In her poem “The Author to Her Book,” poet Anne Bradstreet portrays the feelings one feels as his or her work is read and criticized by others and the eventual acceptance of the faults in the writing. Bradstreet portrays this outlook on the creation process through the use of a metaphor comparing a written work- specifically a “book” in this poem –and a child.
Bradstreet uses motherly language and words with a protective connotation in describing her “child” in order to reveal the speaker’s admiration and hopes for him or her. Though the speaker describes her child in the poem as “ill-formed,” suggesting that the child is defective, she comments that the child “did’st by my side remain,” indicating that she appreciates the child and does not disown it, regardless of its flaws. When describing the revealing of the child to the world, Bradstreet uses the word “snatched,” suggesting that the child was “exposed to public view” without the speaker’s wanting this. In describing how the mother holds her child by her side and suggesting that she resents its being “exposed,” Bradstreet depicts the love with which a writer holds his or…
The speaker of the poem tries “at length” to amend the “blemishes” of her child, which can be connected to a writer editing the flaws and imperfections of his or her writing. However, as Bradstreet’s juxtaposition of the speakers efforts to better her child with her child’s lack of response each time suggests, a writer can try to “amend,” “wash,” “stretch” and “better dress” his or her work but there will always exist some flaws in it. In fact, the speaker comments that the more adjustments she made to her child, the more her child would display other…
