Talk:Anne Bradstreet

Where does this information come from?
It all looks like it was cut and pasted from someplace else. KarenAnn 19:46, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That's what I thought too, but I can't find any close matches. At any rate, I think that the long "Author to Her Book" analysis (added by User:139.142.196.171 on June 12, 2006) detracts from the article. It violates WP:NOR; the article has attracted multiple warning templates since it was added. It may also violate WP:NOT a personal essay, and it makes a personal reference ("I think"). It's also slightly off-topic; the article should be about the author's life and her works collectively, not a single poem. Part of it seems to have been added to this talk page previously, but I have now cut-and-paste the entire analysis to this page. If someone else thinks it's worth keeping, I recommend starting a new page dedicated to the poem in order to avoid unbalancing the article on the woman who not only that but many other fine works. Maestlin 20:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

"Author to Her Book" analysis:

pelf?
what does pelf mean and what is its connotation and all of that?

do u think its significant? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.134.156.235 (talk • contribs).

Hey guys, this is my first post on a talk page, so let me know if I do it wrong. "Pelf" means her worldly goods and wealth; basically, what was destroyed in the fire. Benjamin.s.quigley (talk) 08:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)benjamin.s.quigley

oh yeah...
and that was me who asked about the pelf thing.... alejandro munoz —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.134.156.235 (talk • contribs).

The article needs structure
This article seems to be written by two different individuals, and it needs a uniform tone. Its information is accurate and correct, and biographically it is acceptable. However, the article goes into considerable discussion about Bradstreet's personal reasons for writing, which seems more speculation than fact.

Quote
I think someone should change the quote, because although it works well out of context, in the actual poem those lines are really just a preliminary reaction to the fire, and don't represent her real acceptance of faith later in the poem. Also, pelf means possessions with a connotation of being obtained in a shady way. 76.98.19.175 (talk) 15:51, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of first person
I deleted a section of text describing the context in which she wrote because it was of little value and written in the first person plural. Ryangwebb 21:49 (CST) 19 August 2008

Highly subjective assertion
The following passage seems highly out of place in a Wiki article:

"But her will remained strong, and perhaps, as a reflection of her religious devotion and her knowledge of Biblical scriptures, she found peace in the firm belief that her daughter was in heaven."

She was a deeply religious woman, but this comment is unsourced and only indicates that "perhaps" she found this sort of comfort. Could we back this up with a quotation from one of her poems or find some other way to make a positive statement out of a flimsy hypothesis? 131.171.50.15 (talk) 13:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Much that is known of Bradstreet's life is missing here...
...and this is clearly an editing/deletion error: "she married Simone social standing."

I don't have time to type it all in now, but her life in England is better-known than this article conveys, as well as the places she lived in (one of which, Cambridge, MA is marked with a public history marker in Harvard Square; there is also a gate at HU dedicated to her with a marker, both of which could be photographed and shown.)

The house that burned down was at least the third site they lived in, in the colonies; the first two, Cambridge and Salem, have references as well to her father (a garden near Weidner Library is dedicated to him; his homesite, not far from hers, is marked near what is now the University Lutheran Church site) and the original gravesite (later purchased and cleared by the Ingersolls) in Salem's Charter Point Burying Ground is marked with a bronze marker (and I suspect that their homesite there is known and objects that belonged to them may be in the possession of the Peabody-Essex Museum or the North Andover Historical Society, if a bit of sleuthing were to be done.) 24.34.104.12 (talk) 17:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Further--looking at the article again, I don't think it's at all accurate to say her work was influential within the Puritans of the early colonial period. Based on what? There are studies on this that could be cited more carefully.24.34.104.12 (talk) 17:24, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

why is this included?
The following text seems out of place/more a plug for someone's book about Thomas Morton than genuine information regarding Bradstreet. Delete?

