I've decided that I won't end this commentary on a one-liner having something to do with death. I figured I'd break the pattern.
You're welcome.
What follows is my attempt at a study guide aimed at teaching undergrads the material in my paper. Honestly, it's more of an outline for a lesson than a lesson itself, but I think it would help to get the message across.
NOTE: The pictures didn't format correctly. I'll either add them into this post later, or I'll just leave them out. The final version has pictures. Imagine lots of pretty pictures. Now throw in a leprechaun riding a unicorn. You're getting close.
Instructor: Will Wight
AML 3031
12/8/11
Anne Bradstreet: She Loved Her Husband
So what?
Well, Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) was an early American poet.
She wrote in a Puritan community, where husbands and wives weren’t supposed to love each other TOO much. Apparently, there might not be enough love left for God.
We’re going to be examining the religious rhetoric that Bradstreet uses, and how that supports and/or challenges the traditional Puritan marriage notions of the day.
To do this, we’ll look at Puritan belief structures, how they were implemented, and how Bradstreet reacted to them.
Assignments
1.) Individual Reading
Read five poems of your choice by Anne Bradstreet.
Write a one- or two-paragraph response to each poem, highlighting where you saw references to Christianity or marriage and how Bradstreet used those references.
At the end of the semester, you will write a 4-5 page double-spaced essay on the message you felt those poems conveyed when read as a whole.
2.) Background Research
Read Robert D. Richardson Jr.’s essay, “The Puritan poetry of Anne Bradstreet.” We will use this essay as part of our lesson on Puritanism.
Read selected passages from Wendy Martin’s “An American Triptych.” These passages will be provided to you, and they help us to get a sense of Bradstreet’s work beyond just what we examine in class.
Download Helen Stuart Campbell’s “Anne Bradstreet and Her Time.” We will not go over this information in class, but it will be helpful for you to understand the context in which Bradstreet was writing.
Read Proverbs 31 in the King James Version of the Bible. This is difficult to get through, but it will help you to understand all the things an ideal wife was expected to do.
Discussion Questions
1.) In the context of marriage, who was supposed to have the wife’s ultimate loyalty? How about the husband’s? How does that affect the relationship between the husband and the wife?
2.) How does the idea of a husband and a wife uniting and becoming “one flesh” show up in Bradstreet’s poetry?
3.) Did Bradstreet believe in God, or not? How did this belief or unbelief affect her attitudes toward her own marriage?
4.) What do you think was Bradstreet’s view of traditional Puritan marriage? What evidence do you have for that theory?
5.) In your mind, is Bradstreet reinforcing what everyone else believes, or challenging it? How does she do so?
Works Cited
(And some optional reading)
A.L. A Question Deeply Concerning Married Persons, and Such as Intend to Marry: Propounded and Resolved According to the Scriptures. London:
At the Anchor and Bible in Paul's Church-Yard, 1653. eBook.
Bradstreet, Anne. “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment.” VCU.edu. Ann Woodlief, n.d. Web. 21 November 2011.
Bradstreet, Anne. “To My Dear and Loving Husband.” VCU.edu. Ann Woodlief, n.d. Web. 21 November 2011.
Campbell, Helen Stuart. “Anne Bradstreet and Her Time.” New York:
Public Domain Books. 1890. eBook.
Martin, Wendy. An American Triptych. Raleigh, NC:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Print.
McGill, Kathy. “The Most Industrious Sex: John Lawson’s Carolina Women Domesticate the Land.” North Carolina Historical Review. 88.3 (2011): 280-297. Web.
23 Oct. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu>.
Richardson Jr., Robert D. "The Puritan poetry of Anne Bradstreet."
The American Puritan Imagination: Essays in revaluation. Ed. Sacvan Bercovitch. London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Print.
Scheik, William J. Design in Puritan American Literature. Lexington, KY:
The University Press of Kentucky, 1992. Print.
“Historic Renaissance Gowns.” Scottish Wedding Dreams.
Scottish Wedding Dreams, n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2011.
The Holy Bible, King James Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1999.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Complete!
Here's my final (probably) version of "A Question of Marriage," and it ended up being more about Anne Bradstreet than about the original document.
But them's the breaks. And since I can't figure out how to upload a Word file, here's the full text!
Don't kill me.
Will Wight
Nov 28, 2011
Dr. Lisa Logan
LIT 6936 - Final Paper
A Question of Marriage: Puritanical marriage in the works of Anne Bradstreet
In Puritan tradition, marriage was tricky business. A wedding was as much a religious process as a legal one, and the Biblical standards that governed Puritan behavior were no more lax in marriage than in any other aspect of life. One standard from which the Puritans rarely deviated was the idea that males were the head of the household, and therefore that husbands automatically had dominance over their wives. This concept was reinforced, by and large, with scripture. One of the most common verses used to support this comment states, in the translation used at the time, “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” (King James Bible, Eph. 5.23-24). The influence of this concept is easily seen in Puritan works of the day, as observed in the poetry of Anne Bradstreet, though it may not be as widely accepted as we often assume. In this essay, I will show that Bradstreet uses Biblical references to marriage in her poems “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment” to both explore her own honest feelings and to question the adequacy of Puritanical wedding conventions.
One of the most commonly known concepts of marriage found in the Bible is the idea of marriage constituting one man and one woman bound together in a holy ceremony. This definition comes primarily from Genesis, in a passage that states, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (King James Bible, Gen. 2.24). This is a concept with which the Puritans would have been intimately familiar, and indeed seems to form the basis of many of their marriage traditions. The “one flesh” idea is referenced in “A Letter to Her Husband,” in which Bradstreet says, “If two be one, as surely thou and I, / How stayest thou here, wilst I at Ipswich lie?” (3-4). In this line Bradstreet clearly references the idea that she and her husband are “one flesh,” because she poses the question: if we are one person, how could we be split apart? But in that simple statement we see Bradstreet’s dissatisfaction with traditional concepts: she doesn’t like being joined to her husband as a single person and then separated. This statement casts a shadow of doubt not only on the validity of marital separation but also on the Biblical idea of “one flesh.”
Bradstreet returns to the same Biblical concept in the next few lines, when she writes, “So many steps, head from the heart to sever, / If but a neck, soon should we be together” (“A Letter” 5-6). These lines evoke physical violence, and possibly corporal punishment as well in their connection of “neck” with “sever” (Woodlief). They also form another reference to the Scriptural idea of physical unification, which shows up throughout the poem, even into the lines: “Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, / I here, thou there, but both but one” (25-26). These physical images seem violent and painful, and they therefore imply that God’s design for marriage may not be entirely pleasant. “A Letter to Her Husband” makes repeated reference to unity of flesh, both as something enjoyable and something painful, and it is hardly Bradstreet’s only poem to do so.
“To My Dear and Loving Husband,” another Bradstreet poem about marriage, makes even more explicit reference to the idea of “one flesh” than does “A Letter.” The opening line to “Loving Husband” is practically a direct reaction to scripture: “If ever two were one, then surely we” (1). At a surface level, the line is obviously meant to express their devotion to one another, but it also both reinforces and questions the commonly accepted notion of physical unity. The phrasing “If ever two were one” seems to imply the possibility that some married couples might not be unified, though the second half of the line reaffirms that Bradstreet feels it is true for her (“Loving Husband”). These lines both accept and reject Puritan marriage, showing that she enjoys her communion with her husband, but it’s not all easy or painless. While this might seem like an obvious comment on any marriage, it could also be read as questioning God’s design for men and women.
Bradstreet also dances with the idea that, though husband and wife must be as a single person, that single person must be completely devoted to God. Therefore, her devotion to God should be greater even than her devotion to her human “other half.” Martin says that Bradstreet “struggled with the conflict between her love for her husband and children and her devotion to God,” a conflict somewhat mitigated in “Loving Husband” by the fact that she uses socially acceptable Biblical phrasing to describe her longing for her husband (69). Though this dichotomy was surely common among Puritans, Bradstreet dealt with her doubts and feelings openly through the venue of her verse. However, this is just one of many contrasts with which she struggles in her poetry.
Through her works, Bradstreet earnestly processes her own difficulties in honoring God while still maintaining a socially acceptable marriage. Robert Richardson calls the “Puritan way of life,” to which Bradstreet subscribed, “at worst, a series of impossible conflicts, and at best a difficult balance” (108). This subtle tension can be recognized in her poetry, including “A Letter to Her Husband.” One force acting on Bradstreet is her sexual desire for her husband, as evidenced in the following lines: “In this dead time, alas, what can I more / Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore?” (“A Letter” 13-14). The source of her passion is evident throughout the poem, and it is not God. She compares her husband to the sun and to the season of summer, both traditionally associated with emotion and lustful feelings. As she is married and her desire is focused toward her husband, these feelings should technically be accepted by her Christian culture.
However, there is conflict centered around her desire for her husband, and this conflict is caused by the factors limiting their involvement with one another; in this case, distance and their devotion to God. “Anne Bradstreet’s love for Simon was in harmony with God’s plan...But she must love him ‘in Christ’ and not selfishly or carnally; to allow her emotional or physical desire for Simon to eclipse her greater commitment to God would be idolatry” (Martin 68). The Puritan traditions of the day therefore held that one could not be sexually active outside of marriage, and also that one should not be too sexually active even within marriage, lest it distract you from God. These imposed rules, however, did not prevent Bradstreet from longing for her husband, as the poem clearly shows.
