My Take on Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreets poetry was my favorite to read. I really enjoyed reading about her life as well. I think it is essential to know about women writers. From women's perspectives we get a different look at the world. Through Anne's poetry I felt as if at times she questioned her beliefs, or at least questioned her purpose as a woman. In her poem "To My Dear Children" she writes a brief explanation about the poem, and within this essay she admits that "vanities and follies of youth take hold of me". I found this profound, in the world of the puritans I feel in the readings we have read so far, that no one admits that they too have sinned. Bradstreet goes directly out and states that she herself has sinned and that due to these sins such and such has happened. She is aware of what her beliefs expect of her but she is at the same time aware of herself as a human being.

My favorite part of her essay to her children was when she writes, "When I have got over this block, have have I put in my way, that admit this to be the true God whom we worship, and that be his word, yet why not might the Popish religion be right? They have the same God, the same Christ, the same word. They only interpret it one way, we another". This statement is the most profound. As a women she is questioning things. She is not right out stating that her way of life is the best, it makes sense for her and her family, but may not make sense for other people. Despite this though they still believe in the same God as she does, they just are exhibiting a very different way of life. With these statements Bradstreet is not judging those who do not follow the Puritan beliefs, what I feel she is saying is that there are different paths of life but they will mostly lead to God.