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Flaws are only Parchment Deep:
How Form and Biographical Features Shape Anne
Bradstreet’s “The Author to Her Book”
AMEL BENSALIM
Amel Bensalim wrote her essay on Anne Bradstreet’s “The Author to Her Book” for Close Reading, a course that focuses on the relationship of form and meaning in poetry and other genres. As Amel’s essay so clearly demonstrates, any reading of form cannot and should not be divorced from the context in which a given work is produced. Deftly attesting to a reciprocity of style and substance that complicates Bradstreet’s lament, the essay points to some of the ways the poet’s affection for her literary offspring is made visible in a work otherwise intent on expressing the “shame and guilt” inevitable in a social and religious milieu that frowned on women even writing poetry, let alone publishing it. Bradstreet’s book may take the metaphorical form of an errant and “hobbling” child whose face needs scrubbing but, as Amel argues, it is one yet firmly contained within the “rigid form” of the poet’s well-wrought heroic couplets. Bradstreet’s “rambling brat” may yet need mothering, but the essay makes it clear that both child and book remain firmly within their creator’s control. —Dr. Lyn Bennett Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth did’st by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad, exposed to public view, Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judge). At thy return my blushing was not small, My rambling brat (in print) should mother call. I cast thee by as one unfit for light, Thy visage was so irksome in my sight; Yet being mine own, at length affection would
AMEL BENSALIM
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could: I washed they face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw. I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet, Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet; In better dress to trim thee was my mind, But nought save homespun cloth, i’ th’ house I find. In this array ‘mongst Vulgars may’st thou roam. In critic’s hands beware thou dost not come, And take thy way where yet thou art not known; If for thy Father asked, say thou hadst none; And for thy Mother, she alas is poor, Which caused her thus to send thee out of door. (Anne Bradstreet, The Author to Her Book ) n her 1678 poem “The Author to Her Book,” Anne Bradstreet confronts one of her own books, a work she considers to be flawed and unworthy of publication. While a self-deprecating authorial voice is interesting enough, the poem becomes even more compelling when placed in its biographical context. The poem illustrates Bradstreet’s reaction to her brother-in-law publishing her book without permission. Bradstreet likens her book to an illegitimate child, and an awareness of her Puritan beliefs and the Puritan views of illegitimate children offers readers a more dimensional view of her feelings. Bradstreet’s constrained belief system is reflected in the poem’s constrained heroic couplets, which are very unlike its frantic contents. These contrasting elements, all viewed in light of her Puritan background, come together to convey complex feelings of shame and guilt, but also a
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AMEL BENSALIM
Illegitimate children and miscarriages were popular topics in Bradstreet’s time, as Lisa Day-Lindsey explains in her article “Bradstreet’s The Author to Her Book” (67). Bradstreet’s description of the book/child’s defects are reminiscent of Puritan writers’ descriptions of miscarriages (Day-Lindsey 67). For instance, throughout the poem Bradstreet uses the epithets such as “rambling brat,” “irksome,” “defect[ed face],” and “hobbling” and others to emphasize the deformation of her offspring. In her time, local Puritan authorities wrote colourfully and at length about the abnormality and monstrousness of stillborn babies (Day-Lindsey 66-67). Furthermore, the line “If for thy Father asked, say thou hadst none” (Bradstreet 22) further reflects Puritan values, as leading Puritan authorities of her day laid all blame for unwanted pregnancies or miscarriages on the mothers and midwives, but not on any men who were undoubtedly involved. Bradstreet thus attaches the disgrace associated with illegitimate children to her book. This allows her to express her anxiety regarding the possible social repercussions of having an illegitimate child. According to Day-Lindsey, one “could have been charged with heresy for creating something that did not meet with the approval of the Puritan elders” (68). Bradstreet writes, “I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet, / Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet” (Bradstreet 15-16). These lines can be read in different ways: taken literally, she is describing the physical pulling and mending of a child’s uneven limbs. Metaphorically, this suggests “stretching” a line of
FLAWS ARE ONLY PARCHMENT DEEP
poetry to fire the metrical “feet” (Bradstreet 15). In both cases, there is a sense of trying to create a presentable image or make a book/child that is acceptable to the public. She explicitly mentions that “in better dress to trim thee was [in her] mind” (17) and to “beware” of “critic’s hands” (20). A yearning for acceptance and normality runs through the poem, and is even hinted at by the very form of the poem. “The Author to Her Book” is a poem best read aloud: although written in iambic pentameter heroic couplets, it is the simple diction rather than the metre that makes the poem so rhythmic. In the seventeenth century, during which Bradstreet lived, heroic couplets were most commonly found in epic poetry; in fact, it was during the seventeenth century that they were named “heroic” couplets (Furniss and Bath 57). Both iambic pentameter and heroic couplets were considered the most rigid types of rhythm and metre, and the couplets were even called “closed couplets” (Furniss and Bath 57). In her poem, Bradstreet emphasizes the desire to improve her book/child and achieve some level of acceptability amid rigid Puritan and poetic ideals. In this way, the form of the poem reflects her yearning, which is unrealized in the content itself. Many of the lines that speak about fixing the book/child are written in simple, mostly monosyllabic words that allow for a very even distribution of beats per line. In other words, the lines that express her desire to conform are perfect examples of well-written iambic pentameter. Her desire for her book to fit into the stiff
FLAWS ARE ONLY PARCHMENT DEEP
and the poem’s rigid form create an anxious and restless tone. The rigid form presents an ideal structure and reflects how much Bradstreet yearned to perfect her book/child. The hectic content shows the reader how anxiously and impatiently she fruitlessly strove to do just that. Knowing biographical facts surrounding her brother- in-law’s non-consensual publication of her work and the importance of appearances in her Puritan environment, the poem’s perfection imperative becomes even more potent. It is unclear whether Bradstreet’s brother-in-law published her work maliciously or if he was merely prodigiously thoughtless, but it is clear how Bradstreet felt about it. Her poem “The Author to Her Book” relates those feelings via her thoughts and actions towards her book, which she perceived as imperfect and flawed. It is telling that she chose to associate her feelings with the Puritan perception of illegitimate children. Such an association implies she felt guilty and ashamed of her book and struggled with improving it. Despite her anxious fretting over the book, the poem is written in constrained heroic couplets and iambic pentameter. The form reflects the ideal she wishes her book to conform to, which is derived from her Puritan upbringing. In other words, there is a dissonance between the inadequacy expressed in the content and the perfect adherence to some of the English language’s most constrained and elite poetic forms and metres. Thus, the poem also projects a desire to conform or attain acceptance. The content, form, and biographical context of the poem lead one to see the anxiety and
AMEL BENSALIM
uncertainty Bradstreet conveys in her poem “The Author to Her Book.” WORKS CITED Bradstreet, Anne. “The Author to Her Book.” Works of Anne Bradstreet. Ed. Jeannine Hensley. Cambridge: Belknap, 1967. Day-Lindsey, Lisa. “Bradstreet’s The Author to Her Book.” The Explicator 64.2 (2006): 66-69. Taylor & Francis Online. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3200/EXPL.64.2. 66 - 69 Furniss, Tom and Michael Bath. Reading Poetry: An Introduction. 2 nd^ Edition. Harlow: Pearson/Longman, 200.
