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Powered by LitCharts content and AI. "The Author to Her Book" was written in the mid-1600s by the Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet, after she and her family had emigrated from England to America. In the poem, Bradstreet explores her own feelings towards her one published collection of poetry, The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America, which was ...
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The poem was first published in 1678, as part of...
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- To My Dear and Loving Husband
- Summary
- Structure
- Themes
- Tone
- Literary Devices
- Analysis of The Author to Her Book
- About Anne Bradstreet
The Author to Her Book begins with the speakerdescribing her finished book as being malformed. It is incorrect, in some fundamental way. She believes this to be of no one’s fault but her own as her brain is “feeble.” This book that she does not wish to share with anyone, was taken from her by friends and published. The result is spread around the w...
‘The Author to Her Book’ by Anne Bradstreet does not contain any stanza divisions. It presents a long stanza depicting the conversation between the poet and her recently written book. There are a total of 24 lines in the poem. The poet uses the closed couplet format in this poem. Each couplet rhymes as usual. So, the rhyme scheme of the poem is AA ...
‘The Author to Her Book’ by Anne Bradstreet encompasses different themes that were popular at that time. The most important theme of the poem is motherhood. It is a different kind of motherhood. Here the poet is the mother and the book in the poem acts as her baby. The poet focuses on the relationship between a mother and her child in an innovative...
‘The Author to Her Book’ by Anne Bradstreet is a poem about the bond between an author and her book. There is a tone of admiration and love in the speeches of the poetic persona. Her tone reflects the caressing quality of a mother’s reliable voice. The poet treats her work as her own baby. Like a mother brings her child up, she has also raised her ...
‘The Author to Her Book’ by Anne Bradstreet presents an array of literary devices that make the poet’s voice appealing to the readers. In the first line of the poem, Bradstreet uses a metaphor in the phrase, “ill-form’d offspring”. Here, the poet refers to her recently written book. It is also a personification. The poet uses irony in the following...
Lines 1- 6
It is clear from the title of this piece, and it is then reconfirmed in the first line, that the narratoris speaking directly to her own book. The relationship she has with this completed volume is not a positive one. In the first line, she refers to her book as being “ill-form’d,” but it does not seem to be so through any fault of its own. It came from the author’s “feeble brain.” The speaker is disappointed in this work that she has created and feels that her own failed intellect is the rea...
Lines 7- 12
This is made even clearer when she sees the “finished” book for the first time. She blushed greatly upon receiving it and took it as a mother would call in her “rambling brat.” She did not welcome this “child” home but longs cast it to the side. She still sees it as being “unfit for light.” But it is too late now, everyone has seen and read it. While she might despise, or feel disappointed in, the book she wrote, it is still her own. It still belongs to her as a disobedient child belongs to i...
Lines 13-18
The next set of lines describes the ways in which the speaker physically tries to improve the book. While it is impossible that she is actually doing these things, they are more likely a metaphor for the ways in which she tries to improve the text. She tries to “wash [it’s] face,” with no improvement. She only sees the defects more clearly. If she tried to rub a spot off, she made a bigger flaw. When she tries to fix the book’s form and give it “even feet” it still hobbles when it runs. The s...
Anne Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England in 1612. Bradstreet was married young at the age of only sixteen, and soon after sailed with her parents and husband to settle Massachusetts Bay in what would be the United States. She balanced her intense home life with her literary pursuits as she was forced to write while taking care of eight chil...
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- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
In ‘The Author to Her Book’, one of Bradstreet’s most widely studied and analysed poems, she addresses The Tenth Muse. Here’s the poem. Summary. The Author to Her Book. Where errors were not lessened (all may judge). In heroic couplets (rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter), Bradstreet addresses her book, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung ...
Nov 18, 2023 · The child’s flaws are so glaring to the mother; she characterizes the book by describing its unwashed face, its rags, and its ungainly limbs. However, a mother’s affection makes the author protective and sympathetic to her creation, as she tries to clean it up and warns it not to fall into critics’ hands. Despite the author’s attachment ...
Apr 1, 2024 · The title “The Author to Her Book” suggests a nurturing relationship, but the poem reveals frustration and dissatisfaction. Highlights the disparity between appearance and reality in the speaker’s relationship with her work. Metaphor. Comparison between two unlike things without using “like” or “as.”.
Poet Biography. Anne Dudley Bradstreet was born in 1612 in England. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, an estate steward for the Earl of Lincoln. Bradstreet’s proximity to the aristocracy afforded her access to a library and education that were typical for the nobility and gentry. She would have read classical Greek and Roman works ...
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Nov 21, 2023 · Readers and critics have long believed that "The Author to Her Book" is, in part, a response to this experience, which led her to explore questions of an author's ownership over their writing. The ...