Bradstreet struggles with the same conflict in “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” in which she claims that she cannot love her husband sufficiently and that God must make up the difference. “Thy love is such I can no way repay, / The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray” (9-10). Again, this expresses that she feels her marriage is incomplete without God. Bradstreet sends the very clear message that, though she feels a great longing for her husband as a person and enjoys her relationship with him, she knows that they must remain subservient to God and therefore she cannot let her passion overwhelm her. This conflict is remarkably Puritan, and provides another layer of tension to her marriage that might not otherwise be evident.
Another dichotomy present in the same poem is the idea of this world versus the world to come. Puritans embraced the Biblical notion of finding fulfillment in the promise of future good in Heaven rather than finding fulfillment in hollow Earthly pleasures, and in her text Bradstreet is cognizant of that. She writes, “Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere / That when we live no more, we may live ever” (11-12). Again, Bradstreet is forced to balance two seemingly opposing concepts in order to accommodate her religion: first, her belief that her love with her husband is good and pleasurable at the same time. Second, her belief that she should focus on finding value and fulfillment in Heaven rather than on Earth. She reconciles these two seemingly opposed concepts by ending her poem on a note of hope and trust in God, indicating that she will enjoy what worldly pleasures she is allowed and give all the credit to the Lord.
Anne Bradstreet challenged, in an honest and forthright way, many of the Puritan values that constituted the rules for her marriage. Rather than pretending to blindly submit to cultural traditions of marriage, Bradstreet exposed her true feelings. However, this was not necessarily rebellious so much as it was unflinchingly honest. As Richardson says, “Anne Bradstreet also wrestled with the problem, at times rebelling, at times submitting. That she had severe doubts about her faith does not make her any less a Puritan. In fact...a firm and doubt-free conviction of salvation was a probable sign of damnation” (Richardson 108). Bradstreet’s struggle for belief was less a sign of her rejection of Puritan faith and more an illustration of her exploration of God and his claims, though there are several subtle questions and jabs at Puritan beliefs in her poems.
“A Letter to Her Husband” makes an interesting comment about God simply by not commenting about Him. Bradstreet starts the poem off by saying, “My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay, more, / My joy, my magazine of earthly store,” and there is an abundance of meaning in those lines (“A Letter” 1-2). First of all, in a Puritan belief structure the only thing of more value than her life was her soul, so the idea that she would pledge something worth more value than her life to anyone other than Jesus was unorthodox. Second, she offers her husband her full measure of earthly possessions, though the Puritans were expected to place little or no value on material things. This could suggest that her husband was only supposed to possess her physical items while God was the arbiter of her spirit, though it could also suggest that she would give everything she owned to her husband instead of giving it to God. Either way, in her point-by-point recollection of what she would give up for her devotion, she does not mention God.
Just as interesting as God’s absence is Bradstreet’s implicit lack of trust in his teachings. This is more of a tenuous connection, likely not even intended by Bradstreet herself. However, lines such as “If two be one, as surely thou and I” suggest doubt in the Bible as God’s infallible word (“A Letter” 3). Simply by beginning the sentence with “if,” Bradstreet implicitly suggests the possibility that it might not be true, which subtly casts doubt on the words of the Bible. Later on in the same poem, Bradstreet gives the agency of death to nature rather than to God by saying, “Till nature’s sad decree shall call thee hence” (24). In traditional Christianity, God is the one that calls someone from this life, not nature. To suggest that God does not oversee a person’s transition into Heaven is to question the Heavenly admission process itself, which a person in Bradstreet’s community could hardly do openly without social reprisal.
“To My Dear and Loving Husband” begins with an illustration of uncertainty not typical for Puritan religious rhetoric. The lines “If ever two were one, then surely we. / If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; / If ever wife was happy in a man, / Compare with me” seem to challenge Biblical and Puritanical notions of marriage and male-female relations (1-4). Just as in “A Letter to Her Husband,” Bradstreet’s tendency to begin lines with “if” raises implications of doubt in the reader. It sounds as if she is questioning the Biblical picture of a man and a woman becoming unified in flesh and blood, and then living a happy and productive life together. She suggests that other Christian couples may not be as happy as they are, which (while undoubtedly true) would probably have not gone over well with other members of the church. She also, again, does not directly mention God.
However, she does beg the heavens to give her husband the reward he deserves, since her love is not quite adequate: “The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray” (“Loving Husband” 10). This idea is consistent with traditional Puritan ideals, as it seems to suggest that the wife is incapable of loving the husband as he deserves, so God must take over. The wife is implicitly subject to the husband, who is then subject to God. Lines like this would please her audience, who were undoubtedly used to poems with a similar structure or message. In this work she also brings up the Puritan notion of living life for the sake of eternity rather than for the fleeting pleasures of this world, particularly in the last lines: “Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere / That when we live no more, we may live ever” (“Loving Husband” 11-12). This is another concept that lines up with Puritan orthodoxy, in that the husband and wife are loving each other with an eye on eternity rather than on Earth.
Puritanical hierarchy established males as the head of the household, as consistent with Ephesians: “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” (King James Bible, Eph. 5.23-24). The passage is used to justify male-only participation in business, as well as husbands owning their wives’ property (A.L. 1). Many pastors preach on this verse even today, and they usually forget the next verse: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it,” meaning that husbands should do for their wives as Jesus did for humanity and sacrifice their own lives in servitude and humility (King James Bible, Eph. 5.25). However the verses are read, though, the point remains that Puritanical marriage had a patriarchal structure, and Bradstreet reacted to that social reality of her time.
“A Letter to Her Husband” focuses on Bradstreet’s sorrow while her husband is gone and her longing to have him back, but the terminology used suggests equivalence rather than subservience. Bradstreet says of him “Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, / I here, thou there, but both but one” (25-26) hearkening back to the Puritan “one flesh” concept and conveniently putting the two of them on the same level. Though she gives a nod to the Puritan family structure for the sake of her audience, she does not act as an object. If anything, Bradstreet’s poems refer to her as the pursuer and her husband as the object being pursued, which is itself a poke in the eye of Puritan gender conventions. “In addition,” Wendy Martin says of Bradstreet, “there is no indication that she considers her social or domestic role subordinate to his” (68). This is reinforced in “A Letter” and “Loving Husband,” in which Bradstreet highlights her desire for a productive, active relationship with her husband rather than her satisfaction with a passive life of waiting. Bradstreet regularly uses common religious terminology, such as the “flesh of my flesh” comment, to imply gender equality rather than hierarchy.
In Anne Bradstreet, we find an intelligent and startlingly honest response to the stresses created in the interactions between life’s demands and society’s strictures. In “A Letter to Her Husband” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” Bradstreet uses religious tones and terminology to paint a picture of her own longing for a man she loved, even though she was--according to her community--not supposed to love him too much. This tension shaped her, shaped her writing, and shaped the lives of many married Puritans of the era.
Works Cited
A.L. A Question Deeply Concerning Married Persons, and Such as Intend to Marry: Propounded and Resolved According to the Scriptures. London: At the Anchor and Bible in Paul's Church-Yard, 1653. eBook.
Bradstreet, Anne. “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment.” VCU.edu. Ann Woodlief, n.d. Web. 21 November 2011.
Bradstreet, Anne. “To My Dear and Loving Husband.” VCU.edu. Ann Woodlief, n.d.
Web. 21 November 2011.
Martin, Wendy. An American Triptych. Raleigh, NC:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Print.
Richardson Jr., Robert D. "The Puritan poetry of Anne Bradstreet."
The American Puritan Imagination: Essays in revaluation. Ed. Sacvan Bercovitch.
London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Print.
Scheik, William J. Design in Puritan American Literature. Lexington, KY:
The University Press of Kentucky, 1992. Print.
The Holy Bible, King James Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1999.
But them's the breaks. And since I can't figure out how to upload a Word file, here's the full text!
Don't kill me.
Will Wight
Nov 28, 2011
Dr. Lisa Logan
LIT 6936 - Final Paper
A Question of Marriage: Puritanical marriage in the works of Anne Bradstreet
In Puritan tradition, marriage was tricky business. A wedding was as much a religious process as a legal one, and the Biblical standards that governed Puritan behavior were no more lax in marriage than in any other aspect of life. One standard from which the Puritans rarely deviated was the idea that males were the head of the household, and therefore that husbands automatically had dominance over their wives. This concept was reinforced, by and large, with scripture. One of the most common verses used to support this comment states, in the translation used at the time, “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” (King James Bible, Eph. 5.23-24). The influence of this concept is easily seen in Puritan works of the day, as observed in the poetry of Anne Bradstreet, though it may not be as widely accepted as we often assume. In this essay, I will show that Bradstreet uses Biblical references to marriage in her poems “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment” to both explore her own honest feelings and to question the adequacy of Puritanical wedding conventions.
One of the most commonly known concepts of marriage found in the Bible is the idea of marriage constituting one man and one woman bound together in a holy ceremony. This definition comes primarily from Genesis, in a passage that states, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (King James Bible, Gen. 2.24). This is a concept with which the Puritans would have been intimately familiar, and indeed seems to form the basis of many of their marriage traditions. The “one flesh” idea is referenced in “A Letter to Her Husband,” in which Bradstreet says, “If two be one, as surely thou and I, / How stayest thou here, wilst I at Ipswich lie?” (3-4). In this line Bradstreet clearly references the idea that she and her husband are “one flesh,” because she poses the question: if we are one person, how could we be split apart? But in that simple statement we see Bradstreet’s dissatisfaction with traditional concepts: she doesn’t like being joined to her husband as a single person and then separated. This statement casts a shadow of doubt not only on the validity of marital separation but also on the Biblical idea of “one flesh.”
