Poetry Respondent: Kimberly Jones

By

Anne Bradstreet 1620-1820

This poem expresses an uplifting example of domestic love. It recognizes a bond of love between husband and wife. When examined in the light of the stated course objectives the following can be noticed:

• Romanticism – There is an air of transcendence and idealism about this relationship (no wife was loved more, no couple was more one than they, their love is valuable and unquenchable). This love involves the cosmic realm: the poet prays that her husband be rewarded on a higher plain because earthly recompense will not suffice. She sees their love as outlasting the grave. In essence the poet sees this love as epitomizing what love should be.

• Romantic spirit and history – the tone and poemscape reflect and support the notion of romantic spirit. The structure is consistent with the sonnet form: rhyming couplets and repetition of words and phrases lend persuasive weight to the discourse. Also given the historically harsh living conditions and the socially repressive Puritanical framework this type of love seems rare.

• The poem explores competing and complimentary dimensions of American Romanticism. The poem expresses a spiritual experience in calculable material terms "I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, / Or all the riches that the East doth hold".

Bradstreet sets a standard and makes a plea at the same time for continued effort at sustaining this love. This might suggest that there is some distance between reality and hope or maybe in the way that she might have liked their relationship to be. The question I would pose is this: Was Anne’s expression of love to her husband idealized in a manner which suggests that it is a form of escapism from the harsh reality of the New World?

Comments:

The respondent re-enforced the idea of this poem as illustrative of domestic romance. Among the questions raised were the issues of the appropriateness of the expression of this type of passion at that time and the "double-voicedness" of women writers in earlier times to mask their true intent. The comment was also made that the poet displayed a degree of sassiness in flaunting her love to the other women: "Compare with me ye women, if you can."