The Tenth Muse - Elizabeth Wade White, "A tercentary Appraisal of Anne Bradstreet"

8/10/2019 The Tenth Muse - Elizabeth Wade White, "A tercentary Appraisal of Anne Bradstreet"

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The Tenth Muse -- A Tercentenary Appraisal of Anne Bradstreet

Author(s): Elizabeth Wade WhiteSource: The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Jul., 1951), pp. 355-377Published by: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and CultureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1917419

Accessed: 07/04/2010 07:26

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3/24

356

WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

ment, richness, courage

and devotion,

she died on September i6,

i672, in

the fine

Bradstreethouse in North

Andover

which is still standing.t

To return to the book itself, the

title page

presents a graceful and

almost

complete description

of the contents:

THE TENTH

MUSE, Lately

Sprung up in America,

or, Several

Poems,

compiled

with great

variety of

Wit and Learning,full

of

delight.

Wherein

especially

s contained

a compleatdiscourseand

description

of The Four Ele-

ments, Constitutions,

Ages of

Man, Seasonsof the Year.

Together

with an

Exact

Epitomie of the

Four Monarchies,viz.

The Assyrian,

Persian,

Grecian,

Roman.Also a Dialogue

between

Old Englandand New,

concerning

he late

troubles.With diversother pleasantand seriousPoems.By a Gentlewomann

those

parts.

Printed at

London for Stephen

Bowtell

at

the

signe of

the

Biblein

Popes

Head-Alley.

650.

The "other pleasant

and serious

poems" are: "To her

most Honoured

Father

Thomas Dudley," "The

Prologue,"

elegies upon Sir Philip

Sidney

and

Queen

Elizabeth,

"In honour of Du

Bartas" and

"Of the vanity of

all

worldly

creatures."

There is also prefatory material

written

by various individuals

which

must

not be overlooked,

for

it

casts a revealing light

on the contemporary

attitude

toward female

versifiers.

Following

an

epistle

to the reader in

prose,

there are

eight poems, and two

of

the

anagrams

so laboredly

popular

in

the

seventeenth

century on the name

"Anna Bradstreate,"

one

of which is accompanied by a rhymed

couplet.

Of

the poems,

all are

simply

initialed

except

the

first, signed

"N. Ward." This was contributed

by

the

old

clergyman

Nathaniel

Ward,

who returned from New

England

to the

mother

country

in

i646

to see his own

book,

The

Simple

Cobbler

of Agawam, published in London in

i647;

it merits quoting for its quaint

and

fatherly good-humor

and,

withal, pride

in

a

young

friend and

neigh-

bor

of

Ipswich days.

Mercury

shew'd Apollo,

Bartas

Book,

Minerva

this,

and

wisht

him

well

to

look,

And tell uprightly

which did

which

excell,

He

view'd

and

view'd,

and

vow'd

he

could

not

tel.

They bid him Hemisphear his mouldy nose,

tThe

Bradstreet

ousewas

boughtby

theNorth Andover

Historical

ociety

n

the

autumn

of

I950,

and

is

now

open

to visitors.


4/24

THE

TENTH MUSE

357

With's

crackt eering

glasses,

or it

would pose

The

bestbrains

he had

in'sold

pudding-pan,

Sex

weigh'd,

which

best,the

Woman,or

the Man?

He peer'dandpor'd,andglar'd,and saidfor wore,

I'me

even as wise

now,

as I was

before:

They

both

'gan

laugh,and

said it

was no mar'l

The

Auth'ress

was a right

Du

BartasGirle.

Goodsooth

quoth the old

Don, tell

ye me so,

I

muse whither

at

length these

girls will

go;

It half

revivesmy

chilfrost-bitten

lood,

To see

a

Woman

once,do

ought

that's

good;

And chodeby ChaucersBoots,andHomersFurrs,

Let Men look

to't, least

Women

wear

theSpurrs.

The

authors

of

two

of

the

other

poems

n

the

prefacehavebeen

identified

as the

ReverendJohn

Woodbridge,Anne

Bradstreet's

rother-in-law,

nd

his brother

he Reverend

Benjamin

Woodbridge.

The

remaining

poems

are

signed

"C.B.,"

"R.Q.,"

"N.H."

and

"H.S.";

they

were

presumably

contributed y

English Puritan

poets

whoseidentity

has not so far been

established.All

the verses are alike in

expressing

gentlemanly

astonish-

ment,

as

well

as

genuine

admiration,

t the

ability

of

a womanto

compose

so substantial

body

of

verse.

Nathaniel

Ward

takes

comfort,

o

be

sure,

in

recognizing

the

strong

influence

exerted on

Anne Bradstreet

by

Guillaume de

Saluste

du

Bartas, whose

elaborate

writings,

translated

from

the French

by Joshua

Sylvester

as

Du BartasHis

Divine

Weekes

and

Workes

nd

published

n London n

i605, are also

said

to

have

given

pleasure

nd nourishmento

John

Milton.

An

anonymous

nagramist

dds

the

couplet:

So

Bartas ike

thy

fine

spun

Poems

been,

That

Bartas

name

will

prove

an

epicene.

It is most

interesting

hat

these

prefatory erses,

offered

n an age

when

it

was not unheard-of

or

gentlewomen to be

quite

illiterateand

most

unusual

or

a

woman's

work

to

appear

n

print,

express

none of

the con-

descensionater mmortalizedn Dr.

Johnson's bservation

boutawoman

preacher:

hat

it is not

so much

a

question

as to

whether

a

dog

candance

well as it is surprisinghat it can danceat all In otherwordsthis new

poet, "lately

sprung up

in

America,"

was

apparently

welcomed

with

generosity

and

respect

by

her

peers.


5/24

358

WILLIAM AND

MARY

QUARTERLY

The

story of

how The

Tenth

Muse came

to be

published

is in

itself

a

dramatic and

pleasantly human

one.

It is

told

primarily in

the book's

epistle to

the reader,

by one

who

writes: "I

fear 'twill

be a

shame for a

Man that can speak so little, to be

seen in the

title-page of this

Woman's

Book"; yet

he

must, in case

there

be

incredulity,

assure the

reader:

It is the

Work

of a

Woman,

honoured,and

esteemedwhere

she

lives, for

her gracious

demeanour,her

eminent parts, her

pious

conversation,her

cour-

teous

disposition,her

exact

diligence in

her

place, and

discreet

managing of

her

Family

occasions,

and more then

so,

thesePoems

are the

fruit but of

some

few

houres,

curtailed

rom her

sleepand

other

refreshments....