Bradstreet returns to the same Biblical concept in the next few lines, when she writes, “So many steps, head from the heart to sever, / If but a neck, soon should we be together” (“A Letter” 5-6). These lines evoke physical violence, and possibly corporal punishment as well in their connection of “neck” with “sever” (Woodlief). They also form another reference to the Scriptural idea of physical unification, which shows up throughout the poem, even into the lines: “Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, / I here, thou there, but both but one” (25-26). These physical images seem violent and painful, and they therefore imply that God’s design for marriage may not be entirely pleasant. “A Letter to Her Husband” makes repeated reference to unity of flesh, both as something enjoyable and something painful, and it is hardly Bradstreet’s only poem to do so.
“To My Dear and Loving Husband,” another Bradstreet poem about marriage, makes even more explicit reference to the idea of “one flesh” than does “A Letter.” The opening line to “Loving Husband” is practically a direct reaction to scripture: “If ever two were one, then surely we” (1). At a surface level, the line is obviously meant to express their devotion to one another, but it also both reinforces and questions the commonly accepted notion of physical unity. The phrasing “If ever two were one” seems to imply the possibility that some married couples might not be unified, though the second half of the line reaffirms that Bradstreet feels it is true for her (“Loving Husband”). These lines both accept and reject Puritan marriage, showing that she enjoys her communion with her husband, but it’s not all easy or painless. While this might seem like an obvious comment on any marriage, it could also be read as questioning God’s design for men and women.
Bradstreet also dances with the idea that, though husband and wife must be as a single person, that single person must be completely devoted to God. Therefore, her devotion to God should be greater even than her devotion to her human “other half.” Martin says that Bradstreet “struggled with the conflict between her love for her husband and children and her devotion to God,” a conflict somewhat mitigated in “Loving Husband” by the fact that she uses socially acceptable Biblical phrasing to describe her longing for her husband (69). Though this dichotomy was surely common among Puritans, Bradstreet dealt with her doubts and feelings openly through the venue of her verse. However, this is just one of many contrasts with which she struggles in her poetry.
Through her works, Bradstreet earnestly processes her own difficulties in honoring God while still maintaining a socially acceptable marriage. Robert Richardson calls the “Puritan way of life,” to which Bradstreet subscribed, “at worst, a series of impossible conflicts, and at best a difficult balance” (108). This subtle tension can be recognized in her poetry, including “A Letter to Her Husband.” One force acting on Bradstreet is her sexual desire for her husband, as evidenced in the following lines: “In this dead time, alas, what can I more / Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore?” (“A Letter” 13-14). The source of her passion is evident throughout the poem, and it is not God. She compares her husband to the sun and to the season of summer, both traditionally associated with emotion and lustful feelings. As she is married and her desire is focused toward her husband, these feelings should technically be accepted by her Christian culture.
However, there is conflict centered around her desire for her husband, and this conflict is caused by the factors limiting their involvement with one another; in this case, distance and their devotion to God. “Anne Bradstreet’s love for Simon was in harmony with God’s plan...But she must love him ‘in Christ’ and not selfishly or carnally; to allow her emotional or physical desire for Simon to eclipse her greater commitment to God would be idolatry” (Martin 68). The Puritan traditions of the day therefore held that one could not be sexually active outside of marriage, and also that one should not be too sexually active even within marriage, lest it distract you from God. These imposed rules, however, did not prevent Bradstreet from longing for her husband, as the poem clearly shows.
Bradstreet struggles with the same conflict in “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” in which she claims that she cannot love her husband sufficiently and that God must make up the difference. “Thy love is such I can no way repay, / The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray” (9-10). Again, this expresses that she feels her marriage is incomplete without God. Bradstreet sends the very clear message that, though she feels a great longing for her husband as a person and enjoys her relationship with him, she knows that they must remain subservient to God and therefore she cannot let her passion overwhelm her. This conflict is remarkably Puritan, and provides another layer of tension to her marriage that might not otherwise be evident.
Another dichotomy present in the same poem is the idea of this world versus the world to come. Puritans embraced the Biblical notion of finding fulfillment in the promise of future good in Heaven rather than finding fulfillment in hollow Earthly pleasures, and in her text Bradstreet is cognizant of that. She writes, “Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere / That when we live no more, we may live ever” (11-12). Again, Bradstreet is forced to balance two seemingly opposing concepts in order to accommodate her religion: first, her belief that her love with her husband is good and pleasurable at the same time. Second, her belief that she should focus on finding value and fulfillment in Heaven rather than on Earth. She reconciles these two seemingly opposed concepts by ending her poem on a note of hope and trust in God, indicating that she will enjoy what worldly pleasures she is allowed and give all the credit to the Lord.
Anne Bradstreet challenged, in an honest and forthright way, many of the Puritan values that constituted the rules for her marriage. Rather than pretending to blindly submit to cultural traditions of marriage, Bradstreet exposed her true feelings. However, this was not necessarily rebellious so much as it was unflinchingly honest. As Richardson says, “Anne Bradstreet also wrestled with the problem, at times rebelling, at times submitting. That she had severe doubts about her faith does not make her any less a Puritan. In fact...a firm and doubt-free conviction of salvation was a probable sign of damnation” (Richardson 108). Bradstreet’s struggle for belief was less a sign of her rejection of Puritan faith and more an illustration of her exploration of God and his claims, though there are several subtle questions and jabs at Puritan beliefs in her poems.
“A Letter to Her Husband” makes an interesting comment about God simply by not commenting about Him. Bradstreet starts the poem off by saying, “My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay, more, / My joy, my magazine of earthly store,” and there is an abundance of meaning in those lines (“A Letter” 1-2). First of all, in a Puritan belief structure the only thing of more value than her life was her soul, so the idea that she would pledge something worth more value than her life to anyone other than Jesus was unorthodox. Second, she offers her husband her full measure of earthly possessions, though the Puritans were expected to place little or no value on material things. This could suggest that her husband was only supposed to possess her physical items while God was the arbiter of her spirit, though it could also suggest that she would give everything she owned to her husband instead of giving it to God. Either way, in her point-by-point recollection of what she would give up for her devotion, she does not mention God.
Just as interesting as God’s absence is Bradstreet’s implicit lack of trust in his teachings. This is more of a tenuous connection, likely not even intended by Bradstreet herself. However, lines such as “If two be one, as surely thou and I” suggest doubt in the Bible as God’s infallible word (“A Letter” 3). Simply by beginning the sentence with “if,” Bradstreet implicitly suggests the possibility that it might not be true, which subtly casts doubt on the words of the Bible. Later on in the same poem, Bradstreet gives the agency of death to nature rather than to God by saying, “Till nature’s sad decree shall call thee hence” (24). In traditional Christianity, God is the one that calls someone from this life, not nature. To suggest that God does not oversee a person’s transition into Heaven is to question the Heavenly admission process itself, which a person in Bradstreet’s community could hardly do openly without social reprisal.
“To My Dear and Loving Husband” begins with an illustration of uncertainty not typical for Puritan religious rhetoric. The lines “If ever two were one, then surely we. / If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; / If ever wife was happy in a man, / Compare with me” seem to challenge Biblical and Puritanical notions of marriage and male-female relations (1-4). Just as in “A Letter to Her Husband,” Bradstreet’s tendency to begin lines with “if” raises implications of doubt in the reader. It sounds as if she is questioning the Biblical picture of a man and a woman becoming unified in flesh and blood, and then living a happy and productive life together. She suggests that other Christian couples may not be as happy as they are, which (while undoubtedly true) would probably have not gone over well with other members of the church. She also, again, does not directly mention God.
However, she does beg the heavens to give her husband the reward he deserves, since her love is not quite adequate: “The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray” (“Loving Husband” 10). This idea is consistent with traditional Puritan ideals, as it seems to suggest that the wife is incapable of loving the husband as he deserves, so God must take over. The wife is implicitly subject to the husband, who is then subject to God. Lines like this would please her audience, who were undoubtedly used to poems with a similar structure or message. In this work she also brings up the Puritan notion of living life for the sake of eternity rather than for the fleeting pleasures of this world, particularly in the last lines: “Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere / That when we live no more, we may live ever” (“Loving Husband” 11-12). This is another concept that lines up with Puritan orthodoxy, in that the husband and wife are loving each other with an eye on eternity rather than on Earth.
Puritanical hierarchy established males as the head of the household, as consistent with Ephesians: “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” (King James Bible, Eph. 5.23-24). The passage is used to justify male-only participation in business, as well as husbands owning their wives’ property (A.L. 1). Many pastors preach on this verse even today, and they usually forget the next verse: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it,” meaning that husbands should do for their wives as Jesus did for humanity and sacrifice their own lives in servitude and humility (King James Bible, Eph. 5.25). However the verses are read, though, the point remains that Puritanical marriage had a patriarchal structure, and Bradstreet reacted to that social reality of her time.
“A Letter to Her Husband” focuses on Bradstreet’s sorrow while her husband is gone and her longing to have him back, but the terminology used suggests equivalence rather than subservience. Bradstreet says of him “Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, / I here, thou there, but both but one” (25-26) hearkening back to the Puritan “one flesh” concept and conveniently putting the two of them on the same level. Though she gives a nod to the Puritan family structure for the sake of her audience, she does not act as an object. If anything, Bradstreet’s poems refer to her as the pursuer and her husband as the object being pursued, which is itself a poke in the eye of Puritan gender conventions. “In addition,” Wendy Martin says of Bradstreet, “there is no indication that she considers her social or domestic role subordinate to his” (68). This is reinforced in “A Letter” and “Loving Husband,” in which Bradstreet highlights her desire for a productive, active relationship with her husband rather than her satisfaction with a passive life of waiting. Bradstreet regularly uses common religious terminology, such as the “flesh of my flesh” comment, to imply gender equality rather than hierarchy.
