Chapter 43: Anne Bradstreet: High and Mighty
Spoiler Alert: This summary and analysis contain details about the chapter’s arguments and conclusions.
Summary
Anne Bradstreet, born Anne Dudley in 1612, emigrated with her husband Simon Bradstreet and father Thomas Dudley to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. A Puritan intellectual and mother of eight, Bradstreet wrote poetry that blended domestic, philosophical, and political themes. The chapter centres on her poem “In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth,” which praises Elizabeth I’s wisdom, justice, and martial success while slyly mocking male detractors of female rule. Adams argues the poem carries a subversive coded message: by lavishly extolling Elizabeth’s Protestant virtues and strong governance, Bradstreet implicitly criticises Charles I, whose failings as a monarch—civil war, perceived betrayal of the Reformation—stand in stark contrast. In 1650, without Bradstreet’s knowledge, her brother-in-law published a collection of her poems in London as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America. Bradstreet’s witty rejoinder, “The Author to Her Book,” reveals her anxiety about public exposure, her sharp humour, and her affection for her work. The chapter illuminates how a colonial woman poet used conventional praise to encode political dissent within the constraints of her era.
Key Events
- Anne Dudley marries Simon Bradstreet in 1628, surviving smallpox the same year.
- In 1630, she sails with the Winthrop fleet to New England, where the family helps found Cambridge (later home to Harvard).
- Bradstreet bears eight children, only one of whom dies in infancy.
- She composes poems on domestic love, nature, faith, and public affairs, including a lament for the estrangement between Old and New England.
- At some point after 1630 and before 1647, she writes “In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth.”
- In 1647, her brother-in-law John Woodbridge sails to England and arranges the unauthorised publication of her poems as The Tenth Muse (1650).
- Bradstreet responds with the self-deprecating yet defiant poem “The Author to Her Book.”
Character Development
Anne Bradstreet emerges as a woman of keen intelligence and wry humour. Her response to the surprise publication of her poetry displays a tension between modesty and pride: she calls the volume her “rambling brat” and bemoans its “blemishes,” yet she cannot resist trying to “wash thy face” and mend its flaws. This mix of embarrassment and affection reveals a writer deeply invested in her craft. The chapter also shows Bradstreet’s political astuteness. By praising Elizabeth I in terms that highlight every virtue Charles I lacked, she constructs a critique that was too risky to state openly before the king’s execution. Her ability to embed subversion inside orthodox panegyric marks her as a sophisticated and daring voice.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
- Feminine solidarity as political argument: Bradstreet’s poem directly challenges “Masculines” who claim women have no worth or reason, using Elizabeth as the ultimate rebuttal. The queen’s example “wip’d off th’ aspersion of her Sex.”
- Coded critique of monarchy: Elizabeth’s “high and mighty” virtues—goodness, clemency, wisdom, martial strength—are precisely the qualities Bradstreet’s Puritan circle found absent in Charles I. The poem becomes a veiled indictment.
- The private poet dragged into public view: The unauthorised publication of her work forces Bradstreet to confront the gap between domestic composition and public judgment, a tension she plays for laughs in “The Author to Her Book.”
- Puritan context and colonial identity: Bradstreet’s writing reflects the political and religious upheavals of the English Civil War, as well as the new colony’s relationship with the mother country, seen in her lament for “Old England.”
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter demonstrates how a seemingly conventional seventeenth-century praise poem could serve as a weapon of political satire. By decoding Bradstreet’s verses to Elizabeth I, Max Adams reveals a daring woman who used her pen to criticise a reigning king without ever naming him. The chapter also situates Bradstreet within the broader story of “unquiet women”—women who navigated patriarchal constraints to voice intellectual, spiritual, and political convictions. Her experience with unauthorised publication and her witty response humanise her and underscore the risks women faced when their private words became public property. Bradstreet’s story adds an American colonial dimension to the book’s theme, linking the Puritan experiment to the long tradition of women who found ways to speak back to power.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does Bradstreet’s poem “In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth” function as political commentary rather than mere praise?
The poem piles superlatives on Elizabeth—wisdom, justice, learning, martial prowess—while explicitly rebuking male critics of female rule. Adams argues that every virtue ascribed to Elizabeth was, from a Puritan perspective, conspicuously absent in Charles I. By the time the poem was published in 1650, Charles had already been executed, but the verses could be read as a retrospective indictment of his reign, positioning Elizabeth as the mirror in which the king’s failures become visible.
2. What does Bradstreet’s reaction to the unauthorised publication of her poems reveal about her personal and literary identity?
In “The Author to Her Book,” Bradstreet adopts the persona of a mortified mother whose child has been sent into the world in rags. Her self-deprecation is laced with genuine anxiety about public scrutiny, yet the poem also shows affectionate ownership: she tries to correct the “blemishes” and admits the “brat” is her own. This double-edged response reveals a woman who is both constrained by modesty conventions and fiercely committed to her work, using humour to deflect criticism while asserting her authorship.
3. How does the chapter connect Bradstreet’s private life to her public writing?
Adams traces Bradstreet’s personal experiences—emigration, motherhood, loss of her home to fire, and her family’s role in founding Harvard—directly into her poetry. Her domestic affections appear in verses about her husband and children. Her political poems, such as the dialogue between Old and New England, reflect the colony’s anxieties during the English Civil War. The chapter shows that Bradstreet’s writing was not a retreat from the world but a sustained engagement with the most pressing spiritual, familial, and political questions of her time.