I

fearthe dis-

pleasureof no person n the publishingof thesePoemsbut the Author,without

whose

knowledg,

and contrary

o

her

expectation,

havepresumed

o

bring

to

publick

view, what she

resolved in

such a manner

should

never

see

the

Sun;

but I

found

that

diverse

had gottensome

scattered

Papers,

affected hem

well,

were

likely to have

sent

forth broken

pieces,

to the Author's

prejudice,

which

I

thought

to

prevent,as

well as

to pleasure

hose

that

earnestly

desiredthe

view

of the

whole.

The same courage of affection and conviction shown in this statement

is echoed

in

the

longest

of the

prefatory

verses,

"To

my

dear

Sister,

the

Author

of

these

Poems,"

where

the writer's admiration

is

gracefully

expressed:

There needs

no

painting

to that

comely

face,

That

in

its

native

beauty

hath

such

grace;

If

women,

I

with women

may

compare,

Your works aresolid, othersweak as Air;

What

you have

done,

the Sun

shall

witness bear,

That for

a womans Work

'tis

very

rare;

And if the

Nine, vouchsafe the

Tenth a

place,

I

think

they

rightly

may yield you

that

grace.

This

poem,

initialled

"I.

W.,"

and the

epistle

are

undoubtedly by

the

same hand, that of the Reverend John Woodbridge, husband of Anne

Bradstreet's sister

Mercy

and the first

minister

of

Andover in

Massa-

chusetts. He sailed

for

England

in

i647

and

remained there

until

i663;

it


6/24

THE TENTH MUSE 359

is most probable that when

he went he took with him

the fairest existing

manuscript copy of Anne

Bradstreet's poems, the one prepared by

her

for presentation to her father, and that this was what

appeared

in

print

under his auspices as The Tenth Muse. A family conspiracy may here

be

seen

at

work,

with

the

austere father, the

devoted sister

and the

admir-

ing brother-in-law taking upon themselves the responsibility

for an act

of great significance in the

life of their relative.

This was

in

no sense a frivolous deed,

for

these, and the many

other

admirers of Anne Bradstreet'sverse whose interest seemed

to justify the

step

of

publication,

were serious, thrifty, self-disciplined

people, who

weighed every impulse primarily

for its value

in

the

sight of God. They,

must all have believed that their world would be better for the appearance

in print, and consequent availability to more readers,

of the work of one

whose gracious piety and industrious intelligence they

honored

not

only

in herself but also in the

poems which she had composed

in the midst of

a

busy

and often

perilous

life

in

the

New

England

wilderness.

Let us cast a twentieth-century

eye

over

these

poems that brought

pleasure

and

inspiration

to Puritan minds of

the seventeenth

century.

As our basic

medium

of

intelligence

and

behavior is the newspaper, so

that of the Puritans was the sermon. Professor Perry Miller says, in The

New

England

Mind: ". .

.

all their

writings

were

simply

other

ways of

achieving

the

same

ends

they

were

seeking

in

their

sermons; histories,

poems

or tracts

were

treatises

on

the

will

of God

as

revealed in nature,

experience, history

or

individual

lives." He

goes

on

to

conclude that for

the Puritan "verse

was

simply

a

heightened

form

of eloquence . . . poetry

existed

primarily

for its

utility,

it

was

foredoomed to

didacticism, and be-

cause

it

was the

most

highly

ornate

of

the

arts,

it

was

always

in

grave

danger of overstepping proper limits and becoming pleasing for its own

sake....

Poetry

in Puritan

eyes, therefore,

was a

species

of

rhetoric, a dress

for

great truths,

a

sugar

for the

pill. Only

some two

persons

in

seventeenth-

century

New

England

have left

any

evidence

that

they

were

deeply

imbued

with

a

true

poetic insight

. . . the Reverend Edward

Taylor ...

and

Anne

Bradstreet."

The author

of The Tenth Muse was

not

niggardly

in her

choice

of

"great

truths"

to

wear the

garment

of her

poetry.

Her

upbringing

in

England gave her opportunity for as wide reading as was permitted by

Puritan

standards.

The Bible of coursewas the cornerstoneand

measuring-

rod,

and her own lines tell us that she read

Spenser

and

Sidney, Sylvester's


7/24

360

WILLIAM AND

MARY

QUARTERLY

du Bartas,

Speed's,

Camden's,

Raleigh's

and

Archbishop

Usher's

histories,

and Dr.

Crooke's

Description

of the

Body

of

Man.

She probably

also

read

North's

Plutarch's

Lives,

Florio's

Montaigne,

Chapman's

Homer,

Burton's

Anatomy

of

Melancholy, the poems of Drayton, Browne, Wither and

possibly

Donne,

other

contemporaries

who

were

not

too anti-Puritan

to

be acceptable,

and

some

Shakespeare,

although

plays

in

general

were

frowned

upon

by her

people

and

the

other

dramatists

were no

doubt

excluded.

She

must

have

been

still

absorbing

her education,

as

it

were,

when

she left

England

at the

age

of

eighteen

in

i630.

"I

changed

my

con-

dition

and was

marryed,"

she

says in

her

"Religious

Experiences,"

"and

came

into

this Country,

where

I found

a new

world

and new manners,

at

which my heart rose. But after I was convinced it was the way of God, I

submitted

to

it

and joined

to

the church

at

Boston."

Finding

herself

in

a strange

wild land,

where

intellectual

recreation

was

minimized

by

the

demands of

hard labor

for survival's

sake,

she

must have

felt

a

mental

vacuum

replacing

the

reservoir

of stimulating

ideas

and

impressions

that

her life

in England

had

kept filled.

So instead

of looking

outward

and

writing

her

observations

on

this

unfamiliar

scene

with

its

rough

and

fearsome

aspects,

she

let her homesick

imagination

turn

inward,

mar-

shalled the images from her store of learning and dressed them in careful

homespun

garments,

of somewhat

archaic

meter, to

the

glory

of

God

and

for

the expression

of an

inquiring

mind

and sensitive,

philosophical

spirit.