Anne Bradstreet is not America's First English Poet---that honor belongs to Thomas Morton of Merrymount (author of 'New English Canaan'), who at his May Day Revels on Mass. Bay in 1627 created a "Poem" and "Song" for the occasion and wrote other verses about America between 1627 and 1637 publication. Anne Bradstreet did not reach America until 1630, and multiple teams of her "Collected Works" editors over the decades have rightly found that there is virtually no trace of "America" (or Andover, for that matter) in her writings. Morton, on the other hand, packed his poetry with specific American people, situations, stories and references. His poetry is collected (along with his observations of Native life, his amazing catalog of American wealth and beauty, and his outrageous multicultural stories and satires on Pilgrims and Puritans) in Jack Dempsey, editor, "New English Canaan by Thomas Morton of 'Merrymount,' Text & Notes" (Scituate MA: Digital Scanning 2000). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.124.93.94 (talk) 20:14, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it's generally agreed that she was America's first published poet. Not just the first, period.Squidwiggle (talk) 20:01, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Spelling of Bradstreet's first name
I was led to believe her name was spelt 'Ann'. We did some of her poetry in school and on all the textbooks her name was spelt Ann rather than Anne. Could someone check that the spelling of this name on wikipedia is correct. Thanks Mspence835 (talk) 10:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The references at the bottom of the article use the Anne spelling. &mdash; Jim Irwin (talk) 11:44, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Descendants
Should we include that most of her descendants became a writer (from her side) or a politician (from her father's side)? It's interesting to see that they where all writers, or a politician. One of them even became a president. 99.2.137.111 (talk) 21:44, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

writing
This article is terribly written. I tried to improve it a little by rewriting a few paragraphs to make them more concise and flowing, but it still needs massive work. I also deleted all of the poems that are outright because they are too specific for an article about Bradstreet. This article needs massive work to make it clear and get rid of all the speculation. There should also be a better intro.--Wikigold96 (talk) 23:51, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this article is terribly written. Case-in-point: "A reoccurring theme in Bradstreet's work is mortality. In many of her works, she talks about her own death and how it will affect her children and her wife." Anne has a wife? Reoccurring? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.174.0.30 (talk) 18:38, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. This reads like a mish-mosh of two or more very poorly written high-school English papers. The paragraph about Puritan women's domestic work is repetitive, repetitive, repetitive, unsourced, and repetitive. The unnecessary references to the subject by her given name only, the assertion that her poetry was "from the heart," the contextual attribution of something as being "According to U S History.org," and much more, reek of a slapdash term paper purchased from some online cheating mill. Bruce Tindall 15:28, 20 June 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bruce Tindall (talk • contribs)

Bradstreet definitely not associated with Romanticism
Bradstreet wrote a solid century before the Romantic movement and hardly espoused ideas associated with it, tending to religious and familial themes or to vaguely metaphysical-style histories, instead. This section offers no real citations and should be deleted. Squidwiggle (talk) 19:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Intended Audience Section
Bradstreet knew that she was published. She was aware that she had a broad readership, even if many of her poems were addressed to her family. "The Author to her Book," for example, was likely written "in 1666, when a second edition [of "The Tenth Muse"] was being considered." --Heath Anthology of American Literature, 6th ed., vol. A (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009): 426n1. Squidwiggle (talk) 19:59, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Broken citations in "Tone" section
The last two citations in the "Tone" section appear to be broken, but I can't figure out why. Note how they appear in the References list. The "{{cite" tags appear as part of the reference text, and the last separators for the publisher field ("|") instead show up in the URL as "%7C", effectively breaking the links.

The following snip includes the citation tags in the "Tone" section.

In both cases, the separator for the publisher and the first word of the publisher's name get added to the URL, as in "%7publisher=Florida".

I can't figure it out. Why does the publisher get added to the URL, instead of being placed at the end of the citation? Is it the embedded spaces in the publisher's name? If so, why don't the embedded spaces in the accessdate field break the formatting there as well?


