Bradstreet’s Direct, and Well Documented Love, Essay Example

Anne Bradstreet’s poem about a topic that is very near and dear to most people is “To My Dear and Loving Husband.” In it, she takes the reader on a journey through the many ways in which her love is special, powerful, and pure. There is no mistaking Bradstreet’s feelings because of how she puts it, and the manner in which she dashes any doubt about her feelings toward her husband.. Bradstreet expresses her feelings through logic, metaphor, and religious imagery to make a strong, direct statement about her feelings for her husband. This is a uniquely American poem because it expresses love in a grand, unconventional way by a female poet.

Bradstreet mixes logic, metaphor, and religion in a strong, consistent manner to show that her love is powerful. This serves as a compliment to her husband as well as a show of her own emotional state. There is something of a journey through her emotions in which she assures the reader that, indeed, this love is special in every way imaginable. Her feelings are unmistakable and overwhelming, and there is no argument that can be made against that.

The beginning is logical, laying out a number of if, then statements that express the way in which Bradstreet’s love compares to that of others. Most love poems do not make use of logic in the way that Bradstreet has employed it. She is expressing feelings in a logical manner, showing that her feelings abide by a structure and, like you can prove a logical point, you can prove her love.

She goes on to describe the size and scope of her love. Even as a woman without noble birth, she states:

“I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.”

To her, love, and the ideal of love, is more important than riches or the comforts that they bring. Like the ideal of freedom to Americans, the ideal of love to Bradstreet is a concept that is more important than wealth.

Bradstreet has put together a moving, entertaining, and brilliant poem that shows her feelings on a number of levels. Interestingly, this is the type of moving, complimentary literature that is more traditionally attributed to romantic men. As a woman in the 17^th Century, Bradstreet was expected to be more reserved than modern women. However, her speaking out about her love, in a way, makes the demand that she be treated as an equal to male poets, or even the husband that she adores. She defies convention and gender roles to express herself. In a sense, she demands some of the fundamental rights that would eventually be granted to all citizens of the United States, namely the right to express herself and her feelings free from social norms and customs of her time.

Bradstreet’s direct and charming poem has put to shame many other, more complex, yet less expansive expressions of love and, no doubt, moved many readers since its writing. Her poem is uniquely American because of its style, and its attitude. Bradstreet shows that a woman can successfully defy convention and express emotions in a way that is poetic and powerful. There is no more American ideal than that of free expression. Bradstreet not only expresses herself, but she does it in an unconventional, fundamentally American way.