Her

intentions reveal

themselves

in these

lines

of

dedication

to her

father,

who

had

himself

written

a

poem,

now lost,

on

the four

parts

of

the

world:

I

bring

my four;

and four,

now

meanly

clad

To

do their homage,

unto

yours,

most

glad:

These

same

are they,

from

whom we being

have

These are

of

all,

the

Life,

the Nurse, the

Grave,

These

arethe

hot,

the cold,

the

moist,

the dry,

That

sink,

that swim,

that fill,

that upwards

fly,

Of

these

consists

our bodies,

Cloathesand

Food,

The World,

the

useful,

hurtful

and the

good,

Sweet

harmonythey

keep,

yet jar

oft times

Their discordmay appear,by these harshrimes.

My

other

four do intermixed

tell


8/24

THE TENTH

MUSE

36i

Each

others faults, and where themselves excell;

How

hot

and dry contendwith moist and cold,

How Air

and Earth no

correspondencehold,

And

yet

in equal tempers,how they 'gree,

How

divers natures make one Unity.

Something of all (though

mean) I did intend

But fear'dyou'ld judge one

Bartas was my

friend;

I

honour

him, but dare not wear his wealth,

My goods are true (though

poor) I love no

stealth;

I

shall not need, mine

innocence to clear,

These ragged lines, will do't,when they appear:

On

what

they

are,

your

mild

aspect I crave,

Accept my

best, my worst vouchsafe a

Grave.

The

device

of the

four-times-four allegorical personages

used

in the

first

part of The

Tenth Muse, representing

the

elements,

humors, ages

and

seasons

in

a stilted and highly argumentative

manner,

is such

as

to

make

any

free

poetic

expression

almost

impossible.

Yet one

small

passage

in this first selection "The Four Ages of Man" does contain a beautiful,

grave

and compassionate poetic image, a

promise

of what is

to

be

found

more often in

Anne

Bradstreet's ater

poems,

written when

maturity

and

a

more personal

approach

had freed her from

the ornate

du Bartian

shackles.

Childhood

was

cloth'd in white &

green

to

show

His

spring

was

intermixed

with some

snow:

Upon his head nature a Garland set

Of

Primrose, Daizy

&

the

Violet;

Such

cold

mean flowrs

(as

these) blossome

betime

Before

the sun hath

throughly

warm'd the

clime.

"The

Four

Monarchies,"

next

among

the

contents,

is a

painful

work

in

every

sense.

Though

unfinished,

it takes

up

one hundred

and fourteen

pages

of The Tenth

Muse,

and

is

simply

a

paraphrase

n

rhymed couplets

of the history of the ancient world as told by Raleigh and other contem-

porary

writers.

Tyrants

welter

in blood on

almost

every

page; kingdoms

topple

and armies

are

destroyed,

all

to

prove

that

in

a

world

where

all

is


9/24

362

WILLIAM

AND MARY

QUARTERLY

vanity

these pagan spectacles

of

greed and violence

were the

most

vain

of

all.

Comparing

the four monarchies

to

four ravening beasts,

the

author

says:

But yet this

Lion, Bear, this

Leopard,

Ram,

All trembling

stand

before the powerful

Lamb.

Her

conscious purpose

in doggedly

composing this

long

work, in which

hardly

a line

of anything even

resembling

poetry appears,

is clear;

she

wished to produce

a serious moral

poem,

modelled on her

father's

work

and demonstrating

forcefully the

degradation

of the dark ages

of antiquity

as comparedto

the enlightenment,

even in

struggle,

of the Christian

world.

But it is tempting

to

wonder why, during

a period

of about seventeen

years in which

she bore

seven children,

changed

her dwelling

twice,

each

time

venturing

deeper into unsettled

country, suffered

from

recurring

attacks

of illness yet

consistently

managed the

household

of

her

distin-

guished

husband, she chose

so huge and

ungentle

a subject

for creative

interpretation

in her leisure hours.

An examination

of Anne

Bradstreet's

entire body

of work,

however,

including the

"Religious

Experiences"

and

"Meditations Divine

and

Moral"

written as

spiritual

legacies

for

her children and

not published

until

i867, reveals

an undeniable

trace of

intellectual intransigence,

creating

conflicting thoughts

which bred in turn

an occasional

outburst of

violent

expression.

For example,

in the "Religious

Experiences,"

after admitting

that

"many

times hath Satan troubled

me concerning

the verity

of the

scriptures,

many times

by

Atheisme how I could

know

whether there

was a God,"

and explaining

her process

of reasoning

in resolving

these

doubts,

she

goes

on to

say:

"When

I have

gott over

this Block, then

have

I another putt in my way, That admitt this bee the true God whom wee

worship,

and

that bee his word,

yet why

may not the Popish

Religion

be

the right?

They

have the

same God, the

same Christ,

the same

word: they

only

interprett

it

one

way, wee

another."From

these

troubling specula-

tions

she

reacted

with

a

sort of

self-chastising

fury,

as shown in these

lines

from "A

Dialogue

between

Old

England

and New," where

the Puritan

New

England abjures

her "Dear Mother":

These are the dayes the Churchesfoes to crush,

To root our

Prelates

head,

tail,

branch

and rush;


10/24

THE

TENTH

MUSE

363

Let's

bring

Baals

vestments

out to make

a

fire,

Their

Mytires,

Surplices,

and

all their

Tire,

Copes,

Rotchets,

Crossiers,

and

such

trash,

And

let their

Names

consume,

but

let the

flash

Light Christendome,

and

all the

world

to see

We

hate

Romes

whore,

with

all

her trumpery.

*1

*

Bring

forth the

Beast that rul'd

the World

with's

beck,

And tearhis

flesh,

and set

your

feet on's

neck;

And make

his filthy

Den

so desolate,

To

th'stonishment

of all

that

knew his

state:

This

done with

brandish'd

Swords

to Turky

goe,

For

then

what

is't, but

English

blades

dare do,

And lay

her

waste for

so's

the sacred

Doom,

And do to

Gog

as thou

hast

done to

Rome.

Then fulness

of the

Nations in

shall

flow,

And

Jew

and

Gentile

to one

worship

go;

Then follows

dayes

of

happiness

and

rest;

Whose

lot

doth

fall, to live

therein-

s

blest.

