Blog #2

The poem I chose was “The Author to Her Book” by: Anne Bradstreet written around 1678. The passage I picked to look at is lines 1-4 as follows:

Thou Ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain
Who after birth did’st by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true.
Who thee abroad exposed to public view;

This poem is known as a conceit poem and is written by one of the first female American poets. The ill-formed offspring that she is talking about in the first line is her book of poetry that she kept from the public, “Who after birth did’st by my side remain” until it was taken from her without her permission and published. All the “who” thereafter she is referring to the book/ill-formed offspring. She uses personification in calling her book her offspring/child and continues doing so throughout the poem. I believe that in line 4, “…abroad exposed” means that after her work was published that not only was it seen by other Americans but also by Europeans. I also believe that this shows the use of a partial rhyme at the end of each line and are in couplets.