Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Prologue - Anne Bradstreet
- Irony
- How to Read a
Poem
- Who is the speaker?
- Anne Bradstreet, a woman who lived in the early 15th century.
- What circumstances gave rise to the poem?
- She published a book of poetry and this is its prologue. She is addressing the reader.
- Who or what is the audience?
- While she would
logically be addressing
anyone reading her
poems, she is speaking
directly to the men and
indirectly to women.
- What is the tone?
- Humble and ironic
- What form, if any, does the poem take?
- It is divided into 8 numbered stanzas, six lines each.
- How is form related to content?
- She makes many
references to ancient
Greeks and their myths.
Perhaps this traditional
form is meant to
emphasize that, which in
turn highlights the
non-traditional nature of a
female writer at the time?
- Feminism
- Is sound an important, active
element in the poem?
- It rhymes.
- Does the poem spring from
an identifiable, historical
moment?
- It was obviously before
any major women's
movement, at a point in
time that women were
considered inferior to
men in every way.
- Does the poem use imagery to achieve a particular effect?
- What figurative language, if any, does the poem use?
- She refers to the
ancient Greek myth of
the Muses many times,
as a personification of
inspiration and
creativity.
- In the last stanza, she uses imagery to
compare other contemporary poets to
birds of prey.
- If the poem is an answer, what is the question?
- She seems to be answering the
question, "What do you, the poet, expect
of your work?"
- What does the title suggest?
- An introduction
- Does the poem use unusual words or use words in an unusual way?
- Some of the words
and spelling are
unusual today, but
were probably more
commonplace at the
time of writing.