The Author to Her Book

Have you ever felt deeply embarrassed about something you wrote? Maybe a poem you wrote back in the fourth grade or a fan letter to your former celebrity crush? Well, rest assured, you're not alone. Even the renowned first poet of America, Anne Bradstreet (1612‐1672), was embarrassed by her writing! Bradstreet's poetry collection, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650), was highly popular and well-received in England and early America.

Nonetheless, in her lyric poem, 'The Author to Her Book' (1678), Bradstreet expresses her disgust with the poetry book, which she describes as "blemished" and full of errors.¹ The poet presents the dissatisfaction of being an artist through an extended metaphor, comparing her poetry book to an unkempt child.

Fig. 1 - In 'The Author to Her Book,' Anne Bradstreet speaks to her book, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, about her feelings of embarrassment and shame as a writer.

'The Author to Her Book': Background Information

'The Author to Her Book' (1678) is a poem by the English‐American Puritan poet, Anne Bradstreet (1612‐1672). Bradstreet is known for her collection of poetry, The Tenth Muse Sprung Up in America (1650), which was one of the earliest books to be published in both England and the early American colonies.

It is disputed whether Bradstreet consented to the publishing of her writings. Her brother-in-law had The Tenth Muse Sprung Up in America published in London, though it was deemed inappropriate for women to be intellectuals and writers at the time—especially in Bradstreet's Puritan community.

From her posthumously published poem, 'The Author to Her Book,' it is understood that Bradstreet felt her poetry was taken from her in an unsatisfactory state and shared with the world against her wishes.

The poem 'The Author to Her Book' is of the lyric poetry genre. Anne Bradstreet uses the lyric poem form to express fervent emotions from the personal first-person perspective.

'The Author to Her Book': Full Poem

'The Author to Her Book': Summary

Anne Bradstreet writes about her published book, The Tenth Muse Sprung Up in America, referring to is as the malformed "offspring" ¹ of her weak brain (Line 1). She compares the book to a child she birthed. She says that. at first, the book stayed by her side but then her friends took this metaphorical 'child' and forced it to be published before it was ready.

Bradstreet suggests that the book was forced to go to the printing press, full of many errors that caused her embarrassment. She implies that she wishes she could hide the book from sight, as it was not fit to be viewed in public. She feels great unease at the thought of others reading it, as she only sees its errors.

Bradstreet says that she tried to fix the errors in the book to make it perfect, but she did not have the ability. She hopes the book only circulates around common people and is not read by critics. She sees the book as an inferior embarrassment, reflecting her own state and identity. However, the poem encapsulates the author's deep emotional attachment to her work, despite its perceived imperfections.

'The Author to Her Book': Analysis

'The Author to Her Book' is a 24‐line poem written in a single stanza. The single block of text creates a chunky, visually heavy, and unappealing presence, which reflects Bradstreet's feelings about her poetry book being a disgrace. Having the poem read as a single stanza also emphasizes the speaker's rambling thoughts.

However, Bradstreet's numerous thoughts and concerns are cleverly tied together by the extended metaphor of her book being compared to her unkempt child. The use of the book-child metaphor not only depicts Bradstreet's nurturing and maternal feelings towards her work, but it also emphasizes her feelings of inadequacy as she 'births' something she perceives to be flawed.

Analysis of rhyme scheme

The poem employs an irregular rhyming scheme and rhythm, mirroring the author's struggle with her imperfect 'offspring'. Through this work, Bradstreet explores the anxiety and humility inherent in the process of creation, exposing her inner thoughts and insecurities, and ultimately providing a poignant commentary on the challenges faced by writers.

The poet uses iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets to help provide rhythm and order to her single-stanza poem. The poem is entirely made of rhyming couplets or pairs of rhyming lines. The rhyme scheme of the poem is AABBCCDD... and so on. Each line of the poem is written in iambic pentameter or ten syllables in a pattern of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables. This meter mimics the trudging that the book is said to embody on its way to the printing press. It also evokes Bradstreet's reluctance and heavy-heartedness related to the unwanted publishing of her book.

'The Author to Her Book': Tone

'The Author to Her Book' has a highly consistent, self-deprecating, desperate, and concerned tone.

It is clear that Anne Bradstreet feels a sense of dread and embarrassment at the thought of her book being published. Bradstreet sees her writing as an integral part of herself that reflects herself as a child reflects their mother. She is self-deprecating because she only associates herself with the book's errors and her own inabilities.

