Anne Bradstreet Research Paper

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Anne Bradstreet and Early Feminism Anne Bradstreet is recognized as one of the first influential female poets in early America. Before she got this honorable recognition, she had many hindrances that she dealt with first. Anne Bradstreet’s upbringing and surroundings made becoming a well-known writer difficult for her. In the 1600s, during the time of Puritanism, women were not viewed as equal to men. In certain poems of Bradstreet’s, she cleverly hints at the topic of how unfair the lack of equality was. She suggests female empowerment in the literary world. Anne Bradstreet was an early feminist. Anne Bradstreet was a greatly educated woman. At the time, she was more educated than most women in the area. Being an educated elite aided Bradstreet's success as a female poet. Bradstreet’s father was a strict Puritan, and she later married someone with the same views as her father. Bradstreet wrote poems for her father as a young girl, and as she grew into…show more content…
Even though her feministic ideas were not fully developed, she began the base idea of it. Modern feminists should be grateful for Bradstreet's bravery as she created a new era and was not even aware of what she was creating. She was simply doing what she thought was morally correct and wanted recognition. Louisa Hall states that Anne Bradstreet, even through her writing blemishes and imperfections, is an influential poet to most modern female writers. Hall writes, Bradstreet questions the gender-based power relations of the male author-female muse relationship. By invoking her own muse in the early elegies, Bradstreet calls attention to the patriarchal conventions into which she was attempting to write her female voice. Her attempts cannot change the rules of discourse, but they can at least point out its flaws, thus paving the way for future female authors to break real ground.

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