 * Update: I managed to fix the URL in the last citation by inserting a space at the end of the URL. However the publisher field still doesn't get rendered, and the entire citation still shows up with the "{{cite" tags rendered as text.


 * Update: OK, it has something something to do with the ordering of the fields in the {{cite tag. I've gotten everything in citation no. 31 to show up where it should, and the URL works.  There are still some minor formatting glitches, e.g. the URL and link title show up as separate fields enclosed in brackets, but for the moment I need a break.  There are two other citations in this article that are broken the same way: 28 and 30 (IOW the fields are in the wrong order)  (TBD)

Big Al Mintaka (talk) 00:17, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Reception
I plan to add a section about the reception that Anne Bradstreet was met with during her time. According to a scholarly article online, prominent figures like John Winthrop did not believe Bradstreet should have been writing since she was a woman. There is nothing on Bradstreet's page that mentions this, and the only comment about her reception is that it was positive in the new and old world, which does not seem to be entirely true. Astrode2 (talk) 22:13, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Contemplations
Toward the bottom of the Bradstreet page, there is a list of her works. I will add a page for the poem "Contemplations," as I have found some interesting information on the form and meaning of the poem. I will add some analysis of this to the page, as well as a section for the actual poem to be printed since it is relatively short and the copyright is up. Astrode2 (talk) 22:13, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Annebradstreet.org invalid
There is a website called annebradstreet.org that is mentioned on the page, which upon visiting I have realized is not a legitimate website. I will delete this mention since the information is invalid. Astrode2 (talk) 22:13, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Transcendentalist?
It is mentioned that Anne Bradstreet is a transcendentalist on the page, but I can not find any information to back this up, and Bradstreet was not around during the transcendentalist period. Based on the definition of transcendentalism, this appears to be invalid information. I will delete this information. Astrode2 (talk) 22:13, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Article changes
I made a few changes within the biography section of Anne Bradstreet's entry. Some of the information in the first paragraph cropped up in multiple places, and therefore seemed repetitive. To cite a specific example, the entry mentioned the Puritan migration twice. The entry also had awkward phrasing, multiple instances of passive voice, and other unnecessary repeated phrases such as "once again," which I hopefully rectified through some minor grammatical changes. One section that mentioned the Bradstreets' moving seemed to have biased overtones that did not seem appropriate for the entry. I therefore changed the sentence that read " In the early 1640s, Simon once again pressed his wife, pregnant with her sixth child, to move for the sixth time, from Ipswich to Andover Parish" to "In the early 1640s, the Bradstreets moved, for the sixth time, from Ipswich to Andover Parish" because the cited source did not show substantial evidence to argue the claims that Simon "once again pressed his wife, pregnant." The contributors who wrote the geographical explanation of various towns, including the differences between Andover and North Andover and the founding of that township, created a roundabout way of explaining a simple argument: that the Bradstreets helped found North Andover, along with some other families. I also backed up a very general statement about Anne's father and husband as "instrumental" in the founding of Harvard with a few sources that detailed their more specific roles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.237.228.137 (talk) 23:58, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Poem Criticism
I notice that the poems listed in the section "List of Works" do not have anything about the criticism on them. I am going to add scholarly criticism in a few of the poems' sub-pages. It will be located under the actual readings of the poems. Agard5 (talk) 02:16, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Additions to her Introduction
I also added that Anne Bradstreet was a prominent figure in American Literature in the biography. I also made a link to the Puritan page. I did this because it is her religion and it should be said about her in the beginning. Agard5 (talk) 02:27, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

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Writing is amateurish
Several parts of this article read like a middling book report. "We see examples of this homesick imagination" "No doubt he was opposed to the writing of Bradstreet as well." "Bradstreet uses various metaphors to describe her husband."

Please fix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.104.46 (talk) 21:15, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Michael wiggglesworth
I 105.104.159.100 (talk) 20:02, 3 December 2022 (UTC)