The tone of the poem is desperate and concerned, as Bradstreet exasperatedly expresses her efforts to try to fix the book and help the child, but she ultimately feels helpless and "poor" ¹ in recognizing that she cannot (Line 23).

'The Author to Her Book': Literary Devices

Bradstreet uses literary devices such as extended metaphor, apostrophe, personification, hyperbole, syntax, and enjambment within her poem 'The Author to Her Book.'

Extended Metaphor, Apostrophe, and Personification

The entire poem is based on an extended metaphor in which the author personifies her book by comparing it to a disheveled child. Bradstreet begins the poem by addressing the book as "Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain" ¹ (Line 1). This is an example of apostrophe, as the author is addressing a subject that is not present and is not actually alive.

The use of apostrophe emphasizes the absurdity of the author speaking to her book, but also stresses how significant the perception of Bradstreet's writing is to her. Publishing a book is equated to the weight of birthing and raising a child.

The personification created by the portrayal of the book as a person helps present Bradstreet's feelings about the book. She refers to the book as "My rambling brat" ¹ whose "Visage was so irksome in my sight" ¹ to emphasize her disgust with her writing (Line 8 and 10).

Bradstreet uses the metaphor of the book as her child to explain her attempts and failures to fix it. She writes that "I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw" ¹ and "I stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet, / Yet still thou run’st more hobling then is meet" ¹ (Lines 13 and 15-16). Here she uses a play on words to compare metrical feet to human feet, suggesting that she is trying to fix and force the poem to take a uniform, but unnatural shape.

Fig. 2 - The poet compares her poetry to hobbling feet, suggesting a struggle with the rhythm of her words.

In the end, Bradstreet compares herself to a poor mother who does not have the means to properly dress or care for her child, suggesting that she does not feel she has the skill or ability to fix her writing. She perceives her book as an utter mess, which is presented through the desperate descriptions of herself and her child.

Hyperbole

Bradstreet uses hyperbole, or over-exaggeration, to present the heightened feelings of dread she experiences at the thought of her book being seen by the public. She describes her book using dramatic language, describing the child not only as an "ill-form’d offspring," but also as "one unfit for light, / Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight" ¹ (Lines 9-10). The use of these words being used by a metaphorical mother to her child creates shock and surprise at how a mother could so deeply detest something she should love more than anything.

Bradstreet intentionally suggests that though she should love her writing and be delighted at its publishing, she cannot love it because she only sees it as a disgraceful reflection of herself. This exaggerated depiction of the child's unappealing presence helps us understand Bradstreet's instinctual reactions of disgust towards the thought of her published book in a striking, nearly humorous way.

Syntax and Enjambment

The entire 24-line poem is made up of only five sentences. Bradstreet uses run-on sentence syntax to lend an exasperated nature to the speaker's voice. It is as if she is going on a rambling rant against her own book, nagging herself for her inadequacies, which she is reminded of by her writing.

The poet uses enjambment in lines 11 to 12: "Yet being mine own, at length affection would / Thy blemishes amend, if so I could." ¹ Line 11 is the only line in the poem not followed by some form of punctuation, and it marks the first note of compassion the author feels towards her writing. While she is incredibly dissatisfied with it, we learn that she desperately tried to edit her poetry and make it satisfactory to her standards, but she did not feel she had the skills to do so. While initially, she blames her friends for stealing her poetry and having it published, Bradstreet ultimately blames herself for not being a good enough poet.

'The Author to Her Book': Themes

The poem 'The Author to Her Book' revolves around the themes of creation and ownership.

The poet presents the act of creation as an arduous and frustrating task. She writes of how an author feels such great ownership and connection to their writing, that it is basically like a child they must birth and raise with great difficulty. Just as a mother must urgently give birth to her child, Bradstreet feels she must produce and deliver writing.

However, she calls into question the appropriate nature of ownership, as a young child is under the care of its mother, but then grows to go off on its own, and Bradstreet's writing appears to do the same thing. She says that well-intentioned friends, without the awareness of her writing's faults, took her poetry from her and insisted that it be published. They stole what was hers, but it soon took up a life of its own. Bradford presents art as an intimate reflection of its creator—the artist.

Fig. 3 - Anne Bradstreet presents the frustrations of being a writer in her poem, 'The Author to Her Book.'

¹ Anne Bradstreet, 'The Author to Her Book', Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning, 1678.