Mistress Bradstreet

by Charlotte Gordon

  She wrote with conviction and speed, perhaps because she suspected her manuscript was soon to be published and wanted this poem included, but she may also have hoped to comfort Ward in what she knew would be his profound grief. He had written The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam to forestall this violent event but had failed. Her brother-in-law, too, would likely feel he had not carried out his mission of mediation. But she could not be outright in her condolences. If anyone suspected the men of sympathizing with the dead king, they might be killed.

  In her elegy “David’s Lamentation for Saul and Jonathan II Sam. 1:19,” Anne assumed the voice of David, the Israelite poet and ancient king of Israel who had ascended to the throne after the death of King Saul and his son, Jonathan. This was the only time she adopted a male identity in her poetry, and this was in keeping with her sense that she had to conceal her political views behind a blameless facade.

  The verse begins innocently enough: “Alas, slain is the head of Israel.” But of course any mention of a “head” and a “slain” king in one line could only bring to mind Charles. In case anyone was inclined to miss her point, she emphasizes the actual royal scalp, writing, “The shield of Saul was vilely cast away, / . . . / As if his head ne’er felt the sacred oil.”13 After all, even if they hadn’t been there, her readers, too, were likely haunted by the images: the king’s head tumbling into the chute, the damp spray of blood shooting forth from his arteries, the awful gape of his ghastly neck.

  It was a bleak poem that Anne rushed to finish. When at last they read her verse, Woodbridge and Ward knew immediately that this elegy belonged in her book. They placed it last, as her triumphal effort, the one that spoke most directly to her time and people.

  Adopting David’s point of view had allowed Anne to make another point that New England Puritans found especially appealing. David had mourned the old king, but the fact remained that Saul had disobeyed the Lord and had even sought to murder David; that is why both he and his son had to die. Everyone understood that David was the rightful leader, and Anne’s assumption of his voice equated New England with the new, holier Israel, one that might mourn the passing of the old but represented the hope of the future. This final elegy reinforced Anne’s “Dialogue”; England, like Saul, was condemned to die. New England, like David, was bound for glory.

  Anne might well have rejoiced to be living in the promised land, but though she might prophesy that Israel (in the guise of New England) would flourish and conquer the Philistines, it was sad to see the new sweep away the old, even if ordained by God. “How are the mighty fall’n into decay?” she lamented, bearing witness to New England’s glorious ascent, while old England’s bloodied corpse lay in the sand.14 There was another significance in her speaking with David’s voice—a rush of exhilaration came from identifying herself with the man who was not only Israel’s greatest king but also the author of the most beautiful poems in history, the Psalms. If only in the lines of this poem, she could at last speak with the authority of the greatest male poet of all time.

  ON JULY 1, 1650, a little book, measuring only five and a half by three and three-quarter inches, was offered for sale. It was called The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, a title John had chosen himself. It was easier for men to envision a woman as an inspiration, or a muse of poetry, rather than an author, and so Woodbridge’s title was well conceived. Anne’s work, he implied, was worth reading not because she claimed to be a poet in her own right but because it would encourage other, male, writers to produce new poems. In his prefatory letter he suggested that Anne had had no intention of allowing anyone to read her work. Indeed, the only person’s “displeasure” he “fear[ed]” in publishing the book was hers (a disingenuous remark, since the reading public, too, was liable to attack him for publishing a woman). John wrote that “contrary to her expectation, I have presumed to bring to public view, what she resolved should . . . never see the sun.”15

  John’s presentation worked, and Ward’s seal of approval finished the job. The Tenth Muse thrilled the public, taking it by storm. Given the tense mood of the country, Anne’s poetry struck the perfect note. She spoke on behalf of harmony and peace, even as she advocated violence against infidels. Her New England seemed the repository of hope for the Old World and held forth the promise of healing.

  This was balm for her readers, when optimism was rare and doom seemed inevitable (except for the eager Puritan extremists, whose spirits had never been more buoyant). Far from being threatened, English readers saw the volume as a curiosity—few women had ventured into the literary marketplace, let alone one who had ventured to “the Occidentall parts of the World”—and sales steadily mounted as everyone eagerly read this pioneer woman’s words.16 There are no records of any of the criticism Woodbridge, Ward, and Anne herself had feared. Instead, Anne Bradstreet became a kind of heroine. She embodied the spirit and the voice of these Puritan times. And, indeed, seven years after publication, The Tenth Muse was still selling briskly on both sides of the Atlantic.

  For some the event was as strange as if a monkey or a parakeet had published a volume of verse. Women were not supposed to have brains capacious enough to hold the enormous amount of information Anne wielded. Perhaps they could write a letter or a prayer or two, but they could never master the noblest form of all—verse. Even Woodbridge had declared,

  Some books of women I have heard of late,

  Perused some, so witless, intricate,

  So void of sense, and truth . . .

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  . . . I might with pity,

  Have wished them all to women’s works to look,

  And never more to meddle with their book.17

  Despite the clamor that erupted when The Tenth Muse arrived in the marketplace, Anne did not at first know her poems were in print. It took several months for the news to sail across the ocean. In some ways it was fortunate for her that there was this delay, because once the letters began to arrive telling her of her little book’s good fortune, and once the volume itself landed on the shores of America, there was nothing she could do to stop the printing press.