In Anne Bradstreet, we find an intelligent and startlingly honest response to the stresses created in the interactions between life’s demands and society’s strictures. In “A Letter to Her Husband” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” Bradstreet uses religious tones and terminology to paint a picture of her own longing for a man she loved, even though she was--according to her community--not supposed to love him too much. This tension shaped her, shaped her writing, and shaped the lives of many married Puritans of the era.
Works Cited
A.L. A Question Deeply Concerning Married Persons, and Such as Intend to Marry: Propounded and Resolved According to the Scriptures. London: At the Anchor and Bible in Paul's Church-Yard, 1653. eBook.
Bradstreet, Anne. “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment.” VCU.edu. Ann Woodlief, n.d. Web. 21 November 2011.
Bradstreet, Anne. “To My Dear and Loving Husband.” VCU.edu. Ann Woodlief, n.d.
Web. 21 November 2011.
Martin, Wendy. An American Triptych. Raleigh, NC:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Print.
Richardson Jr., Robert D. "The Puritan poetry of Anne Bradstreet."
The American Puritan Imagination: Essays in revaluation. Ed. Sacvan Bercovitch.
London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Print.
Scheik, William J. Design in Puritan American Literature. Lexington, KY:
The University Press of Kentucky, 1992. Print.
The Holy Bible, King James Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1999.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Is it drafty in here?
An early draft of my conference paper.
Even as early as it is, it's taken a lot of turns. I'm not sure where it's going to end up.
I can only pray that this creation does not slip its bounds and kill us all.
Will Wight
Nov 28, 2011
Dr. Lisa Logan
LIT 6936 - Final Paper
A Question of Marriage
In Puritan tradition, marriage was tricky business. A wedding was as much a religious process as a legal one, and the Biblical standards that governed Puritan behavior were no more lax in marriage than in any other aspect of life. One standard from which the Puritans rarely deviated was the idea that males were the head of the household, and therefore that husbands automatically had dominance over their wives. This concept was reinforced, by and large, with Scripture. One of the most common verses used to support this comment states, in the translation used at the time, “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” (King James Bible, Eph. 5.23-24). The influence of this concept is easily seen in Puritan works of the day, as observed in the poetry of Anne Bradstreet. Puritanical and Biblical standards of marriage permeate Bradstreet’s work, specifically her poems “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment.”
One of the most commonly known concepts of marriage found in the Bible is the idea of marriage constituting one man and one woman bound together in a holy ceremony. This definition comes primarily from Genesis, in a passage that states, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (King James Bible, Gen. 2.24). This is a concept with which the Puritans would have been intimately familiar, and indeed seems to form the basis of many of their marriage traditions. The “one flesh” idea is referenced in “A Letter to Her Husband,” in which Bradstreet says, “If two be one, as surely thou and I, / How stayest thou here, wilst I at Ipswich lie?” (“A Letter”). In this line Bradstreet is clearly referencing the idea that she and her husband are “one flesh,” because she poses the question: if we are one person, how could we be split apart?
Bradstreet returns to the same Biblical concept in the next few lines, when she writes, “So many steps, head from the heart to sever, / If but a neck, soon should we be together” (“A Letter”). These lines evoke physical violence, and also possibly corporal punishment in their connection of “neck” with “sever” (Woodlief). They also form another reference to the Scriptural idea of physical unification, which shows up throughout the poem, even into the lines: “Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, / I here, thou there, but both but one” (“A Letter”). “A Letter to Her Husband” makes repeated reference to unity of flesh, and it is hardly Bradstreet’s only poem to do so.
“To My Dear and Loving Husband,” another Bradstreet poem about marriage, makes even more explicit reference to the idea of “one flesh” than does “A Letter.” The opening line to “Loving Husband” is practically a direct reaction to scripture: “If ever two were one, then surely we” (“Loving Husband”). At a surface level, the line is obviously meant to express their devotion to one another, but it also both reinforces and questions the commonly accepted notion of physical unity. The phrasing “If ever two were one” seems to imply the possibility that some married couples might not be unified, though the second half of the line reaffirms that Bradstreet feels it is true for her (“Loving Husband”).
Bradstreet also dances with the idea that, though husband and wife must be as a single person, that single person must be completely devoted to God. Therefore, her devotion to God should be greater even than her devotion to her “other half.” Martin says that Bradstreet “struggled with the conflict between her love for her husband and children and her devotion to God,” a conflict somewhat mitigated in “Loving Husband” by the fact that she uses socially acceptable Biblical phrasing to describe her longing for her husband (Martin 69). However, this is just one of many contrasts with which she struggles in her poetry.
Through her works, Bradstreet earnestly processes her own difficulties in honoring God while still maintaining a socially acceptable marriage. Robert Richardson calls the “Puritan way of life,” to which Bradstreet subscribed, “at worst, a series of impossible conflicts, and at best a difficult balance” (Robertson 108). This subtle tension can be recognized in her poetry, including “A Letter to Her Husband.” One force acting on Bradstreet is her sexual desire for her husband, as evidenced in the following lines: “In this dead time, alas, what can I more / Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore?” (“A Letter”). The source of her passion is evident throughout the poem, and she compares her husband to the sun and to the season of summer.
However, there is conflict centered around her desire for her husband, and this conflict is caused by the factors limiting their involvement with one another; in this case, distance and their devotion to God. “Anne Bradstreet’s love for Simon was in harmony with God’s plan...But she must love him ‘in Christ’ and not selfishly or carnally; to allow her emotional or physical desire for Simon to eclipse her greater commitment to God would be idolatry” (Martin 68). The Puritan traditions of the day therefore held that one could not be sexually active outside of marriage, and also that one should not be too sexually active even within marriage, lest it distract you from God. These imposed rules, however, did not prevent Bradstreet from longing for her husband, as the poem clearly shows.
Bradstreet struggles with the same conflict in “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” in which she claims that she cannot love her husband sufficiently and that God must make up the difference. “Thy love is such I can no way repay, / The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray” (“Loving Husband”). Again, this expresses that she feels her marriage is incomplete without God. Bradstreet sends the very clear message that, though she feels a great longing for her husband as a person and enjoys her relationship with him, she knows that they must remain subservient to God and therefore she cannot let her passion overwhelm her. This conflict is remarkably Puritan, and provides another layer of tension to her marriage that might not otherwise be evident.
Another dichotomy present in the same poem is the idea of this world versus the world to come. Puritans embraced the Biblical notion of finding fulfillment in the promise of future good in Heaven rather than finding fulfillment in hollow Earthly pleasures, and in her text Bradstreet is cognizant of that. She writes, “Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere / That when we live no more, we may live ever” (“Loving Husband”). Again, Bradstreet is forced to balance two seemingly opposing concepts in order to accommodate her religion: first, her belief that her love with her husband is good and pleasurable at the same time. Second, her belief that she should focus on finding value and fulfillment in Heaven rather than on Earth. She reconciles these two seemingly opposed concepts by ending her poem on a note of hope and trust in God, indicating that she will enjoy what worldly pleasures she is allowed and give all the credit to the Lord.
Anne Bradstreet also challenged, in an honest and forthright way, many of the Puritan values that constituted the rules for her marriage. As Richardson says, “Anne Bradstreet also wrestled with the problem, at times rebelling, at times submitting. That she had severe doubts about her faith does not make her any less a Puritan. In fact...a firm and doubt-free conviction of salvation was a probable sign of damnation” (Richardson 108). Bradstreet’s struggle for belief was less a sign of her rejection of Puritan faith and more an illustration of her exploration of God and his claims, though there are several subtle questions and jabs at Puritan beliefs in her poems.
“A Letter to Her Husband” makes an interesting comment about God simply by not commenting about Him. Bradstreet starts the poem off by saying, “My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay, more, / My joy, my magazine of earthly store,” and there is an abundance of meaning in those lines (“A Letter”). First of all, in a Puritan belief structure the only thing of more value than her life was her soul, so the idea that she would pledge something worth more value than her life to anyone other than Jesus was unorthodox. Second, she offers her husband her full measure of earthly possessions, though the Puritans were expected to place little or no value on material things. This could suggest that her husband was only supposed to possess her physical items while God was the arbiter of her spirit, though it could also suggest that she would give everything she owned to her husband instead of giving it to God. Either way, in her point by point recollection of what she would give up for her devotion, she does not mention God.
Just as interesting as God’s absence is Bradstreet’s implicit lack of trust in his teachings. This is more of a tenuous connection, likely not even intended by Bradstreet herself. However, lines such as “If two be one, as surely thou and I” suggest doubt in the Bible as God’s infallible word (“A Letter”). Simply by beginning the sentence with “if,” Bradstreet implicitly suggests the possibility that it might not be true, which subtly casts doubt on the words of the Bible. Later in the poem, Bradstreet gives the agency of death to nature rather than to God by saying, “Till nature’s sad decree shall call thee hence” (“A Letter”). In traditional Christianity, God is the one that calls someone from this life, not nature. To suggest that God does not oversee a person’s transition into Heaven is to question the Heavenly admission process itself, which a person in Bradstreet’s community could hardly do openly.
“To My Dear and Loving Husband” begins with an illustration of uncertainty not typical for Puritan religious rhetoric. The lines “If ever two were one, then surely we. / If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; / If ever wife was happy in a man, / Compare with me” seem to challenge Biblical and Puritanical notions of marriage and male-female relations (“Loving Husband”). Just as in “A Letter to Her Husband,” Bradstreet’s tendency to begin lines with “if” raises implications of doubt in the reader. It sounds as if she is questioning the Biblical picture of a man and a woman becoming unified in flesh and blood, and then living a happy and productive life together. She suggests that other Christian couples may not be as happy as they are, which (while undoubtedly true) would probably have not gone over well with other members of the church. She also, again, does not directly mention God.
