Anne Bradstreet 1612-1672
First accomplished
American poet of either
gender.
Education

Had 800 books in her home in America
 Why
did her father make the
decision to come to America?

What were Bradstreet’s reactions to the New
World. Did she cope? Why?

tenacity

What cultural bias most affected Bradstreet?

How did this bias determine the way critics
responded to her work?

How did Bradstreet react to this criticism?

What Puritan ideal does her poem, “To My
Dear and Loving Husband” seem to go
against?

What is the title of her first work?

Why was the subtitle added?

What is a muse?

Goddesses and daughters of Zeus and
Mnemosyne (goddess of memory)

Muses presided over the arts and sciences and
inspired all artists, especially poets,
philosophers, and musicians

What do you think was Bradstreet’s most
poignant inner conflict in her life?
Vocabulary Quiz Friday, 9-16

Piteous—adj. Arousing or deserving
of pity.

Bereft--v. to deprive of happiness by
loss or death.
Chide—v. To scold or blame

Repine—v. To complain or fret; to
feel discontent

Recount—v. To narrate, tell or describe
in detail

Vanity—n. A thing or act that is
worthless or futile.

Succor—n. Assistance, aid
Pelf—n. Ill-gotten goods; things
acquired by reprehensible means
 store—n.
Accumulated goods
 Adieu—n.
Goodbye; farewell

Abide—v. remain, continue, stay, put up
with, tolerate

Dunghill n.—pile of manure

Mouldering (archaic)—adj. Smoldering
Do you have an interest in







Advertising
Marketing
Song Writing
Rapping
Creative Writing
Writing
Journalism…
 All
of these fields of
interest use literary devices
to make an impact on their
audiences
Poetic Devices
Rhyming couplets
Pairs of rhyming lines
End rhyme pattern for rhyming
couplets:
AA, BB, CC, DD, etc.
Marking end rhyme pattern
Once upon a midnight dreary
A
While I pondered weak and weary
A
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten
lore
B
While I nodded nearly napping
C
Suddenly there came a tapping
C
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber
door
B
Slant Rhyme (forced rhyme)

Locate examples in the poem

Lines 3,4 noise/voice

Lines 35, 36 lie/vanity

Lines 45, 46 furnished/fled
Inversion

Switching the normal syntax (sentence
arrangement)

In silent night when rest I took

When I took a rest one silent night
Meter

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables—
rhythm
͜

∕ ͜
∕
͜
∕ ͜ ∕
In silent night when rest I took

͜ ∕ = iambic
tetrameter
Fixed Form
Poetry
that adheres to a
specific pattern
Ex.: meter, rhyme,
stanzas
Metaphor

The comparison of two seemingly
dissimilar things without using the
terms like or as.

The road is a ribbon wrapped
around the mountainside.
Implied metaphor

The ribbon wrapped around the mountainside.

Two parts of a metaphor:

TENOR—the actual item, person, idea being
discussed

VEHICLE—the item, person, idea used to deliver
the imagery
When the tenor is missing, an implied
metaphor is created.
(Rebecca Nurse is a saint…)
(Metaphor)
Remove the tenor, Rebecca, and
only the vehicle remains
This saint refused to confess to a lie.
Implied metaphor is created.

Locate the implied (implicit) metaphor
in the poem.




I have a house on high erect l.43
Bradstreet means to say that heaven is her
house on high erect, but she omits the
mention of heaven and leaves the word house.
She has removed heaven, or the real item that
she is describing
Remove the tenor--heaven
How many parallels does Bradstreet make
between heaven and a real house?





It is erected
It has an architect
It is furnished
It is permanent
It is purchased and paid for
Extended Metaphor
A
metaphor that continues to
draw parallels and make
comparisons between the tenor
and the vehicle
Epic Simile

Same as extended metaphor but uses the
words like or as

Heaven is like a house

All of the same parallels are drawn between
the house and heaven
Parallelism or parallel structure

Words or phrases that are similarly
constructed and in close proximity to one
another. Lines 30-34

Nor at thy table eat a bit
No pleasant tale shall e’er be told
Nor things recounted done of old
No candle…
Nor bridegroom’s…




Parallel structure at the beginning of
lines

Anaphora
Nor at thy table eat a bit
No pleasant tale shall e’er be told
Nor things recounted done of old
No candle…
Nor bridegroom’s…
Parallel structure at the end of lines

Epistrophe -- repetition of a word or phrase at
the end of consecutive phrases or lines



Lines 7, 8
…light did spy
…heart did cry
Another example of Epistrophe
Line 25
Here stood that trunk, and
there that chest.
Alliteration

Repetition of initial consonant sounds in
words that are in close proximity to one
another

That fearful sound of “Fire!” and “Fire!”

