American Literature / Unit 4 AML 0312 short lesson, about 20 seconds
"The Author to Her Book"
Captions available
The idea
In this poem of sixteen sixty-six Bradstreet addresses her published volume as an ill-formed child snatched from her side by friends and exposed in print. She washes its face, stretches its joints, and finds the defects increase. The apology is conventional; the mother's exasperation is not.
In practice
The book as a badly dressed child.
Where people slip
The modesty is a form; the irony is hers.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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