However, she does beg the heavens to give her husband the reward he deserves, since her love is not quite adequate: “The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray” (“Loving Husband”). This idea is consistent with traditional Puritan ideals, as it seems to suggest that the wife is incapable of loving the husband as he deserves, so God must take over. The wife is implicitly subject to the husband, who is then subject to God. In this work she also brings up the Puritan notion of living life for the sake of eternity rather than for the fleeting pleasures of this world, particularly in the last lines: “Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere / That when we live no more, we may live ever” (“Loving Husband”). This is another concept that lines up with Puritan orthodoxy, in that the husband and wife are loving each other with an eye on eternity rather than on Earth.
Puritanical hierarchy established males as the head of the household, as consistent with Ephesians: “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” (King James Bible, Eph. 5.23-24). Many pastors preach on this verse even today, and they usually forget the next verse: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it,” meaning that husbands should do for their wives as Jesus did for humanity and sacrifice their own lives in servitude and humility (King James Bible, Eph. 5.25). However the verses are read, though, the point remains that Puritanical marriage had a patriarchal structure, and Bradstreet reacted to that social reality of her time.
“A Letter to Her Husband” focuses on Bradstreet’s sorrow while her husband is gone and her longing to have him back, but the terminology used suggests equivalence rather than subservience. Bradstreet says of him “Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, / I here, thou there, but both but one,” hearkening back to the Puritan “one flesh” concept and conveniently putting the two of them on the same level. “In addition,” Wendy Martin says of Bradstreet, “there is no indication that she considers her social or domestic role subordinate to his” (Martin 68). Bradstreet uses common religious terminology, such as the “flesh of my flesh” comment, to imply gender equality rather than hierarchy.
In Anne Bradstreet, we find an intelligent and startlingly honest response to the stresses created in the interactions between life’s demands and society’s strictures. In “A Letter to Her Husband” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” Bradstreet uses religious tones and terminology to paint a picture of her own longing for a man she loved, even though she was--according to her community--not supposed to love him too much. This tension shaped her, shaped her writing, and shaped the lives of many married Puritans of the era.
Even as early as it is, it's taken a lot of turns. I'm not sure where it's going to end up.
I can only pray that this creation does not slip its bounds and kill us all.
Will Wight
Nov 28, 2011
Dr. Lisa Logan
LIT 6936 - Final Paper
A Question of Marriage
In Puritan tradition, marriage was tricky business. A wedding was as much a religious process as a legal one, and the Biblical standards that governed Puritan behavior were no more lax in marriage than in any other aspect of life. One standard from which the Puritans rarely deviated was the idea that males were the head of the household, and therefore that husbands automatically had dominance over their wives. This concept was reinforced, by and large, with Scripture. One of the most common verses used to support this comment states, in the translation used at the time, “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” (King James Bible, Eph. 5.23-24). The influence of this concept is easily seen in Puritan works of the day, as observed in the poetry of Anne Bradstreet. Puritanical and Biblical standards of marriage permeate Bradstreet’s work, specifically her poems “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment.”
One of the most commonly known concepts of marriage found in the Bible is the idea of marriage constituting one man and one woman bound together in a holy ceremony. This definition comes primarily from Genesis, in a passage that states, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (King James Bible, Gen. 2.24). This is a concept with which the Puritans would have been intimately familiar, and indeed seems to form the basis of many of their marriage traditions. The “one flesh” idea is referenced in “A Letter to Her Husband,” in which Bradstreet says, “If two be one, as surely thou and I, / How stayest thou here, wilst I at Ipswich lie?” (“A Letter”). In this line Bradstreet is clearly referencing the idea that she and her husband are “one flesh,” because she poses the question: if we are one person, how could we be split apart?
Bradstreet returns to the same Biblical concept in the next few lines, when she writes, “So many steps, head from the heart to sever, / If but a neck, soon should we be together” (“A Letter”). These lines evoke physical violence, and also possibly corporal punishment in their connection of “neck” with “sever” (Woodlief). They also form another reference to the Scriptural idea of physical unification, which shows up throughout the poem, even into the lines: “Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, / I here, thou there, but both but one” (“A Letter”). “A Letter to Her Husband” makes repeated reference to unity of flesh, and it is hardly Bradstreet’s only poem to do so.
“To My Dear and Loving Husband,” another Bradstreet poem about marriage, makes even more explicit reference to the idea of “one flesh” than does “A Letter.” The opening line to “Loving Husband” is practically a direct reaction to scripture: “If ever two were one, then surely we” (“Loving Husband”). At a surface level, the line is obviously meant to express their devotion to one another, but it also both reinforces and questions the commonly accepted notion of physical unity. The phrasing “If ever two were one” seems to imply the possibility that some married couples might not be unified, though the second half of the line reaffirms that Bradstreet feels it is true for her (“Loving Husband”).
Bradstreet also dances with the idea that, though husband and wife must be as a single person, that single person must be completely devoted to God. Therefore, her devotion to God should be greater even than her devotion to her “other half.” Martin says that Bradstreet “struggled with the conflict between her love for her husband and children and her devotion to God,” a conflict somewhat mitigated in “Loving Husband” by the fact that she uses socially acceptable Biblical phrasing to describe her longing for her husband (Martin 69). However, this is just one of many contrasts with which she struggles in her poetry.
Through her works, Bradstreet earnestly processes her own difficulties in honoring God while still maintaining a socially acceptable marriage. Robert Richardson calls the “Puritan way of life,” to which Bradstreet subscribed, “at worst, a series of impossible conflicts, and at best a difficult balance” (Robertson 108). This subtle tension can be recognized in her poetry, including “A Letter to Her Husband.” One force acting on Bradstreet is her sexual desire for her husband, as evidenced in the following lines: “In this dead time, alas, what can I more / Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore?” (“A Letter”). The source of her passion is evident throughout the poem, and she compares her husband to the sun and to the season of summer.
However, there is conflict centered around her desire for her husband, and this conflict is caused by the factors limiting their involvement with one another; in this case, distance and their devotion to God. “Anne Bradstreet’s love for Simon was in harmony with God’s plan...But she must love him ‘in Christ’ and not selfishly or carnally; to allow her emotional or physical desire for Simon to eclipse her greater commitment to God would be idolatry” (Martin 68). The Puritan traditions of the day therefore held that one could not be sexually active outside of marriage, and also that one should not be too sexually active even within marriage, lest it distract you from God. These imposed rules, however, did not prevent Bradstreet from longing for her husband, as the poem clearly shows.
Bradstreet struggles with the same conflict in “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” in which she claims that she cannot love her husband sufficiently and that God must make up the difference. “Thy love is such I can no way repay, / The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray” (“Loving Husband”). Again, this expresses that she feels her marriage is incomplete without God. Bradstreet sends the very clear message that, though she feels a great longing for her husband as a person and enjoys her relationship with him, she knows that they must remain subservient to God and therefore she cannot let her passion overwhelm her. This conflict is remarkably Puritan, and provides another layer of tension to her marriage that might not otherwise be evident.
Another dichotomy present in the same poem is the idea of this world versus the world to come. Puritans embraced the Biblical notion of finding fulfillment in the promise of future good in Heaven rather than finding fulfillment in hollow Earthly pleasures, and in her text Bradstreet is cognizant of that. She writes, “Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere / That when we live no more, we may live ever” (“Loving Husband”). Again, Bradstreet is forced to balance two seemingly opposing concepts in order to accommodate her religion: first, her belief that her love with her husband is good and pleasurable at the same time. Second, her belief that she should focus on finding value and fulfillment in Heaven rather than on Earth. She reconciles these two seemingly opposed concepts by ending her poem on a note of hope and trust in God, indicating that she will enjoy what worldly pleasures she is allowed and give all the credit to the Lord.
Anne Bradstreet also challenged, in an honest and forthright way, many of the Puritan values that constituted the rules for her marriage. As Richardson says, “Anne Bradstreet also wrestled with the problem, at times rebelling, at times submitting. That she had severe doubts about her faith does not make her any less a Puritan. In fact...a firm and doubt-free conviction of salvation was a probable sign of damnation” (Richardson 108). Bradstreet’s struggle for belief was less a sign of her rejection of Puritan faith and more an illustration of her exploration of God and his claims, though there are several subtle questions and jabs at Puritan beliefs in her poems.
“A Letter to Her Husband” makes an interesting comment about God simply by not commenting about Him. Bradstreet starts the poem off by saying, “My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay, more, / My joy, my magazine of earthly store,” and there is an abundance of meaning in those lines (“A Letter”). First of all, in a Puritan belief structure the only thing of more value than her life was her soul, so the idea that she would pledge something worth more value than her life to anyone other than Jesus was unorthodox. Second, she offers her husband her full measure of earthly possessions, though the Puritans were expected to place little or no value on material things. This could suggest that her husband was only supposed to possess her physical items while God was the arbiter of her spirit, though it could also suggest that she would give everything she owned to her husband instead of giving it to God. Either way, in her point by point recollection of what she would give up for her devotion, she does not mention God.