Locate other examples in the poem
Consonance
The repetition of consonant sounds within and
at the ends of words.
Line 52
 Farewell, my pelf, farewell my store

Line 12
 The flame consume my dwelling place
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds in closely
positioned words—at the beginning, end, or
within the words
Line 1
 In silent night when rest I took

Line 42
 That dunghill mists away may fly.
Rhetorical Question

A question asked without expecting an answer
but for the sake of emphasis or effect. (The
answer is already known.)
Lines 38, 39, 40

“And did thy wealth on earth abide?”

(NO)
Rhetorical Fragment

A sentence fragment used deliberately for a
persuasive purpose or to create a desired
effect:

“Something to consider.”
“Nice job.”
It moved forward a step. Then another step.


Oxymoron

A rhetorical device in which two seemingly
contradictory or incongruous terms are combined for
effect:

Deafening silence
Sweet sorrow
Female Puritan poet




Oxy—sharp, acute, keen (Greek)
Moron—stupid, foolish (Greek)
Personification
A figure of speech in which inanimate objects
or abstractions are endowed with human
qualities or are represented as possessing
human form
Line 8
And to my God my heart did cry

Line 42 That dunghill mists away may fly.
Onomatopoeia


The formation or use of words such
as buzz or murmur that imitate the
sounds associated with the objects or
actions they refer to.
Line 4
And piteous shrieks of “Fire…”

onoma (onomatos) "word, name"

poiein "compose, make“ (poet)
Synechdoche
A figure of speech in which a part is
used for the whole (as hand for sailor)
OR
the whole for a part (as the law for police
officer)
 Keep an eye out for the mailman
 I bought a new set of wheels
Synecdoche --A part refers to the
whole



Blue hair = elderly person
Mouths to feed = hungry people
Threads = clothes
Synecdoche--Whole refers to a part
 Use
your head = brain
 Pennsylvania passed a
bill= the gov’t of PA
 Kleenex brand = tissue
Coke = soda
Synecdoche



Line 40
“The arm of flesh didst make thy
trust?”
Refers to an arm of flesh
represents the entire man or
person or mankind
Metonymy

A figure of speech in which an attribute of a
thing or something closely related to it is
substituted for the thing itself.

Sweat = hard work
Dish = meal
Hollywood = entertainment industry


Zeugma

The use of a verb that has two different
meanings with objects that complement both
meanings:

He lost his keys and his dignity
She gained a husband and self-respect

Zeugma

"He carried a strobe light and the
responsibility for the lives of his men."
(Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried)

"You held your breath and the door for me."
(Alanis Morissette, "Head over Feet")
Chiasmus

A sentence strategy in which the arrangement
of ideas in the second clause is a reversal of
the first.

“Ask not what your country can do for you;
ask what you can do for your country.”
Chiasmus

"You forget what you want to remember, and
you remember what you want to forget."
(Cormac McCarthy, The Road, 2006)

"I had a teacher I liked who used to say good
fiction's job was to comfort the disturbed and
disturb the comfortable."
(David Foster Wallace)
Asyndeton

A deliberate omission of conjunctions in a
series of related words, clauses, or phrases.

"see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.“

"...and that government of the people, by the
people, for the people shall not perish from
the earth." Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg
Address
Asyndeton

She walked, talked, danced, laughed, cried.
Polysyndeton

The deliberate use of many conjunctions
Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice:

“…Peering in maps for ports and piers and
roads…”
Polysydeton
Walt Whitman
 “Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the
Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or far north, or
inland…A river man, or a man of the woods,
or of any farm-life in These States, or of the
coast, or the lakes, or Kanada…”
Periodic Sentence


A sentence that makes sense fully only when
the end of the sentence is reached. Usually
there is a build-up of critical information
leading to the final thought:
"And though I have the gift of prophecy, and
understand all mysteries, and all knowledge;
and though I have all faith, so that I could
remove mountains, and have not charity, I am
nothing."