Exploring the Text

1. The title signals the extended metaphor—or conceit—of the poem. What is it? Identify several specific characteristics that the two elements being compared share.

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - The title signals the extended metaphor—or conceit—of the poem. What is it? Identify several specific characteristics that the two elements being compared share.
2. Why does Anne Bradstreet describe her “offspring” as “ill-formed” (l. 1)?

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - Why does Anne Bradstreet describe her “offspring” as “ill-formed” (l. 1)?
3. How does Bradstreet characterize the process of revision? Cite specific details and descriptions to support your response.

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - How does Bradstreet characterize the process of revision? Cite specific details and descriptions to support your response.
4. What point does Bradstreet make by juxtaposing “vulgars” (l. 19) with “critic[s]” (l. 20)?

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - What point does Bradstreet make by juxtaposing “vulgars” (l. 19) with “critic[s]” (l. 20)?
5. What are two possible interpretations of the speaker’s admonition, “If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none” (l. 22)?

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - What are two possible interpretations of the speaker’s admonition, “If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none” (l. 22)?
6. During this period, women who wrote often faced social censure for stepping outside what was considered their “place”—that is, the domestic sphere of wife and mother. In what ways does Bradstreet address this prevailing cultural viewpoint at the same time she asserts her identity as a poet? Do you think her choice of the motherhood metaphor undermines or celebrates her authority as a writer in a patriarchal society?

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - During this period, women who wrote often faced social censure for stepping outside what was considered their “place”—that is, the domestic sphere of wife and mother. In what ways does Bradstreet address this prevailing cultural viewpoint at the same time she asserts her identity as a poet? Do you think her choice of the motherhood metaphor undermines or celebrates her authority as a writer in a patriarchal society?
7. Taken together, how do “Prologue” and “The Author to Her Book” stake a claim for the woman artist in seventeenth-century America?

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - Taken together, how do “Prologue” and “The Author to Her Book” stake a claim for the woman artist in seventeenth-century America?