows that critics will say she copied it with or that her success is just due to luck.
The poet thinks that the Greeks must have been more “mild” toward feminine achievement because of all the powerful female characters in mythology. However, she criticizes Greek men, saying the “play the fools and lie.” She just asks for Greeks to be Greeks and for women to be women. She accepts that men “have precenency, and still excell,” and feels that there is no point for women to wage war on that reality. She hopes, though, that women will get some small acknowledgment. She does not want ‘bays” but will be content with a “thyme or parsley wreath.” She knows that her ore is “unrefined,” but knows that she can still make “glistening gold” shine.
A Critical Analysis of The Prologue :
“The Prologue” is one of Bradstreet’s most intellectually stimulating poems because she invokes a historical and global context. The poem contains allusions to the Greeks, Christianity, contemporary poetry, feminism, and psychology. While many critics have assumed that this poem serves as an admission of Bradstreet’s ambivalence about her work, it is actually a bold assertion of the poet’s skill and her right to compose verse in an era when feminism was far from becoming a political movement.
In the first stanza, the poet writes that she does not discuss the same topics as elite male poets, like kings, commonwealths, and cities. Her lines are more “obscure” than theirs and she focuses on more personal, intimate matters. Although she does not even claim the title of poet, her rhyme scheme and meter are perfect; she uses precise iambic pentameter, rhyming ABABCC. In the second stanza, Bradstreet compares her work to the great French historian and poet, Guillaume DuBartas, whose work was popular with Puritans because of its emphasis on Christian history. Bradstreet does not aspire to his equal, but rather, to be simple and true to her skill.
In stanza three, she evokes the Muses for the first time. She claims a “foolish, blemished Muse so sings” to her. One critic notes a prescient statement of Freudian psychology when the poet compares herself to a schoolboy. He writes, “the imagery of this suggests a profound envy for the more obvious parts of the male anatomy, without which the poet… feels inadequate for the task at hand… [and] no art can make up for this irreparable fact of nature.”
In stanza four, the highly educated Bradstreet alludes to Demosthenes, the famed Greek orator who overcame a lisp to achieve great prestige. Bradstreet, however, does not feel that it is possible to overcome “a weak or wounded brain.” In stanza five, Bradstreet stands up for her right to write poetry. She excoriates those who tell her that her hand is better suited for a needle than a “poet’s pen” and laments the fact that even if her poems do attain prominence, people will claim that she either stole them or chanced upon them by accident.
In stanza six, she returns to the topic of the Greeks. Bradstreet explains that the Muses, a group of nine females, occupy an exalted strata in Greek mythology. Unfortunately, most Greek men were still not particularly open-minded about women’s rights, and instead, “did naught but play the fools and lie.” Bradstreet claims her right to have a voice, and upholds domesticity as a valuable source of verse. As is indicative of her time period, Bradstreet does not make claims of gender equality or suggest that patriarchy ought to be discarded, but argues that women are capable of producing worthy work, and that critics and readers alike should offer “some small acknowledgment” for a female poet’s right to express herself.
In the last stanza, Bradstreet conveys that she believes her work is humble. Her poems are not “bays” but rather, they are “thyme or parsley wreath[s],” which are simple, unimpressive household plants. Jane Donahue Eberwein claims that Bradstreet’s witty and charming poem demonstrates that “masculine pretensions to intellectual superiority are fundamentally unnecessary, as the two sexes complement each other like the humors of the body and tend ideally toward that ‘perfect amity’ described by Phlegm” (see the “Quaternions” for more information).
Critic Eileen Margerum considers “The Prologue” to be in the tradition of humility that was common in the poetry of Bradstreet’s time. Margerum refuted some critics’ claims that Bradstreet was unhappy with her own work and was too deferential to male poets and figures in her life, like her father. Instead, she elucidates that Bradstreet was actually writing within the traditions of the time. Humility and submissiveness towards the audience was common in Latin poetry, and that was a holdover from the Roman oratorical tradition. Bradstreet dedicated “The Quaternions” to her father, assigning him traditional roles of worthy patron and senior poet. In the classical tradition, a patron was usually a person of rank who supported a young poet, and protected him financially and politically. Bradstreet also makes sure to credit the poet DuBartas, because he has served as an inspiration to her.
Many of Bradstreet’s word choices in “The Prologue” exemplify her position of humility: “mean” “foolish, broken, blemished,” and “weak or wounded” are all part of the traditional self-deprecating style. Bradstreet continues this theme throughout “The Quaternions” and “Dialogue Between Old England and New.” Overall, as Margerum notes, Bradstreet never “uses her sex as an excuse for writing poor poetry” and never offers apologies for writing poetry in the first place. She did not think it sinful or uncouth for her to write, but rather, her humble remarks “are creative applications of conventional and obligatory poetic formulae, and not as expressions of self-doubt or deprecations of her poetic abilities.”