It seems

at

least

possible

that

Anne Bradstreet,recognizing

in

herself

the

sometimes

rebellious

independence

of mind

that

was

thought

so

dangerous

in

a

woman,

and having

before

her as example

the

fate

of

the

courageously

opinionated

Anne

Hutchinson,

either consciously

or

uncon-

sciously

took a

skillful way

out

of

her

psychological

dilemma.

While

conducting

herself

as

an

exemplary

wife

and mother,

and fulfilling

the

duties of her social position in a manner to gain the respectof all around

her,

she

yet

devoted

a

considerable

number

of her

hours

of

literary

work

to what

amounted

to identification

of her

personality

with

the tumult

of

the

cruel,

licentious

and

ungodly

lives

of the

monarchs

of

antiquity.

No

commentator

on her

work

has

had a

kind word

to

say

for "The

Four

Monarchies,"

nor

is their

criticism unjustified

if this be

considered

solely

as

a work

of

poetry.

But I shall

venture

to

go

a

little

further,

and suggest

that this

barren

exercise

in

rhetorical

ingenuity

be

approached

as

an

oppor-

tune outlet for the author's impulses of resentment against the Puritan

narrowness

of thinking

and

harshness of

living,

as well as a stern practice


11/24

364

WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

in the use of words and meter. Thus viewed, it would logically deserve

credit for both the wider tranquility of spirit and the greater technical

ease that manifest themselves in Anne Bradstreet's ater poems.

Following the major groups of "fours" are shorter poems, three of

which illustrate the author's loyalty to what she felt was best in the mother

country. "A Dialogue between Old England and New," written in

i642

as the Civil War in England was beginning, points up a fact of great

historical interest:

Go on brave Essex, shew whose son thou art,

Not

false to King, nor Countrey in thy heart,

But those that hurt his people and his Crown,

By force expell, destroy,

and tread them

down;

And ye brave Nobles chase away all fear,

And to this blessed Cause closely adhere;

IV

These, these are they I trust, with Charles our King,

Out of all mists such glorious dayes will bring;

That dazled eyes beholding much shall wonder

At that thy setled peace, thy wealth and splendor.

Before Anne

Bradstreet

left England King Charles I had

made

prisoners

of

the Earl of Lincoln and his father-in-law, Lord Saye and Sele, and had

set

spies upon

the actions of her own father

Thomas Dudley because

of

their

resistance

to

the enforced

loans to

the

crown. Yet

the traditional

allegiance

of the

British

subject

to his

monarch

was

strong enough

to

make her believe-and she must surely have reflectedthe feeling of many

of

her companions

in New

England-that

the

King himself was not so

much

to

blame

as those

ardent

Catholics

among

his

advisers

who

sought

to

usurp

all

the

powers

of

Parliament,

in

the

King's name,

for

their

own

ends.

Being

a

faithful

subject

as well as a

Puritan,

she

took the

attitude-

shown

in lines from this

poem already quoted-that Popery

was

the root

of

all

of

England's trouble,

and once

that

was eradicated

by

fire and

sword

peace

and

prosperity

would

prevail.

The

elegies

on Sir

Philip Sidney

and

Queen

Elizabeth reveal

Anne

Bradstreet's

generous

strain of

hero-worship.

She loved

Sidney

because

he

was a brave

and

romantic

nobleman, possibly

her relation

through

the


12/24

THE

TENTH MUSE

365

Dudley

family,

and

a writer

whose Arcadia,

which must have

been

anathema to

the

Puritan

divines

because

of its

pastoral

sensuality,

she

has

the courage

to

praise.

Yet, he's

a

beetle head,

that

cann't discry

A

world

of

treasure,

n that

rubbish

lye;

And

doth

thy selfe,

thy

worke, and

honour wrong,

(O

brave

Refiner of our

Brittish

Tongue;)

That

sees

not

learning,

valour,

and

morality,

Justice,

friendship, and kind

hospitality;

Yea,

and

Divinity

within

thy

Book.

And

she

honors

Elizabeth for her

great

qualities and

achievements

as

a

monarch,

but most of

all for her

emancipation

of her

sex.

Now

say,

have

women

worth?

or

have

they

none?

Or had

they

some,

but

with our

Queen

is't

gone?

Nay

Masculines, you

have thus

taxt

us

long,

But

she,

though

dead,

will

vindicate

our

wrong.

Let such

as say our Sex is void

of

Reason,

Know

tis a

Slander

now,

but

once was

Treason.

The

epitaph

that ends

the

poem

has a

graceful

image:

Here

sleeps

The

Queen,

this is

the

Royal

Bed,

Of

th'

Damask

Rose, sprung from

the white

and

red,

Whose sweet

perfume

fills the

all-filling

Air:

This Rose is

wither'd, once

so

lovely fair.

On neithertree did grow suchRose before,

The

greater

was

our

gain,

our

loss

the

more.

"In

Honour

of Du

Bartas"

s

an

humble hymn of

praise to one

whom

she

unreservedly admired as her

master and

model in

knowledge, wit

and

style.

"David's

Lamentation for Saul

and

Jonathan"

is a

paraphrase

of

Samuel,

Chapter 2,

showing

real

poetic

feeling,

and

"Of the

vanity

of all

wordly

creatures,"

the last

poem

in

the

book, echoes

Ecclesiastes

yet has an originality of imagery and a flowing vigor in the use of the

rhymed

couplets

that

is

more

noticeable than

in

the

other

poems

in

The

Tenth

Muse:


13/24


14/24

THE

TENTH MUSE

367

All the

Instruction

and

Education in

the

World, all the

pains,

time and

patience

maginable, an

neverinfuse

that

sublime

Fancy,that

strong

Memory,

and

excellent

Judgment

required n

one that

shall

wear the Bayes.If Women

have been good Poets, Men injurethem Exceedingly, o account hem

giddy-

headed

Gossips, it

only to

discourse

of their

Hens,

Ducks, and

Geese,

and

not

by

any means

to be suffered

o

meddle with Arts and

Tongues,

lest

by

intoller-

able

pridethey

should

run mad.

If

I

do make

this

appear,that

Women

have been

good

Poets, it will con-

firm

all

I

have said

before:for,

besidesnatural

endowments, here is

required

a

generaland

universal

mprovement n

all kinds of

learning.

A

good

Poet

must

know things

Divine, things

Natural,

hingsMoral,

hings

Historical,

and

things

Artificial;togetherwith the severaltermsbelonging to all Faculties,to which

they must

allude.

