www.bridgewater.edu/~lhill/williamsburg.htm
Anne Bradstreet was a popular American author during the Colonial period of United States history. Her father, Thomas Dudley, was very fond of his daughter. He took great care to insure her a good education, in a time when women received little. At sixteen she married Simon Bradstreet. He shared her father's Puritan beliefs. Her husband was appointed to assist in the preparations of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Bradstreet was first reluctant to adjust to colonial life when she first came from England, but, "afrer I was convinced it was the way of God, I submitted to it, and joined the church at Boston." Bradstreet was never very strong physcially. Sadly she had several bouts of rheumatic fever as a child and suffered recurrent periods of severe fatigue. Despite her struggles she risked death by childbrith eight times. Like other good Puritans, Anne added to the care of daily life the examination of her conscience. She was the first in a long line of American poets who took their consoloation not from theology, but from the "wonderous works," of nature that they observed.
When Anne Bradstreet was young, she wrote poems for her father. After marraige she continued to write. Her brother in law John Woodbridge was responsible for her poetry being published (unbeknown to her)! Her book The Tenth Muse was rather popular during her day, Bradstreet is considered an ambitious poet whose imagination was grounded in English, religious,political, and cultural history.
Sources:
Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vol A. Ed. Nina Baym. NY: Norton and Company 2003. 238.
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