Published in 1650, “The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman in those parts” was a book of poetry written by Anne Bradstreet that was printed through the agency of her brother-in-law without much of her knowledge or permission.
Prologues remained a significant and primary mode of introduction in the beginning of works published during Renaissance. Giving a glimpse into the themes in the collection and bestowing a context for perception, prologues played a very essential role in identification of the tone of the author. Similarly, The Prologue written by Bradstreet fulfills the same function by providing an to the readers of what the prominent theme of her work will be and what she will restrain from writing:
“To sing of Wars, of Captains, and of Kings, Of Cities founded, Common-wealths begun, For my mean Pen are too superior things”
She began by highlighting ‘the worth of her pen’ but also maintained humility in her tone. When she named the ‘Great Bartas’ and ‘sweet-tongued Greek’ and quoted other few reverential literary extraordinaire, readers are reminded of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath who purposely and strategically cited words of those who appeared to be validating her arguments. Nonetheless, it is known that it is also a Renaissance way of paying tribute to the ‘literary grandfathers’. Alike Wife of Bath, she also challenged the conventions underneath the view of conformity to the norms. By using her indisputable belief in god as a sanction to write, she makes a powerful statement of using her pen as a weapon.
In the androcentric literary world where pen was considered a phallic symbol and needle; a sign of ‘all that was comfortingly and traditionally’ viewed as womanly. Visible in when M.G “Monk” Lewis said:
“…as a rule I have an aversion, a pity, and contempt for all female scribblers. The needle, not the pen, is the instrument they should handle, and the only one they ever use dexterously.”
Bradstreet quite blatantly challenged the male authoritative voice and forceful control of women:
“I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits.”
Her strong rebuttal yet can be observed to not be directed towards one individual or a definite group of people (or men) and that is where the effortless power emerged from – the deliberate ambiguity that was understood by those it was pointed at.
In fact, the concept of adopt, adapt and adept can be used to understand the writing of ‘the first didactic American poet, the first to give an embodiment to American nature, the first in whom personal intention appears to precede Puritan dogma as an impulse in verse’ (Adrienne Rich in the forward to Hensley edition of Bradstreet’s work). In terms of her form of writing, it seems to be ‘adopted from her precursors – the traditional long unbroken stanzas in rhymed couplets following the iambic pentameter. Her confessed admiration of Guillaume Du Bartas, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser and her somewhat imitation of their works was quite visible. But like Rosemary M. Laughlin in ‘Anne Bradstreet: Poet in search of Form’ wrote ‘it would seem that Mistress Bradstreet intuited – if perhaps unconsciously – early in her career that the rigid form of the quateronions was not best suited for personal expression.’
Secondly, it looked as if the poet ‘adapted the tone which was rich with selfderision and parody coupled with modesty. Her poetry was fairly suggestive of her comfort in autobiographical expression in an anecdotal and conversational tone and in a ‘debate structure, with its varied handling of issues and emotions’ as suggested by Jane Donahue in ‘The “Unrefined Ore” of Anne Bradstreet’s Quaternions’. Comparatively, her ‘obscure lines’ mirrored her being ‘adept to using the space of her poems for catharsis. It was indeed in her subject matter where her excellence lay and not the form and style. Moreover, the same is agreed upon by Marian Schlotterbeck in her essay “Modestly Appropriating Conventions: Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley and the Literary Sphere of Early America’: “The appropriation of style and language allowed Bradstreet and Wheatley to make their voices heard.”
According to me, Bradstreet successfully questioned and defied the patriarchal literary tradition in her works especially in ‘The Prologue’ along with subtly disturbing the expectations from a Puritan woman. Thus, somehow managing to find a middle space between the conditioning and her transparent point of views. Exhibiting a collage of her personal experiences in poems like ‘A Letter To Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment’, ‘On My Son’s Return Out Of England , ‘From Deliverance from a Feaver’ among many others, she deviated from the path of censorship that women were taught to follow. Her pen proudly echoed her psychology as a Puritan woman, dutiful daughter, faithful wife, doting mother and most clearly, as a woman poet writing in an unabashed man’s world.
Second page of dedication (to her father) and Prologue from 1678 edition of Anne Bradstreet’s poetry, Several poems : Compiled with great variety of Wit and Learning, full of Delight … By a Gentlewoman in New England, E B812 1678.
Without deploying a harsh tone, she displayed ‘a conflict of obedience and resistance’ and an unfamiliar ‘Puritan dilemma of the fallibility of material existence and the infallibility of the spiritual but the necessity for living in a world of time and space..’ as Perry Miller rightly pointed out. Furthermore, after reading Bloom’s Freudian theory of patrilineal literary inheritance, it can be comprehended that ‘her battle, however, was not against her (male) precursor’s reading of the world.
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The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation
The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation
The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation The Prologue Summary , Introduction , Analysis , Explanation