Good Poets

must

be

universal

Scholars,

able

to

use

a pleas-

ing

Phrase,

and to express

hemselveswith

moving

Eloquence.

She then

speaks

of

the

gifted

women

of

antiquity and

of

foreign

coun-

tries, and

comes home

to

say:

"How

excellent a

Poet

Mrs.

Broadstreet

is

(now in

America) her

works do

testifie."

Mrs.

Makin also

praises

Mrs.

Katherine

Philips

and the

accomplished

ladies of

the nobility,

but two

points are significant in her mention of Anne Bradstreet.One is that the

educator

considered the

poet an

Englishwoman and

therefore an

English

poet;

"now in

America"

is

parenthesized as

incidental.

Actually by the

time this

statement appeared

in

print Anne

Bradstreet was in

America

forever, so

to

speak, having

been

laid to rest

in

New England

earth

in

the

early autumn

of i672.

The

other

point is

that interest

in

and admira-

tion

for

Anne

Bradstreet's

writing had

remained alive

for

over twenty

years after

The

Tenth

Muse was

printed,

although in that

time

no

further publication of her works had appeared.This survival of recogni-

tion is

also pointed

out

by

Edward

Phillips, the

nephew

of Milton,

who

noted in

his

Theatrum

Poetarum,

published

in i675,

under the

heading

"Women

among

the

Moderns

Eminent for

Poetry":

Anne

Bradstreet,

New

England

Poetess,

no less

in title,

viz.

before

herPoems,

printed n

Old

England

anno

i650;

then the tenth

Muse

Sprungup in

America,

the

memoryof which

Poems,

consisting

chieflyof

Descriptions

f the

Four

Ele-

ments, the four Humours,the four Ages, the four Seasons,and the four Mon-

archies,

s

not

yetwholly

extinct.


15/24


16/24

THE

TENTH

MUSE

369

Tenth

Muse and

its

position in

literary

history,

mention of Anne Brad-

street's later

poems must be

limited to

their

inclusion

in

the

other editions

of her

earliest

work. She

was

assiduous

in

her preparationfor the further

public

appearanceof

The

Tenth

Muse,

adding

only five

poems,

but

two

of

them

her best,

to

the

contemplated second

edition and

making

as

has

been noted

careful

corrections of

those

already published. One

of

these

poems,

"The

Author

to

her Book,"

really

demands

to

be quoted

entire,

for the

fascinating

light

it

sheds

on

the

workings

of

the

writer's mind.

At

first

dismayed

to

see her "brat"

n print,

yet

at

the same time

experi-

encing the

extraordinary

sense of

fulfillment

of

literary

parenthood,

she

became

reconciled.

The

Author to

her Book

Thou

ill-form'd

offspring of my

feeble

brain,

Who

after

birth did'st

by my

side

remain,

Till

snatcht

from

thence by

friends,

less wise then true

Who

thee

abroad,

expos'd to

publick

view,

Made thee

in

raggs,

halting

to th'

press to

trudg,

Where

errorswere

not

lessened

(all

may judg)

At thy returnmy blushing was not small,

My

rambling

brat (in

print)

should

mother call,

I

cast

thee

by as

one

unfit for

light,

Thy

Visage

was so

irksome

in my

sight;

Yet

being

mine

own, at

length

affection

would

Thy

blemishes

amend, if

so

I

could:

I

wash'd

thy

face,

but more

defects I saw,

And

rubbing off a

spot, still

made a flaw.

I stretchtthy joints to make thee even feet,

Yet still

thou

run'st

more

hobling

then is

meet;

In

better

dressto

trim

thee was

my

mind,

But

none

save

home-spun

Cloth, i'

th' house I

find

In

this

array,

'mongst

Vulgars

mayst thou

roam

In

Critickshands, beware thou

dost

not

come;

And

take

thy

way

where

yet

thou

art

not

known,

If

for

thy

Father

askt,

say,

thou

hadst none:

And for thy Mother,she alas is poor,

Which

caus'd her

thus

to send thee

out

of

door.


17/24

370

WILLIAM

AND

MARY

QUARTERLY

The other

four

new

poems

added by the

author to

her second

edition

are:

elegies to

her

father and

mother;

"Contemplations,"

a

long and

beau-

tiful

poem in

Spenserian

stanza

describing

an

afternoon

walk

through

the autumn countryside and along the Merrimack River and presenting

the

thoughts of

wonder

and faith

that

the

majesty of

these

surroundings

brought to

her

mind; "The

Flesh and the

Spirit," which

Samuel Eliot

Morison calls

"one of the

best

expressions

in

English

literature

of the

conflict

described

by St.

Paul in

the

eighth

chapter of

his

Epistle to the

Romans."

Added

to

these at the

end of

the book

are

thirteen

poems

con-

cerning

herself

and her

family,

"found

among her

Papersafter

her

Death,

which she

never

meant

should

come to

publick

view,"

but

which

were

well chosen for publication since they include five deeply moving lyrics

addressed to

her

husband and the

charming poem

beginning "I

had

eight

birds

hatcht

in

one

nest," written

probably when her

youngest child was

six

yearsold

and her

eldest

twenty-five.

In

this second

edition

also

appear

an

ornate poem in

praise

of

her work

by

John

Rogers,

her

nephew by

marriage

and later

President of

Harvard

College, and

"A

Funeral

Elogy, upon that

Pattern and

Patron of

Virtue,

the

truly

pious, peerless

and

matchless

Gentlewoman,

Mrs.

Anne

Brad-

street,right Panaretes,Mirror of her Age, Glory of her Sex,"by her young

admirer

the

Reverend John Norton.

Thus,

six

years after her

death,

New

England

produced its

own

print-

ing

of

its

first recognized

poet.

In

I702,

Cotton

Mather's formidable

Magnalia

Christi Americana

paid

tribute to:

Madam Ann

Bradstreet

.

. whose

Poems,

divers

times

Printed,

have af-

forded a

grateful

Entertainment

unto

the

Ingenious,

and a

Monument

or

her

Memorybeyond heStateliestMarbles.

A

third edition

of her

poems, reprinted

with

only

slight

changes

from

the

second,

appeared

in

Boston in

i758.