Just as interesting as God’s absence is Bradstreet’s implicit lack of trust in his teachings. This is more of a tenuous connection, likely not even intended by Bradstreet herself. However, lines such as “If two be one, as surely thou and I” suggest doubt in the Bible as God’s infallible word (“A Letter”). Simply by beginning the sentence with “if,” Bradstreet implicitly suggests the possibility that it might not be true, which subtly casts doubt on the words of the Bible. Later in the poem, Bradstreet gives the agency of death to nature rather than to God by saying, “Till nature’s sad decree shall call thee hence” (“A Letter”). In traditional Christianity, God is the one that calls someone from this life, not nature. To suggest that God does not oversee a person’s transition into Heaven is to question the Heavenly admission process itself, which a person in Bradstreet’s community could hardly do openly.
“To My Dear and Loving Husband” begins with an illustration of uncertainty not typical for Puritan religious rhetoric. The lines “If ever two were one, then surely we. / If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; / If ever wife was happy in a man, / Compare with me” seem to challenge Biblical and Puritanical notions of marriage and male-female relations (“Loving Husband”). Just as in “A Letter to Her Husband,” Bradstreet’s tendency to begin lines with “if” raises implications of doubt in the reader. It sounds as if she is questioning the Biblical picture of a man and a woman becoming unified in flesh and blood, and then living a happy and productive life together. She suggests that other Christian couples may not be as happy as they are, which (while undoubtedly true) would probably have not gone over well with other members of the church. She also, again, does not directly mention God.
However, she does beg the heavens to give her husband the reward he deserves, since her love is not quite adequate: “The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray” (“Loving Husband”). This idea is consistent with traditional Puritan ideals, as it seems to suggest that the wife is incapable of loving the husband as he deserves, so God must take over. The wife is implicitly subject to the husband, who is then subject to God. In this work she also brings up the Puritan notion of living life for the sake of eternity rather than for the fleeting pleasures of this world, particularly in the last lines: “Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere / That when we live no more, we may live ever” (“Loving Husband”). This is another concept that lines up with Puritan orthodoxy, in that the husband and wife are loving each other with an eye on eternity rather than on Earth.
Puritanical hierarchy established males as the head of the household, as consistent with Ephesians: “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” (King James Bible, Eph. 5.23-24). Many pastors preach on this verse even today, and they usually forget the next verse: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it,” meaning that husbands should do for their wives as Jesus did for humanity and sacrifice their own lives in servitude and humility (King James Bible, Eph. 5.25). However the verses are read, though, the point remains that Puritanical marriage had a patriarchal structure, and Bradstreet reacted to that social reality of her time.
“A Letter to Her Husband” focuses on Bradstreet’s sorrow while her husband is gone and her longing to have him back, but the terminology used suggests equivalence rather than subservience. Bradstreet says of him “Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, / I here, thou there, but both but one,” hearkening back to the Puritan “one flesh” concept and conveniently putting the two of them on the same level. “In addition,” Wendy Martin says of Bradstreet, “there is no indication that she considers her social or domestic role subordinate to his” (Martin 68). Bradstreet uses common religious terminology, such as the “flesh of my flesh” comment, to imply gender equality rather than hierarchy.
In Anne Bradstreet, we find an intelligent and startlingly honest response to the stresses created in the interactions between life’s demands and society’s strictures. In “A Letter to Her Husband” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” Bradstreet uses religious tones and terminology to paint a picture of her own longing for a man she loved, even though she was--according to her community--not supposed to love him too much. This tension shaped her, shaped her writing, and shaped the lives of many married Puritans of the era.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Study Guide - Context Documents
So over the next couple of weeks I will be developing a study guide towards teaching undergraduate college students the material presented in my final paper. Tonight, I've found some documents that provide a little context for that material. And heeeeeeeeere they are:
Campbell, Helen Stuart. “Anne Bradstreet and Her Time.” New York: Public Domain Books. 1890. eBook (Kindle Edition).
This provides great context for Anne Bradstreet as a woman and as a writer. I suspect I’m going to use Anne Bradstreet’s poems to support my primary document, so this will be a perfect source to provide background. I’m not sure how much of it I would assign, but the entire book isn’t very long.
McGill, Kathy. “The Most Industrious Sex: John Lawson’s Carolina Women Domesticate the Land.” North Carolina Historical Review. 88.3 (2011): 280-297. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu>.
This is a particularly relevant article regarding ecofeminism, though that’s not primarily what I would use it for. I would like to use it to give my readers an idea of how British people thought of American women, in order to place my primary document (British in origin) in relation to the American colonists. This will help my students understand the transition of mentality from Britain to America.
The Holy Bible: King James Version. Iowa Falls, IA: World Bible Publishers, 2001.
Specifically, I’d use Proverbs Chapter 31. This chapter relates to marriage directly, because it is all about how the ideal wife would behave. Christians in the seventeenth century would have used this chapter for reference all the time in determining how wives should act, so it’s a great indicator of what men looked for in their spouse.
This is an illustration, from scottish-wedding-dreams.com, of a 1672 wedding dress of the style currently popular in England and Scotland. Apparently the bindings and bows represent a particular dressmaking technique that would have been characteristic of the era. This picture will give my students something to think of when they picture a seventeenth century wedding.
Campbell, Helen Stuart. “Anne Bradstreet and Her Time.” New York: Public Domain Books. 1890. eBook (Kindle Edition).
This provides great context for Anne Bradstreet as a woman and as a writer. I suspect I’m going to use Anne Bradstreet’s poems to support my primary document, so this will be a perfect source to provide background. I’m not sure how much of it I would assign, but the entire book isn’t very long.
McGill, Kathy. “The Most Industrious Sex: John Lawson’s Carolina Women Domesticate the Land.” North Carolina Historical Review. 88.3 (2011): 280-297. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu>.
This is a particularly relevant article regarding ecofeminism, though that’s not primarily what I would use it for. I would like to use it to give my readers an idea of how British people thought of American women, in order to place my primary document (British in origin) in relation to the American colonists. This will help my students understand the transition of mentality from Britain to America.
The Holy Bible: King James Version. Iowa Falls, IA: World Bible Publishers, 2001.
Specifically, I’d use Proverbs Chapter 31. This chapter relates to marriage directly, because it is all about how the ideal wife would behave. Christians in the seventeenth century would have used this chapter for reference all the time in determining how wives should act, so it’s a great indicator of what men looked for in their spouse.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
McGill and Lawson - Abstract Scholarly Article
Here, have an abstract:
McGill, Kathy. " "The Most Industrious Sex": John Lawson's Carolina Women Domesticate the Land." North Carolina Historical Review. 88.3 (2011): 280-297. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu>.
By using John Lawson’s “A New Voyage to Carolina,” Kathy McGill investigates the original stereotype of colonial women as “the Most Industrious Sex,” specifically focusing on how that colonial trope affected the role of women in marriage and in social circles. McGill proceeds through the major points of Lawson’s text, summarizing the original argument and applying it to the larger context of the era and to the progression of women’s rights. The basis of the text is Lawson’s account of American women as hard-working and American men as comparatively lazy, which was a startling reversal of the gender qualities as accepted in Britain. According to McGill, Lawson argued that, “southern men...were lazy, and that women, by contrast, were industrious” (280). Lawson then spends the rest of the article, as explained by McGill, illustrating to his British audience how the American way of allowing their women to participate in work did not threaten the natural order of patriarchy. McGill shows the reader how America was originally considered feminine by the British, and how Lawson used Native American women’s roles, Biblical allusion, and evidence of productivity to show that a hard-working American woman might actually be a good model for European women.
McGill shows how women were perceived at the time, particularly American women, and gives an account of their usual duties (as reported by Lawson). As an example of the kind of work in which women were allowed to participate, McGill cites the following example: “If men grew tired of the toil of planting, [John Smith] explained, they could recreate themselves by taking boats (of their own manufacture) and, along with their women and children, go fishing. This was essentially his only mention of women...” (285). So American women were allowed to work, McGill implies, but not ‘real’ work; only work so light that the men considered it recreation. McGill uses Lawson’s text as evidence, but also other first-person accounts of the era, such as the works of John Smith. She shows how European-American women were portrayed as similar to Native American women, and how this was shown as desirable. However, she spends most of her work cataloguing what women were allowed to do in order to highlight that in which they were not allowed to participate. She shows the reader the origin of the “most industrious sex” trope and how it is somewhat inaccurate and demeaning, but she underplays the value of what women actually achieved. McGill de-emphasizes the fact that, in Lawson’s writing, women really were given credit for doing work, which was at least a meager sign of progress in the eighteenth century.
McGill’s article shows the next step after the state of affairs shown in my document, “A Question Deeply Concerning Married Persons.” While in “A Question” women are effectively considered the property of their husbands, and Biblical justification is given for preventing women from thinking for themselves, in Lawson’s book women have some degree of autonomy. This work caused me to realize how the British women described in “A Question” were different from the American colonial women shaped by the same culture; namely, that American women were, by necessity, allowed and expected to work beside the men in the business of settling the frontier. One of the most interesting points that McGill brings up is her exploration of which jobs were permitted for females and why. She shows how traditional gender roles, like those described in “A Question,” evolved into the then-modern American female. For instance, she shows (based on Lawson) how women can work and still be passive and submissive by giving the example of Native American women, who served as liaisons to outside parties by sleeping with foreign men (289-290).
McGill’s argument in this text is somewhat nebulous; it feels as if she is making several points rather than just one, though she does stick to the content and context of the Lawson text. However, it was useful in providing me some more angles on how to approach the issue of colonial marriage in the light of Christianity. I would recommend the article in part, as some of its content is interesting, but as a whole I feel it lacks the cohesive structure necessary to make a unified point.
McGill, Kathy. " "The Most Industrious Sex": John Lawson's Carolina Women Domesticate the Land." North Carolina Historical Review. 88.3 (2011): 280-297. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu>.
