The Author to Her Book

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1678

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Writing as Mothering

Gender plays a key role in the poem. Anne Bradstreet wrote during a time when nurturing of the sort she describes in the poem was primarily left to women. Moreover, despite the existence of many erudite and creative women in this historical period, there was an expectation that women’s writing and speech were appropriate only in certain spaces and only before particular audiences.

In the preface to The Tenth Muse, John Woodbridge acknowledges as much by describing Bradstreet’s work as something she did in off hours when she was not occupied with running her household. His preface also asserts that the Tenth Muse is a “Womans book,” a claim he makes because he believes there will be men who “question whether it be a womans Work, and aske, Is it possible?” (Woodbridge, John. Preface. The Tenth Muse by Anne Bradstreet, 1650). Intellectual and creative work was largely seen as the domain of men, while women were relegated to the domestic sphere.

Reading “The Author to Her Book” through the lens of biography makes the poem a commentary on the anxiety of a writer who knows that laypeople and critics already assume that her work will be inferior because she is a woman, or, if the work is skillful, will ascribe it to a man. In response, “The Author to Her Book” authenticates the skill of its female author and disavows the deficiencies of the works in The Tenth Muse.

Bradstreet calls attention to the writer as a woman through several choices she makes in “The Author to Her Book.” She includes the feminine possessive adjective “Her” in the title, marking writing as a feminine act. She develops an extended comparison between writing a book and a birthing and raising a child. This metaphor takes the normative expectation of a woman as mother and uses it to portray something potentially subversive—a woman writing—as akin to traditional feminine roles. In the Puritan culture that surrounded Bradstreet and her family, rearing children and disciplining them well were ways that women could glorify God. The idea of the poet as mother disciplining her child thus shores up the authority of the female writer.

To fully establish that both sorts of creation—biological and intellectual—fall within the sphere of women’s activities, Bradstreet calls her poetry “a rambling brat (in print)” (Line 8). The cultural context for Bradstreet’s writing is one in which having children would have been seen as something natural; labeling her previous work with the descriptor “in print” (Line 8) calls attention to the expanded capacity of the female writer to engage in both kinds of creation.

“The Author to Her Book” is a highly structured poem that maintains the same rhyme scheme and meter throughout, showing that when the author has her way, she can produce work that reflects her mastery of her craft. “The Author to Her Book” is ultimately a testament to what women can do when even well-meaning people get out of their way.

The Artist’s Self-Doubt

One of the struggles of the poet in “The Author to Her Book” is fear of the various readers of her book. Most striking, however, is that although there are other readers in the text, including the “Vulgars” (Line 19) and the “Criticks” (Line 20), the harshest reader of all is the writer herself.

The poet is deeply self-critical, so much so that she describes the “Visage” (Line 10) of her creative work as “irksome” (Line 10) and her child as imperfect due to its “hobling” (Line 16)—an overlap between a lack of beauty and physical disability that would have been common in Bradstreet's time. The writer is so disappointed in what she makes that she suffers writer’s block each time she attempts to resume her role as writer by revising and polishing the prematurely published poem. Bradstreet describes the poet’s efforts to address the deficiencies of her work as diligent—washing the book-as-child, dabbing its face to heal its sores, dressing it in “home-spun Cloth” (Line 18) that is the product of home industry.

The writer engages in this rescue effort because she sees the book as “Yet being mine own” (Line 11). The writer is doing her maternal duty but claims not to be doing it very well. The tone in these lines is one of exasperation and resignation as the writer finds that there is no salvaging the work from its imperfections. Rather than continue her fruitless labor on her flawed book/child, the writer creates a new child, “The Author to Her Book.”

The Agency of the Author

If “The Author to Her Book” is a biographical poem that dramatizes Bradstreet’s feelings after the publication of The Tenth Muse, then it is also a poem about the artist’s agency and her ability to maintain control over her work and make important decisions concerning its distribution. Bradstreet’s discussion of the revision process highlights the importance of maintaining autonomy as a writer.

John Woodbridge claims in the preface to The Tenth Muse that he commissioned the publication of the volume because he “found that divers had gotten some scattered papers, affected them wel, were likely to have sent forth broken peices to the Authors prejudice, which I thought to prevent” (Woodbridge, John. Preface. The Tenth Muse by Anne Bradstreet, 1650). He frames the book that is the subject of “The Author to Her Book” as one he assembled and sent to a printer to burnish his sister-in-law’s reputation, something she is incapable of doing herself in his account.

“The Author to Her Book” undercuts this representation by portraying Woodbridge as among those “friends, less wise than true” (Line 3) who usurped her prerogative to control the distribution of her book. Her invitation to the reader to observe that “errors were not lessened” (Line 6) is a criticism of the printing process, which didn’t allow her to identify typographical mistakes before the completion of the printing process. When the writer reclaims the text by calling it “mine own” (Line 11), she asserts her right to re-shape her work because it belongs to her.

When a writer uses apostrophe, their words are addressed to a person or thing that can never hope to respond, either because the addressee is dead or inanimate. The point of the address is to be overheard by the reader. When Bradstreet uses apostrophe to speak directly to her book, describing her sense of exasperation and shame over what her friends and the printer have made of the text, it forces the overhearing readers to witness the cost to her of violating her right to determine the fate of her own writing. It is clear that when left to her own devices, the writer is a skillful one who understands the importance of revision and is capable of creating a well-crafted poem like “The Author to Her Book.” Sharing what it feels like to lose creative agency is also likely to get the “Vulgars” (Line 19) and “Criticks” (Line 20) who may eventually read the work to extend her a little grace.