More than

one hundred

years

later,

in

i867,

John

Harvard

Ellis

published

his

edition

of "all

the

extant

works

of

Anne

Bradstreet."To

her

writings

which

had

already appeared

in

print

he

added

a

painstaking

and

thorough

biographical

introduction

and some

important

unpublished

material-the

complete

contents of the

little

manuscript

volume

prepared

for her

children, containing "Religious

Experiences

and

Occasional Pieces"

and

"Meditations

Divine

and

Moral."

Among

the

interesting

and

touching

autobiographical prose

entries of


18/24

THE TENTH

MUSE

371

the "Religious

Experiences"

are scattered short

personal

and devotional

lyrics

which

include two

of her finest:

"Some

verses upon the burning

of

our house,

July

ioth, i666" and the

valedictory

"As weary pilgrim,

now

at

rest."

The seventy-seven "Meditations,"addressed to her son Simon,

are short prose statements

of moral

fact, written with vigorous

forthright-

ness and an appealing

use

of homely and familiar

images,

as for example:

Corne,till it

have past throughthe

Mill and

been groundto powder,

s not

fit for bread.God

so deales

with his Servants:

he grindes them

with greif and

pain till

they

turn to dust, and then are

they fit

manchetfor

his Mansion.

Charles Eliot Norton contributed a rather condescending introduction

to an edition

of

Anne

Bradstreet's

works published in

i897, in attractive

format

but with an admission

by the

editor that "instances

of unnecessarily

bad

grammar"

had been

corrected

As

is

recognized now,

the

latter

half

of the

nineteenth century found

more to criticise than

admire

in

the

writings, particularly

the poetry,

of

the seventeenth

century,

the brooding

introspection

and

intricate

imagery

of

which it remained

for our own

time

to acclaim

once more. The

venerable historian of American

literature

Moses Coit Tyler, writing in the

i870's,

deals kindly enough with Anne

Bradstreet's

more

personal

and spontaneous

poems,

but thunders at her

earlier

works

in a

way

that

will

delight,

rather than terrify, the

modern

student

of English poetry.

The

worst lines

of Anne

Bradstreet

.

can

be readily

matched

for fan-

tastic

perversion,

and for

the

total

absence

of beauty, by

passages

from the

poems

of JohnDonne,

George

Herbert,Crashaw,Cleveland,

Wither,

Quarles,

Thomas Coryat,John Taylor,and even of Herrick, Cowleyand Dryden.

Indeed

the

sins

of The

Tenth Muse

are

modelled on those of a

distin-

guished company

The

twentieth

century

has remembered

Anne

Bradstreet

not only

with

the

scholarly recognition,

already

mentioned, given

her

by Perry

Miller,

Samuel

Eliot

Morison

and

George

Frisbie

Wicher, but with

a

reprint

of the

Ellis edition

of her

works, published

in

I932,

and the

in-

clusion of four of her poems, "The Flesh and the Spirit," "Contempla-

tions,"

"A Letter to Her Husband" and "As

weary pilgrim,

now

at

rest,"

in

Conrad

Aiken's

excellent

anthology,

American

Poetry,

i67i-1928.

And


19/24

372

WILLIAM

AND MARY

QUARTERLY

the

late

F.

0.

Matthieson

placed

six

of her

poems

at the beginning

of

the

Oxford

Book

of

American

Verse, published

in

i950.

Where

does

The

Tenth

Muse

belong

in

the history

of English

litera-

ture?

I wish

to put forward the suggestion that it was the work of the

first

Englishwoman

who

seriously

and

successfully

chose for

her

occupa-

tion

the

writing

of poetry.

For

approximately

four

hundred

years

before

Anne Bradstreet's

poems

were

published,

"the

iron

of English,"

as

Archi-

bald MacLeish

calls it,

had rung

in

meter

from

tongue

and

pen,

yet

the

voices

and the

hands

that

made

English

poetry

were

almost entirely

those

of men.

Only

a handful

of

women,

some

of them

shadowy

figures

now,

are recorded

as having

written

original

verse

up

to

the

middle

of

the

seventeenth century. To the legendary Dame Juliana Berners (sometimes

confused

with

the

anchoress

Juliana

of Norwich,

whose

beautiful

Revela-

tions

of

Divine

Love,

written

about

I390,

are in

prose),

has

been

attributed

The

Book

of

St. Albans, printed

in

I486,

which

contains

a treatise

in

verse

on hunting.

But

it

has been established

that

this

is

not an

original

work, but

a translation

of

an

earlier

French book

on

hunting.

Writings

by

the Countess

of Richmond,

Lady

Margaret

Roper

(the daughter

of

Sir Thomas

More),

Henry

VIII's

last

queen

the Protestant

Catherine

Parr, and the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey, appeared in print between

I522

and I575,

but

these

all seem to

have

been translations

or religious

pieces

in

prose.

One

of

Queen

Catherine's

ladies-in-waiting,

the

accomplished

Anne

Askew,

Lady

Kyme,

who

was

mercilessly

tortured

and

burned

as

a heretic

in

I546,

wrote

an

account

of her

own trial,

published

on

the

continent

soon

after

her

death,

which

includes

a

moving

poem

of

faith.

Mary

Herbert,

Countess

of

Pembroke,

the famed

"Sidney's

sister,

Pem-

broke's

mother,"

wrote

a

poem

in memory

of her

brother

and

a

poetic

"Dialogue between Two Shepherds," published in

i586

and

i602,

a

scholarly

blank

verse translation

of Garnier's

Tragedy

of

Antonie,

printed

in

I592,

and,

with

Sidney,

The Psalmes

of

David

translated into

Divers

and Sundry

Kindes

of

Verse.

This was probably

written

in

i587

but

was

not

published

until

i823.

The

great

Elizabeth

was

a

scholar

before she

was a queen.

Two

reli-

gious

works

from

her

pen,

one

a

translation

from Margaret

of

Angouleme,

were

published

in

I548,

and during

her long and

brilliant

reign

she

con-

tinued to write and translate.Most of her work was in prose, but one

of

her

poems,

the

vigorous

"Daughter

of

Debate,"

appeared

in The

Arte

of


20/24

THE

TENTH MUSE

373

English

Poesie in

I589, and

this

and

another

from a

manuscriptcopy are

reprinted

in The

Oxford

Book

of

Sixteenth-Century

Verse.