By using John Lawson’s “A New Voyage to Carolina,” Kathy McGill investigates the original stereotype of colonial women as “the Most Industrious Sex,” specifically focusing on how that colonial trope affected the role of women in marriage and in social circles. McGill proceeds through the major points of Lawson’s text, summarizing the original argument and applying it to the larger context of the era and to the progression of women’s rights. The basis of the text is Lawson’s account of American women as hard-working and American men as comparatively lazy, which was a startling reversal of the gender qualities as accepted in Britain. According to McGill, Lawson argued that, “southern men...were lazy, and that women, by contrast, were industrious” (280). Lawson then spends the rest of the article, as explained by McGill, illustrating to his British audience how the American way of allowing their women to participate in work did not threaten the natural order of patriarchy. McGill shows the reader how America was originally considered feminine by the British, and how Lawson used Native American women’s roles, Biblical allusion, and evidence of productivity to show that a hard-working American woman might actually be a good model for European women.
McGill shows how women were perceived at the time, particularly American women, and gives an account of their usual duties (as reported by Lawson). As an example of the kind of work in which women were allowed to participate, McGill cites the following example: “If men grew tired of the toil of planting, [John Smith] explained, they could recreate themselves by taking boats (of their own manufacture) and, along with their women and children, go fishing. This was essentially his only mention of women...” (285). So American women were allowed to work, McGill implies, but not ‘real’ work; only work so light that the men considered it recreation. McGill uses Lawson’s text as evidence, but also other first-person accounts of the era, such as the works of John Smith. She shows how European-American women were portrayed as similar to Native American women, and how this was shown as desirable. However, she spends most of her work cataloguing what women were allowed to do in order to highlight that in which they were not allowed to participate. She shows the reader the origin of the “most industrious sex” trope and how it is somewhat inaccurate and demeaning, but she underplays the value of what women actually achieved. McGill de-emphasizes the fact that, in Lawson’s writing, women really were given credit for doing work, which was at least a meager sign of progress in the eighteenth century.
McGill’s article shows the next step after the state of affairs shown in my document, “A Question Deeply Concerning Married Persons.” While in “A Question” women are effectively considered the property of their husbands, and Biblical justification is given for preventing women from thinking for themselves, in Lawson’s book women have some degree of autonomy. This work caused me to realize how the British women described in “A Question” were different from the American colonial women shaped by the same culture; namely, that American women were, by necessity, allowed and expected to work beside the men in the business of settling the frontier. One of the most interesting points that McGill brings up is her exploration of which jobs were permitted for females and why. She shows how traditional gender roles, like those described in “A Question,” evolved into the then-modern American female. For instance, she shows (based on Lawson) how women can work and still be passive and submissive by giving the example of Native American women, who served as liaisons to outside parties by sleeping with foreign men (289-290).
McGill’s argument in this text is somewhat nebulous; it feels as if she is making several points rather than just one, though she does stick to the content and context of the Lawson text. However, it was useful in providing me some more angles on how to approach the issue of colonial marriage in the light of Christianity. I would recommend the article in part, as some of its content is interesting, but as a whole I feel it lacks the cohesive structure necessary to make a unified point.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Preliminary Bibliography
Based on my primary document, I was trying to focus on the topic of marriage in colonial America, specifically how it was defined by religion and how that definition affected women. Unfortunately, over the course of my research I have found that it's a broader topic than I'd thought.
I would welcome suggestions on how to narrow it down, even if I have to pick a different primary artifact.
Here are the secondary sources I'm currently considering using:
I would welcome suggestions on how to narrow it down, even if I have to pick a different primary artifact.
Here are the secondary sources I'm currently considering using:
A.L. To all the honest, wise, and grave-citizens of London, but more especially to all those that challenge an interest in the Common-Hall. London: Nathaniel Belknap, 1648. Web. <EEBO>.
Dudley, Joseph. A proclamation by the president and Council for the orderly solemnization of marriage. Boston, MA: Richard Pierce, 1686. Web. <Evans Digital Database>.
Grimke, Angelina. Walking by Faith: The Diary of Angelina Grimke, 1828-1835. Edited by Charles Wilbanks. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003. Print.
Hartog, Hendrik. Man and Wife in America: A History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. eBook.
Hawes, Joseph M., and Elizabeth Nybakken, eds. American Families: A Research Guide and Historical Handbook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991. Print.
Mather, Cotton. The mystical marriage. A brief essay, on, the grace of the Redeemer espousing the soul of the believer. Boston: Printed for N. Belknap, and sold at his shop near Scarlet's Wharf, 1728. Web. <Evans Digital Database>.
Mather, Increase. Practical truths, plainly delivered. Boston, MA: Bartholomew Green, 1717. Web. <Evans Digital Database>.
Payne, Karen. Between Ourselves: Letters Between Mothers and Daughters, 1750-1982. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983. Print.
Reinsch, Paul Samuel. English common law in the American colonies. 2004 ed. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 1889. eBook.
Rothman, Ellen K. Hands and Hearts: A History of Courtship in America. New York: Basic Books, 1984. Print.
Secker, William. A wedding ring fit for the finger; or The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity. With directions to those men that want wives, how to choose them; and to those women who have husbands, how to use them. Boston: S.G. for B. Harris at the London Coffee House, 1690. Web. <EEBO>.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Initial Launch
I'm not sure what exactly I'm supposed to be posting here. Whee! It's an adventure!
I suspect that this blog will chronicle my research into European Christianity in the 1600s, and specifically how that impacted the background culture and mindset of the early American colonists. I know for a fact that it will begin with the text entitled "A Question Deeply Concerning Married Persons, and Such as Intend to Marry: Propounded and Resolved According to the Scriptures."
I'll look particularly at how women are treated in that text, and how they are denied rights and agency in the name of religion and with the supposed backing of God.
Here's my initial response to the document:
Question 1: When, where, and by whom was your artifact first printed?
Answer 1: Printed in 1653, in London. "Printed for Tho. Underhill, at the Anchor and Bible in Paul's Church-yard."
Speculation 1: Thomas Underhill ("Tho." was an abbreviation for "Thomas" used in the Seventeenth Century) was presumably rich, and probably very close to the church. He had several religious texts printed in his name, including "A Century of Selected Hymns," "The True Doctrine of Justification, Parts I and II," and this work. The fact that it mentions a specific church, and even a specific area of that church's property, suggests to me that it was intended for a small circulation. A footnote on the last page states that the author is eighty-three years old at the time of writing, meaning that he may have dictated it to a scribe. This author signs his name only "A.L.," and other works printed for Underhill bear similar initials.
One exception is "True Doctrine," which was written by Anthony Burgess. He was a pastor, so possibly his name was included because he was relatively well-known and influential.
Though the work is British, I feel that it represents the attitudes of white male Christian Europeans in the early-mid 1600s, and therefore it provides insight into the way the early British settlers in North America thought.
Question 2: Did your artifact appear in print at any time in the 18th or 19th centuries?
Answer 2: No, this was apparently the only printing. And it seems that there is only one copy still in existence, because every scholarly work I found that cited this book as a source was drawing on the same original, or else an online copy of that work.
Speculation 2: This lends credibility to my thoughts about a limited, small-scale distribution. If not for the letter from the author on the inside cover, I might assume that this work was only ever meant for Thomas Underhill's eyes. That letter is general rather than personal in tone, though that might owe more to the style of the era rather than to a plan of distribution.
Question 3: What was the actual size of your artifact in inches or centimeters? What information can you find about its physical presence, binding, etc.? Do you think it was expensive or inexpensive? Is it a folio, quarto, or octavo? Can you see a price?
Answer 3: I could not find out the exact size of the book, unfortunately. I have sent an e-mail to the British Library, asking for a physical description to help me in my scholarly pursuits, but I'm not too hopeful regarding a response. I also have very few details regarding its binding, though I expect that if it was indeed a private printing it was very expensive.
Speculation 3: I hope to find or receive further physical descriptions of the book, though based on the relative size of the signature inside the book it seems to be an ordinary size. It was clearly printed on a movable type printing press, as expected from the technology of the time, since some of the letters are not quite parallel to the rest of the line, indicating they may have slightly slipped during the printing process.
Question 4: View the original title page using the digital database or microfilm. What is included there?
Answer 4:
Speculation 4: The fact that the title includes both "Propounded" and "Resolved" indicates a great degree of surety on the part of the author. Not only is he proposing a position, but he is proving that it is right based on God's Word; this suggests that he believed himself to be unimpeachably in the right. Also, Jeremiah 20:9 takes the place on the title page where the author's name would usually appear. It is notable that this verse in Jeremiah refers to those who, like the author of this work, speak the word of God: "Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name; but his Word was as a burning fire..." There is also a stylized anchor seal on the title page, presumably indicating the printer.
Question 5: If there is more than one edition, compare the title pages.
Answer 5: There is only one edition.
Question 6: What miscellaneous front matter exists? Describe it.
Answer 6: There is a delicate border drawn around the title page, and a different border along the top of the author's foreword. The title page's design is reminiscent of a crown; the design repeating over the author's letter evokes an evergreen tree on top of an eye or mound. The first letter of each section is framed and illustrated. One letter is surrounded by the tangling roots and branches of trees; another is framed by two dragons or winged horses. The book opens with a letter from the author, signed only "A.L." and addressed "The Author to the Christian Reader."
Speculation 6: The inclusion of a Bible verse on the title page, the fact that the author is writing his foreword to "the Christian reader," and the title of the work all indicate the extreme religious nature of this text. The decoration around the title page and introductory letter is exquisitely detailed and delicately crafted, suggesting again that it must have been expensive. And trees, crowns, and dragons always have religious significance.
