“Give her of the fruit of her hands, And let her own works praise her in the gates”
“Give her of the fruit of her hands,
And let her own works praise her in the gates"
Anne Bradstreet, one of the earliest American female poets, lived during a time when it was considered unconventional for women to be published authors. As a result, she often used indirection, double voicing, and irony in her poems to express her thoughts and feelings in a way that was both socially and religiously acceptable. Her identity as a Puritan woman conflicted with her ideas on women’s rights as Puritans emphasized the importance of humility and conformity. Because of this, they also believed that writing should be private and the thought of women going into print would have been inconceivable. Thus, Bradstreet’s use of the double voice allows her to navigate these constraints and expose her views on society without jeopardizing her devotion to Puritanism.
In this essay, I define indirection as the use of language that implies something without stating it directly; arguably intentionally. In this case, Bradstreet adopts this technique in her writing to convey her ideas and emotions, especially on feminist topics that would have been considered taboo for women to discuss openly. Double voicing, on the other hand, is defined as utilizing language that has multiple meanings or can be interpreted in various ways depending on the context. The Puritan poet also employs this technique to convey her own opinions and beliefs while conforming to the expectations of her Puritan community. Lastly, irony involves using language that is opposite to or different from the intended meaning, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. Bradstreet enforces this literary device to challenge gender norms of the time while creating an identity for women writers. In this paper, I will examine both her poems The Prologue and The Author of Her Book to showcase her means of logic that amplifies female strength and intellect. I will then consider how Bradstreet’s use of all three devices allows her to present her message while being exempt from patriarchal and religious scrutiny. By doing this, I will exhibit how Bradstreet was able to create the feminine poetic identity that distinguishes itself from the male perspective. Contextually speaking, thoughts and opinions of the querelles des femmes and women’s status in society prevailed during this time. Considering this, I argue that Bradstreet provokes this notion and employs feminist angst in her work, attempting to indirectly challenge the debate. Thus, Bradstreet further champions her sex and proves women’s physical and intellectual capability by implementing poetic rhetoric and reason to its fullest capacity.
Firstly, Anne Bradstreet serves The Prologue as a product of intellectual subordination as she confronts patriarchal constraints. As previously defined, indirection refers to the use of language that suggests something indirectly. By implementing this literary device, Bradstreet can manipulate these patriarchal stereotypes without submitting to feminine stereotypes and compromising her status as a Puritan woman. Bradstreet employs an ironic tone in the fifth stanza in which she declares herself to be “obnoxious to each carping tongue/ Who say [her] hand a needle better fits” (lines 25-26). Bradstreet uses indirection to criticize men who expect her to live up to traditional roles like sewing instead of exercising creative liberty. By doing this, she can attack her critics without facing consequence. Additionally, the use of a tonal shift presents Bradstreet in a different light because she inserts herself as a female poet and refuses to fall victim to the assumptions made by the patriarchy. Therefore, she utilizes patriarchal views through rhetoric by exposing how warped the image of feminine intellectualism is as well as her efforts to navigate the constraints and criticisms of being a female poet.
Like the way Bradstreet implements the double voice as a tool of feminist rhetoric, her use of irony in The Author to Her Book also highlights the imperfections of her work. Interestingly, Bradstreet manipulates patriarchal views of women’s physicality to falsify the notion of imperfection. While referring to the standard of her work, she utilizes irony to describe the book’s errors, and more importantly to reinforce the fact that her creative dexterity stems from her incapability to write as desired due to her own fault rather than gender. She refers to her book as her “ill-formed offspring” that birthed from “[her] feeble brain” (line 1), indicating her dissatisfaction with the final product. The use of the double voice suggests that Bradstreet is anticipating the male view regardless of the book’s standard because they believe her “feeble mind” is a result of her gender; its deformity was inevitable. Because she threads the extended metaphor of the deformed child throughout the poem, Bradstreet can personify her book as a child of her own. Despite her feelings of shame, she expresses a sense of love towards the deformed offspring by “[stretching] thy joints to make [thys] even feet” (line 15). The wordplay of ‘feet’ is being emphasized using iambic pentameter. Regardless of this imagery, Bradstreet remarks in a deprecating manner how “yet still [thy] runs’t more hobbling than is meet” (line 16). The lexical choice of “hobbling” reestablishes the loss of her work being taken prematurely, thus stunting the intellectual development of her deformed child. The stunted growth represents the hardship she faces as a female poet; nevertheless, Bradstreet protects her work and further reinforces authorship as an unconventional female poet of the time.
Overall, Anne Bradstreet adopts the double voice to address criticism as a female poet while simultaneously upholding the expectations of a Puritan woman of the 17th Century. Beyond the robbery of her intellectual property at the hands of the system of the patriarch, Bradstreet surpasses challenging gender norms and to a larger degree she endeavors to establish a feminine poetic identity that’s based on the notion of distinguishing herself from male writers. In a world where bodily autonomy for women is governed by patriarchal standards, Anne Bradstreet provides a voice that factors her identity while simultaneously paving the way for the empowerment of female writers. Puritan belief has exhibited rhetoric as a “deceptive tool”, yet Anne Bradstreet proves otherwise, and repurposes it to shape the function of female sovereignty and liberate women beyond their marginalized capacity.
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