The

first

published

volume

of verse

by

an

Englishwoman

appears

to

exist in only one copy, and not to have been reprinted. This is Isabella

Whitney's

A

Sweet

Nosgay, or

pleasant

Posye:

containing

a hundred

and

ten

Phylosophicall

Flowers. The

Short

Title

Catalogue

dates this

London,

I573,

and lists

only

the

example in

the

British

Museum,

which may

well

be the one

mentioned

by

W. T.

Lowndes in

i834

as

"Probably

unique.

Unknown to

bibliographers."

Certainly

no

copy

seems to

have found

its

way

to this

country.To the

same author,

sister of the

minor poet

Geoffrey

Whitney,

is

attributed

also

The

Copie of a

Letter,

lately written

in

Meeter

by a younge gentilwoman to her unconstant lover. This was printed

about

I567,

and

has

been

reprinted

in

two

collections of

early

English

writing.

The

first

original

poetic drama

in

English by

a

woman

was

probably

The

Tragedie of

Mariam, the

Faire

Queene

of

Jewry,

by

Elizabeth Cary,

Viscountess

Falkland.

Printed

in

i6I3,

this

sombre

"tragedy

of

blood"

contains

one

fine

poem,

a

chorus of six

stanzas on

the

nobility

of

forgiving

injuries, which

Chambers'

Cyclopaedia

of

English

Literature

reprints.

Sir Philip Sidney's niece, Lady Mary Wroath, published in

i62i

The

Countess

of

Montgomerie's

Urania,

a

fantasy in

prose

and

verse

which is

simply an

imitation of

her

uncle's

Arcadia.

Rachel

Speght,

who

may have

been

the

daughter

of the

scholarly

Thomas

Speght, wrote two

long poems

which

were

published

in

i62I

in a

little

book of

about

forty

pages

with

the

title:

Mortalitie's

Memorandum, with

a

Dreame

Prefixed,

imaginarie

in

manner,

reall

in matter.

From

this

forgotten

work

comes a

stanza which

reveals

the

intelligent

early

seventeenth-century

woman's

quarrel

with

her time:

Both

man

and woman

of three

parts

consist,

Which

Paul doth

bodie,

soule

and spirit

call:

And

from

the

soule

three

faculties

arise,

The

mind,

the

will,

the

power;

then

wherefore

shall

A

woman have her

intellect

in

vain,

Or

not

endevour

knowledge

to

attain?

In

i630

"the noble lady Diana Primrose"offered A Chaine of Pearle:

or,

a

Memnoriall

of

the

peerless

Graces

and

heroick

Virtues

of Queene


21/24

374 WILLIAM

AND

MARY QUARTERLY

Elizabeth, of glorious Memory. This elegiac poem was reprinted in the

Harleian Miscellany and in Nichols' Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.

Twenty years later came a voice from the wilderness, that of "the

Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in America," and with this half-turn of the

century and the far-reaching changes brought by the Civil War the gates

of the English Parnassus seemed to open at last to women. The eccentric

Duchess of Newcastle, exiled from her country by the Commonwealth

but

a very citizen of Utopia in the love and intellectual companionship

of

her husband, published her Poems and Fancies in

i653,

and after that,

with the Duke's encouragement and collaboration, produced many vol-

umes of poems, plays and philosophical essays. Anne Collins' Divine

Songs was also published in

i653.

Katharine Philips, "the matchless

Orinda," friend of Vaughan, Cowley and Jeremy Taylor, whom Professor

Douglas

Bush.

in English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century

calls "the first real English poetess," began to be much admired soon after

i65o

as the center of a literary circle where elegant and artificialPlatonism

was

cultivated.

Her

poems, often reprinted

in

collections and anthologies,

appeared in an unauthorized edition in i664, the year of her untimely

death,

and in a corrected

and more

complete

edition

in

i667. Anne Finch,

Countess of Winchilsea, wrote graceful and melancholy poems which were

admired

by

her

friends, among whom was Pope, but did not publish

until

I7I3,

a few

yearsbeforeher death.

Finally, the roaring days of the Restoration produced the

first woman

in

England who actually made her living by her pen. She was the

redoubt-

able Mrs. Aphra Behn, who spent her childhood

in

Surinam, Guiana,

being

the

daughter

of

the English Governor,

returned

to England

in

i658,

served as a

spy

for Charles II

in Antwerp, and

married

a

London

mer-

chant. Her husband's death and her own financial difficultiesforced her

to

become self-supporting,and this she accomplished by writing between

i67i and I689 fifteen plays, coarse and swashbuckling comedies and

dramas

of

contemporary ife,

several

novels,

and a

body

of verse

containing

such

poems

of

power

and

beauty

as

the celebrated

"Love

in fantastic

triumph

sat." She

was,

unlike all

of those

mentioned before

her,

not

in

any sense

a

"lady,"

and

it

was

by

sheer uninhibited

strength

of

character

that she forged

her

vigorous creative

talent

into a

weapon that

won her

an undisputed place in the man's world of literature.

The fact

that it took so

many

centuries for

women to

gain

the

right

to

compete

with

men

in

the field

of

letters is

examined with

insight

and


22/24

THE

TENTH

MUSE

375

energy

by

Virginia

Woolf

in

her

essay

A

Room

of

One's

Own.

She

emphasizes

the

loneliness

and

frustrationof

women

who

wanted

to

write

and

cites

the

eccentric

Duchess

of

Newcastle

and

the

melancholy

Countess

of Winchilsea as examples of talented writers whose

productions

were

"disfigured

and

deformed"

by

the

weight

of

public

opinion

against

them.

She

quotes

a

revealing

contemporary

comment

by

Dorothy

Osborne,

who

wrote

mentioning

a

book

by the

Duchess

of

Newcastle

in a

letter

to

Sir

William

Temple:

Sure

the

poore

womanis a

little

distracted,

hee

could

never

bee

soe

redicu-

lous

else

as

to

ventureat

writeing

book's

and in

verse

too,

if I

should

not

sleep

this fortnightI shouldnotcometo that.

Mrs.

Woolf

makes

a.

point

which

provides

me

with a

stepping-stone

toward

my

own

goal,

that

of

demonstrating

that

Anne

Bradstreet

was

the

first

unhampered

and

integrated

English

woman

poet.