Question 7: How long is your text? How is it subdivided (chapters? Volumes?) Is the print large and easy to read or dense, with many words on each page and lines close together?
Answer 7: Seven pages, which seem to be all that survived of a longer text. The print is small and dense, though not so small as to impede reading. It is subdivided into sections, which are headed by the question that section proposes to answer. For instance, the first section of the major text has a heading, in italics, which reads, "Whether any Woman (Widow or Maid) intending to Marry, may before her Marriage reserve any of her Goods in her own power, to be disposed by her after she shall be Married without her Husband's direction or consent?" This heading is followed up with a subheading, no longer in italics, answering the question in brief "The resolution is Negative for the Reasons following."
Speculation 7: This text does not seem to be concerned with challenging any official doctrine; on the contrary, the subject matter seems intended to preserve the traditional gender hierarchy. The text is divided for clarity and efficiency, with a sort of abstract presentation at the beginning, followed by support for the author's inevitably orthodox conclusion. Based on the wording of such headings, it seems that the author is addressing questions that existed in his own time. He is attempting to put out fires, so to speak, by answering "dangerous" questions in as quick and clear a manner as possible, and then by supporting his answer with Scripture.
Question 8: What back matter exists (following the end of a text, usually signified by the word “finis”)?
Answer 8: The seventh and final page concludes the author's answer to his first hypothetical question, but it apparently does not conclude the book. There is no back matter visible, though the text does end on several explanatory footnotes. As an aside, one of these footnotes contains an extremely racist reference to Indian women, and to how they do the Devil's work by seducing innocent white men into adultery. There are also lists of Bible verses lining each page, each corresponding to a use in the text.
Speculation 8: The footnotes provide interesting extraneous information that the author apparently felt did not belong with his major arguments. I wish I did have the closing information of the book, but the footnotes provide much greater context into the author's situation and point-of-view than I would have otherwise had. For instance, one footnote tells me that the author was eighty-three years old, and another tells me that he was a racist.
Question 9: Are there other texts like yours, and how can you tell?
Answer 9: Yes there are, and I can tell because I did further research on EEBO looking for more books dedicated to "Tho. Underhill." I have listed two other such works in the pages above.
Speculation 9: The fact that Thomas Underhill had multiple religious texts printed suggests that he had both a lot of money and a great desire to appear pious. The books were written by different authors, and appear to concern very different subjects, but they are all orthodox Christian texts that support the common religious and social viewpoints of the Seventeenth Century.
Question 10: What is the relationship between your artifact and structures of power in early American culture (and how can you tell)?
Answer 10: There is no direct relationship, as this book apparently had a limited printing and it was printed in England. However, it provides a very clear look into the mindset and background of those European settlers who colonized North America, and therefore a look into the minds of the earliest Americans.
Speculation 10: Though American settlers and writers probably did not have access to a copy of this particular book, they had certainly been exposed all their lives to works of similar composition and nature. This work helps modern readers to understand the religious culture out of which the early American society sprang.
I suspect that this blog will chronicle my research into European Christianity in the 1600s, and specifically how that impacted the background culture and mindset of the early American colonists. I know for a fact that it will begin with the text entitled "A Question Deeply Concerning Married Persons, and Such as Intend to Marry: Propounded and Resolved According to the Scriptures."
I'll look particularly at how women are treated in that text, and how they are denied rights and agency in the name of religion and with the supposed backing of God.
Here's my initial response to the document:
Question 1: When, where, and by whom was your artifact first printed?
Answer 1: Printed in 1653, in London. "Printed for Tho. Underhill, at the Anchor and Bible in Paul's Church-yard."
Speculation 1: Thomas Underhill ("Tho." was an abbreviation for "Thomas" used in the Seventeenth Century) was presumably rich, and probably very close to the church. He had several religious texts printed in his name, including "A Century of Selected Hymns," "The True Doctrine of Justification, Parts I and II," and this work. The fact that it mentions a specific church, and even a specific area of that church's property, suggests to me that it was intended for a small circulation. A footnote on the last page states that the author is eighty-three years old at the time of writing, meaning that he may have dictated it to a scribe. This author signs his name only "A.L.," and other works printed for Underhill bear similar initials.
One exception is "True Doctrine," which was written by Anthony Burgess. He was a pastor, so possibly his name was included because he was relatively well-known and influential.
Though the work is British, I feel that it represents the attitudes of white male Christian Europeans in the early-mid 1600s, and therefore it provides insight into the way the early British settlers in North America thought.
Question 2: Did your artifact appear in print at any time in the 18th or 19th centuries?
Answer 2: No, this was apparently the only printing. And it seems that there is only one copy still in existence, because every scholarly work I found that cited this book as a source was drawing on the same original, or else an online copy of that work.
Speculation 2: This lends credibility to my thoughts about a limited, small-scale distribution. If not for the letter from the author on the inside cover, I might assume that this work was only ever meant for Thomas Underhill's eyes. That letter is general rather than personal in tone, though that might owe more to the style of the era rather than to a plan of distribution.
Question 3: What was the actual size of your artifact in inches or centimeters? What information can you find about its physical presence, binding, etc.? Do you think it was expensive or inexpensive? Is it a folio, quarto, or octavo? Can you see a price?
Answer 3: I could not find out the exact size of the book, unfortunately. I have sent an e-mail to the British Library, asking for a physical description to help me in my scholarly pursuits, but I'm not too hopeful regarding a response. I also have very few details regarding its binding, though I expect that if it was indeed a private printing it was very expensive.
Speculation 3: I hope to find or receive further physical descriptions of the book, though based on the relative size of the signature inside the book it seems to be an ordinary size. It was clearly printed on a movable type printing press, as expected from the technology of the time, since some of the letters are not quite parallel to the rest of the line, indicating they may have slightly slipped during the printing process.
Question 4: View the original title page using the digital database or microfilm. What is included there?
Answer 4:
Question 5: If there is more than one edition, compare the title pages.
Answer 5: There is only one edition.
Question 6: What miscellaneous front matter exists? Describe it.
Answer 6: There is a delicate border drawn around the title page, and a different border along the top of the author's foreword. The title page's design is reminiscent of a crown; the design repeating over the author's letter evokes an evergreen tree on top of an eye or mound. The first letter of each section is framed and illustrated. One letter is surrounded by the tangling roots and branches of trees; another is framed by two dragons or winged horses. The book opens with a letter from the author, signed only "A.L." and addressed "The Author to the Christian Reader."
Speculation 6: The inclusion of a Bible verse on the title page, the fact that the author is writing his foreword to "the Christian reader," and the title of the work all indicate the extreme religious nature of this text. The decoration around the title page and introductory letter is exquisitely detailed and delicately crafted, suggesting again that it must have been expensive. And trees, crowns, and dragons always have religious significance.
Question 7: How long is your text? How is it subdivided (chapters? Volumes?) Is the print large and easy to read or dense, with many words on each page and lines close together?
Answer 7: Seven pages, which seem to be all that survived of a longer text. The print is small and dense, though not so small as to impede reading. It is subdivided into sections, which are headed by the question that section proposes to answer. For instance, the first section of the major text has a heading, in italics, which reads, "Whether any Woman (Widow or Maid) intending to Marry, may before her Marriage reserve any of her Goods in her own power, to be disposed by her after she shall be Married without her Husband's direction or consent?" This heading is followed up with a subheading, no longer in italics, answering the question in brief "The resolution is Negative for the Reasons following."
Speculation 7: This text does not seem to be concerned with challenging any official doctrine; on the contrary, the subject matter seems intended to preserve the traditional gender hierarchy. The text is divided for clarity and efficiency, with a sort of abstract presentation at the beginning, followed by support for the author's inevitably orthodox conclusion. Based on the wording of such headings, it seems that the author is addressing questions that existed in his own time. He is attempting to put out fires, so to speak, by answering "dangerous" questions in as quick and clear a manner as possible, and then by supporting his answer with Scripture.
Question 8: What back matter exists (following the end of a text, usually signified by the word “finis”)?
Answer 8: The seventh and final page concludes the author's answer to his first hypothetical question, but it apparently does not conclude the book. There is no back matter visible, though the text does end on several explanatory footnotes. As an aside, one of these footnotes contains an extremely racist reference to Indian women, and to how they do the Devil's work by seducing innocent white men into adultery. There are also lists of Bible verses lining each page, each corresponding to a use in the text.
Speculation 8: The footnotes provide interesting extraneous information that the author apparently felt did not belong with his major arguments. I wish I did have the closing information of the book, but the footnotes provide much greater context into the author's situation and point-of-view than I would have otherwise had. For instance, one footnote tells me that the author was eighty-three years old, and another tells me that he was a racist.
Question 9: Are there other texts like yours, and how can you tell?
Answer 9: Yes there are, and I can tell because I did further research on EEBO looking for more books dedicated to "Tho. Underhill." I have listed two other such works in the pages above.
Speculation 9: The fact that Thomas Underhill had multiple religious texts printed suggests that he had both a lot of money and a great desire to appear pious. The books were written by different authors, and appear to concern very different subjects, but they are all orthodox Christian texts that support the common religious and social viewpoints of the Seventeenth Century.
Question 10: What is the relationship between your artifact and structures of power in early American culture (and how can you tell)?
Answer 10: There is no direct relationship, as this book apparently had a limited printing and it was printed in England. However, it provides a very clear look into the mindset and background of those European settlers who colonized North America, and therefore a look into the minds of the earliest Americans.
Speculation 10: Though American settlers and writers probably did not have access to a copy of this particular book, they had certainly been exposed all their lives to works of similar composition and nature. This work helps modern readers to understand the religious culture out of which the early American society sprang.
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