The Prologue by Anne Bradstreet
"The Prologue" by Anne Bradstreet serves as both an apology and a defense of her poetic work, illustrating the complex dynamics faced by a female poet in the Puritan New World. Written in a structured format of eight six-line stanzas with a consistent rhyme scheme, the poem begins with Bradstreet expressing humility about her poetry and acknowledging her limitations compared to male poets. However, as the poem progresses, she subtly challenges the societal expectations of women, who are often relegated to domestic roles and dismissed as capable poets.
Bradstreet references historical literary figures, such as Sir Philip Sidney and du Bartas, while hinting at the irony of her position as a woman writer. She acknowledges the cultural biases that diminish women's artistic contributions and articulates a desire for some recognition of women's creative efforts, suggesting that even her lesser works might enhance the stature of male poetry. The poem blends genuine humility with an underlying critique of misogyny in the literary world, ultimately calling for a reevaluation of women's roles in poetry. Through her clever wordplay and strategic positioning, Bradstreet invites readers to reconsider the value of female voices in literature.
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The Prologue by Anne Bradstreet
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1650 (collected in The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, 1650)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“The Prologue” is Bradstreet’s apology for her book of poems. At first, it seems like an apology in the common sense of the word, for she refers to her “foolish, broken, blemished Muse” and begs elaborate pardon that her poems are not so fine as those of other poets, although she insists that she is doing the best she can. Upon closer inspection, “The Prologue” turns out to be an apology in the literary sense of a defense of her art. One of her favorite poets, Sir Philip Sidney, also referred to his own work condescendingly. This attitude has a special meaning when expressed by a woman writing in a New World Puritan outpost before 1650.
“The Prologue” is written in eight six-line iambic pentameter stanzas, using the rhyme scheme ababcc. Bradstreet begins by advising her reader that she has no ambition to write an elaborate, important poem such as an epic. She lauds the sixteenth century French poet du Bartas but notes that her work will be much simpler. She hopes it will not be judged too harshly, for her ability is severely limited.
In the second half of the poem, she modifies her defense. She acknowledges that men expect women to practice feminine arts such as needlework and refuse to recognize any value in a woman’s poem. She intimates that the Greeks, in making the Muses feminine, had more regard for feminine creativity but concedes that this argument will not convince the men. She then concludes with two stanzas confessing the superiority of male poets but asking “some small acknowledgment” of women’s efforts. After all, Bradstreet’s “lowly lines” will simply make men’s poetry look better by comparison.
Even read literally, as it often has been read, this poem displays clever strategy. How could any fair-minded person expect competent poetry from uneducated people who had no opportunities to travel or associate familiarly with other poets and who spent most of their lives bearing children and serving their needs and those of their husbands? Even when blessed with talent and sufficient leisure to compose, such writers offered no threat to the male poets, many of whom could take education, frequent association with their peers, and leisure for granted. By displaying humility at the beginning of her book, Bradstreet hoped to forestall, or at least minimize, the inevitable criticism of a woman poet.
It is difficult, however, to escape the conviction that irony lurks everywhere in this poem. In the first place, it is scarcely possible that Bradstreet considered her brain “weak or wounded” as she styles it in the poem; talented people are usually aware of their talent. If she cannot write “of wars, of captains, and of kings,” she has the resources to write about her husband, children and grandchildren, domestic life (including the cruel experience of watching her home burn), and the spiritual struggle common to all Puritans.
The last four stanzas of the poem betray signs of an ironic counterattack upon her critics. Her fifth stanza almost undermines the effect toward which she is working by nearly boiling over with indignation at men’s refusal to accept the woman poet. Such criticism is “carping”; it maintains that any feminine poetic success must be the result of either plagiarism or “chance.” Why did men call poetry “Calliope’s own child”? The answer that she attributes to the men—that the Greeks did nothing but “play the fools and lie”—mimics a weak-kneed response.
In her final stanza, she catches the true satiric tone. Addressing “ye highflown quills that soar the skies,” she asks not for the “bays,” or traditional laurel wreath honoring poetic achievement, but for a “thyme or parsley wreath” befitting the woman who is expected to reign chiefly in the kitchen. She might as well have asked for a bay leaf, the common kitchen spice, but such a request might have reminded her audience that the laurel leaf and the bay leaf are closely affiliated. In effect, Bradstreet has asked for a recognition less humble than it seems. Her final point—that her “unrefined ore” will make the male poets’ “gold” appear to shine more brightly—taunts the egotism of the males, who are probably flying too high to notice.
Bibliography
Cowell, Pattie, and Ann Stanford, eds. Critical Essays on Anne Bradstreet. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1983.
Dolle, Raymond F. Anne Bradstreet: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990.
Hammond, Jeffrey. Sinful Self, Saintly Self. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993.
Harde, Roxanne. “’Then Soul and Body Shall Unite’: Anne Bradstreet’s Theology of Embodiment.” In From Anne Bradstreet to Abraham Lincoln: Puritanism in America, edited by Michael Schuldiner. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004.
Martin, Wendy. An American Triptych: Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
Scheick, William J. Authority and Female Authorship in Colonial America. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998.
Stanford, Ann. Anne Bradstreet: The Worldly Puritan. New York: Burt Franklin, 1974.
White, Elizabeth Wade. Anne Bradstreet: The Tenth Muse. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.