  At last, at thirty-eight years old, Anne held her book in her hands. It must have been with a mixture of joy and trepidation that she grasped the leather binding and sliced the pages apart. She knew that at this point there was nothing she could do to fix her poems; the many mistakes she found scrambled across every page were there to stay. Whether they were the result of publisher’s errors or her own lack of skill, she “blush[ed]” at the many “irksome” imperfections.18

  In her poem “The Author to Her Book,” she called The Tenth Muse the “ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain” and then extended this metaphor, saying that since she had “affection” for her child, she had attempted to “amend” the book’s “blemishes,” but had failed.19

  I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,

  And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.

  I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,

  Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet;

  In better dress to trim thee was my mind,

  But nought save homespun cloth i’ th’ house I find.20

  Cleverly, Anne adjusted her meter to reflect her poetic apologies, adding an extra syllable to the “hobbling” line so that the verse itself appeared to limp. The “homespun” material she used to dress her “brat” was an assertion of her new style.21 No more aping the learned English male poets. She was a Puritan mother living in America, and as such her poetry could only be roughly hewn. Of course, as in “The Prologue,” the announcement of her humility would serve her well, according to the Puritan ethic.

  Although there are no records of how many colonists bought The Tenth Muse, one indicator of the book’s popularity in New England is that it was the only book of poetry in the library of Edward Taylor (the next generation’s distinguished poet) fifty or so years later.22 This meant the volume’s popularity was widespread as well
as long lasting, since Taylor lived in the western part of the state. Some historians have felt it fair to surmise that nearly every Puritan home in New England contained a copy of The Tenth Muse.23 And Anne herself became one of the few women to gain an entry in Cotton Mather’s history of the period, written forty years after her book’s publication. Looking back on Anne’s achievement with nostalgia, Mather called her poems “a monument for her Memory beyond the Statliest Marbles.”24

  In the opening lines of “The Author to Her Book,” Anne reiterated John’s prefatory letter and declared that she had never thought to publish her poems herself. Instead, she claimed, the manuscript was “snatched” by “friends” who were eager to publish her work, and she was shocked to be catapulted into the public eye. Although she admitted she had sent the book “out of door,” she insisted she was free of ambitious aspirations.

  The Tenth Muse was 220 pages long and printed in a tiny typeface. There were thirteen poems in all, including her elegies to Du Bartas, Elizabeth I, and Sidney, The Quaternions, “The Prologue,” “The Four Monarchies,” and “David’s Lamentation for Saul and Jonathan.” It was impossible for her readers to miss her piety and skill. Clearly Anne Bradstreet was a learned, faithful woman whose work demonstrated the redemptive effects of emigrating to America. No Old World woman had ever achieved such a feat; perhaps New England had enhanced her abilities in some mysterious way, as though God looked with favor on both her project and the colony.

  When he overheard remarks like these, Dudley could breathe a deep sigh of exultation. Anne’s book went a long way toward helping her family recover from Sarah’s disgrace. She had restored the reputation of the Dudley name and had become an unwitting celebrity. John had made sure to tell the reader in his prefatory letter that Anne was above all a woman who was “honoured, and esteemed where she lives for her gracious demeanour, her eminent parts, her pious conversation, and discreet managing of her family occasions.” Her poems had not impaired her commitment to her family as a good mother and wife. Her neighbors saw that she had not shirked her duties and instead had “curtailed . . . her sleep, and other refreshments” in order to devote her time to her writing. Indeed, John declared, she had spent only “some few hours” on her work.25

  This was clearly not true, but what else could Woodbridge say? The appearance of any woman in print was suspicious enough—as John wrote, “The worst effect of [a man’s] reading will be unbelief, which will make him question whether it be a woman’s work, and ask, is it possible?”—and so a volume of this weight and magnitude needed copious explanation. No other woman in the history of the English language had managed such an accomplishment. It would be more than a century before another female would publish work with this kind of ambition and on this large a scale. Understandably, then, Woodbridge tried to reassure readers that Anne was not trespassing in male territory. The Tenth Muse was a “Womans Book” and needed to be read with sympathy by male readers, not with “envie of the inferiour Sex.”26

  And yet no one balked at her achievement. Her book galloped through printings. In 1658 it was listed as one of “the most vendible books in England” in the bookseller William London’s catalog, next to “Herbert’s The Temple, Mr Milton’s Poems . . . and Mr Shaksper’s Poems.” Fifteen years later, “a very learned English woman who had tutored the daughters of Charles I” exclaimed, “How excellent a Poet Mrs. Bradstreet is (now in America) her works do testify.”27 One young man wrote a fan letter:

  Your only hand those Poesies did compose,

  Your head the source, whence all those springs did flow,

  Your voice, whence changes sweetest notes arose,

  Your feet that kept the dance alone, I trow:

  Then, vail your bonnets, Poetasters all,

  Strike, lower amain, and at these humbly fall,

  And deem your selves advance’d to be her Pedestal.28

  It seems likely that Anne wrote back to this particular devotee, whose name was John Rogers, because she had heard of him from her sister Patience. He was courting Patience’s daughter Elizabeth, and when at last he married her, John was thrilled that Anne became his aunt by marriage.