Considering

the

obscurity

of

women

in

the

sixteenth

century, as

its

recordshave

come

to

us,

she

says:

Occasionallyan individualwoman is mentioned,an Elizabethor a Mary,

a

queen or

a

great

lady.

But

by

no

possible

means

could

middle-classwomen

with

nothing

but

brainsand

character

t

their

command

have

taken

part n

any

one

of

the

great

movements

which,

brought

together,

constitute

he

historian's

view

of

the

past.

But that

is

exactly

what

Anne

Bradstreet

did,

only

about a

quarter-century

after

the

death of

Queen

Elizabeth. As

a

middle-class

woman

certainly

equipped with brains and character, she was privileged to take part in

a

great

movement,

the

opening

up

of

the

new

world of

North

America.

And in

so

doing she

liberated

herself

not

only

as a woman

and a

Puritan,

but also

as

a

poet.

If

Anne

Bradstreet

had

remained

in

England

she

might,

indeed,

have

written

verse

and

had

it

published.

But it

seems

logical

to

suppose

that

much

of

the

passion

and

determination

that

went

into

what

she wrote

in

New

England

would

have

been

lacking,

or

largely

watered

down

by

the

traditional

confinements and artificial multiplicity of the kind of life

she

would

have led in

the

mother

country.

She

appears

to

have

had

no

counterpart,

at

any

rate,

among

the

educated

Puritan

women

of

her

time


23/24

376

WILLIAM AND

MARY QUARTERLY

who remained in England,

and the

work of her

nearest, though younger,

contemporary,Katharine

Philips,

was marred by a super-imposed

classical

formalism which makes

it all but

unreadable today.

It would seem that a subtle but profound change took place in the

attitude

of the pioneering

men toward the

women who

accompanied

them into

the forests

of New England.

During the first

cruel winters

when famine, disease, the lurking

Indians and

the inescapable

cold were

ever-present

enemies, the men and

women fought

shoulder to shoulder,

and when the worst battles

were over

the survivorslooked at

one

another

as tested

human beings rather than

as members

of a superior and

an

inferior

sex. The New

England men were severe

with their

wives, as

with

themselves, in spiritual and moral discipline, as witness the banishment

of Anne

Hutchinson and the treatment

of the

Quakers regardlessof sex.

But

through.

their very masculine

dependence

on their women

for

devo-

tion,

encouragement and shared

planning and

maintenance

of their

homes and

communities, they gained

a new respect

for the courage

and

faithful endurance

of the supposedly delicate

creatures who

had left

the

amenities of civilization to consecrate

their talents

and abilities

to

the

making of another

and better England

and the building of a

new genera-

tion of pioneers. It is not therefore strange that Anne Bradstreet,while

discharging

her

obligations

to her

family and community

without short-

coming or

complaint,

should have been permitted,

even encouraged,

by

her "Dear

and loving

Husband" and their friends

to express

her creative

impulse

without any

serious opposition. That

the sound

of "carping

tongues" was not altogether

absent

from her ears Anne Bradstreet

tells

us

herself,

but after all was it not

natural that

somebody

should carp,

from sheer

jealousy perhaps, at a

capable wife

and mother who was also

clever and fortunate enough to be a successful writer?

It

seems

to

me

not

accidental but

logical that

the first serious English

poetess

brought

her

talent

to fruition in the sharp

fresh air

of Massachu-

setts rather than

in the man-made atmosphere

of England. Intense

ex-

perience

is the raw material

of

poetry;

it

was

also the daily companion

of the

seventeenth-century

New

Englander.

Sudden

death

was a common-

place;

new

life

a

necessity.

Anne Bradstreet's

family of eight children

was unusual

only

in

that

all of them

lived

to

grow

to maturity;

most

parents in those days buried more infants than their counterpartsof today

consider

a reasonable

hatching

of

hostages

to

fortune. Even in

such

frail

bodies

as

Anne

Bradstreet's,

f

they

survived at

all,

the

physical

rigors

of


24/24

THE

TENTH

MUSE

377

daily

life bred a

sort of

tough

resilience, and the

ever-present

unpredictables

of this

new

existence kept

the

wits sharp

and

the senses

constantlyon the

alert. And

the

unfailing,

dauntless trust

in the

wisdom and

goodness of

God was a rock on which poetry and empire could alike be built. Samuel

Eliot

Morison

makes this

summation, in

Builders

of the

Bay

Colony:

This

was the

strengthof the

pioneer

woman,

that

she

couldemploy

every

adversity o some

spiritual

advantage,

and make

good

tome

out of

evil.

Anne

Bradstreet

was a

true

daughter

of the

Puritan

breed,

whose soul

was

made

strongby

faith.

From the

day her

heartfell

at

beholdingNew

England,to her

last

wastingillness,

she

hadmany,

very

manydays

of

pain;but

utteredno

com-

plaint. She was unusual, and so far as we know unique, amongthe men and

women of

the first

generation, n that

her

character,her

thoughts

and

her

re-

ligion

were

expressed n

poetrythat

has

endured,

and

will endure.

Certainly

no

Englishwoman

writing before Anne

Bradstreet created

a

body

of verse

which

has been

remembered

with

so

much

respect,

or has

given so much

quiet

and

moving pleasure

to the

generations that

came

after

her.

And,

if

it

be

granted

that

historically

she

deserves

the earliest

place among the women poets of England, surely no man, however

jealous

of

his sex's

poetic

prerogative,

could

begrudge

a

niche

in

his honor-

able

company

to

the

woman

who wrote these

lines

to

her

husband:

How

soon, my

Dear,

death

may my

steps

attend,

How soon't

may

be

thy

lot

to

lose

thy

friend

We

both are

ignorant, yet

love

bids

me

These farewell lines

to recommend

to

thee,

That when that knot's unty'd thatmade us one,

I

may

seem

thine,

who in

effect am

none.

And

if

I

see

not

half

my

dayes

that's

due,

What

nature

would,

God

grant

to

yours

and you;

The

many

faults that

well

you

know I

have,

Let

be

interr'd

in

my

oblivion's

grave;

If

any

worth or virtuewere

in

me,

Let that live

freshly

in

thy

memory

And when thou feel'st no

grief,

as

I

no

harms,

Yet

love

thy dead,

who

long lay

in

thine

arms.

The Tenth Muse - Elizabeth Wade White, "A tercentary Appraisal of Anne Bradstreet"

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