  Although it was slightly overwhelming to receive such impassioned testimonials from young men, Anne also relished the attention. She cultivated her relationship with young Rogers, who was a man “of so sweet a temper” that he had few enemies and would, in fact, one day become president of Harvard College. This would turn out well for Anne, as it would probably be Rogers who would oversee the printing of her Selected Works years after she had died.29

  Anne had achieved even more than her bold father had dreamed of when he had devoted himself to her early education. Dudley could only rejoice. New England and Anne were his two largest sources of pride, and now they had merged in a breathtaking climax. His intelligent eldest daughter had become the spokesperson for the American Puritan way.

  Sadly for Anne, she was able to bask in her father’s pride for only a few years. Dudley died in 1653, when Anne was forty-one. Characteristically, she turned her attention to writing an elegy for him, fulfilling what she termed was her “duty” even as she sought comfort in verse. Though it must have been a struggle to express her admiration and love when laboring under such grief, she turned out eighty-five lines, lavishing far more attention on this tribute than she had on her brief twenty-line poem for her mother.

  My mournful mind, sore pressed, in trembling verse

  Presents my lamentations at his hearse,

  Who was my father, guide, instructor too,

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  For who more cause to boast his worth than I?

  Who heard or saw, observed or knew him better?

  Or who alive than I a greater debtor?30

  In this poem Anne expresses the special bond she and her father had. No one was closer to him than she, she claimed, and therefore she must endure the largest share of grief at his death. Even his new wife does not have the right to interject herself between the two. “He was my father” she declares, making no mention of her siblings. She was “his own.”31 Then, in true Dudley fashion, she shifts the poem’s theme to America and her father’s other daughter, New England. Just as Dudley delighted in Anne as the poetic spokesperson for New England, so Anne is proud of his role in the creation of the colony. He must be acknowledged for all he did so that the voices of “malice” and “envy” will not drown out his achievements:

  One of thy Founders, him New England know,

  Who stayed thy feeble sides when thou wast low,

  Who spent his state, his strength and years with care

  That after-comers in them might have share.

  True patriot of this little commonweal,

  Who is’t can tax thee ought, but for thy zeal?32

  The elegy’s last word, “lament,” summed up Anne’s feelings during this difficult time. Word had come from over the ocean that her beloved friend Ward had died the previous fall, and his loss coupled with Dudley’s was surely hard to bear. Then John Cotton, too, expired at his home in Boston after a short illness. She seemed to have lost all of her male teachers and guides in one blow; significantly, lament was the last word she would write for almost ten years. With the exception of a few devotional verses, she would not pen another serious poem until the early 1660s.

  No one knows why this is, or even if it is strictly true. Some of her papers could have gotten lost, especially since in the years to come she would face a tragedy that would destroy many of her belongings. But it does seem likely that she was too alone in Andover to compose poetry. Without Woodbridge and Ward, and now without her father’s support, perhaps she could no longer struggle against all the barriers that lay between a woman and a serious writing life. Or perhaps she was simply too preoccupied with running her household, as Simon continued to be busy with colonial matters of governance.

  Although she could take some comfort from her eighth and last baby, who was born in 165
2, she revealed the extent of her yearnings when she named the infant John, after the “brother” she missed and loved so well. Her children brought a certain kind of joy, and originally they had given her the confidence that God had blessed her and her attempts at poetry, but as time wore on, they could hardly be said to make writing easier. When little John “with wayward cries . . . did disturb her rest,” she felt herself “waste” as the child “did thrive.” Seven times before, she had done this, and she was “spent”; her strength was ebbing. How could it be otherwise? For almost twenty years, Anne had been bearing children; she was exhausted. By the time she was forty-four, “the wretched days” yawned in front of her, each one laden with responsibilities and hard physical labor that taxed her beyond her abilities. In one journal entry in 1656, she wrote, “My spirits were worn out and many times my faith weak.”33

  Her tasks were made all the more difficult by the fact that mysterious illnesses began to strike with alarming frequency. Sometimes Anne wondered if it were time to follow her father on the last pious journey, the one she hoped would take her to heaven and the embrace of the eternal “Bridegroom,” Jesus, the one “man” who would never leave her and on whom she could count without any hesitation.34

  Her passion for God grew, as though she were in the midst of an all-consuming love affair and had to endure time apart from her beloved as she once had mourned her time away from Simon. Employing a rather jumbled collision of divine identities, she wrote:

  Lord, why should I doubt any more when Thou hast given me such assured pledges of Thy love? First, Thou art my Creator, I Thy creature, Thou my master, I Thy servant. But hence arises not my comfort, Thou art my Father, I Thy child; “Ye shall be My sons and daughters,” saith the Lord Almighty. Christ is my brother, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, unto my God and your God; but lest this should not be enough, thy maker is thy husband. Nay more, I am a member of His body, He my head.35