A Fight for Renaissance by Anne Bradstreet

A Fight for Renaissance by Anne Bradstreet Anne Dudley Bradstreet was Americas first published poet. Cotton Mather described her as: a gentlewoman whose extraction and estate were considerable. She was an intelligent, well-educated poet, wife, and mother, who contradicted almost all of the stereotypes about stiff, cold Puritans. She used her talents to promote womens rights, to describe life as a Puritan woman in colonial America, and to let her husband and children know how much she loved them. Some historians have said that Anne described her own work as lowly, meanly clad, poor, ragged, foolish, broken, and blemished to appease critical males. It was the support of her family and friends who encouraged her to continue the struggle despite incredible societal pressure and rigorous odds. Her poems dealt with the hardships of life in the early settlements, the Puritan religion, and in subtle ways, the role of women in those times. Because she was a woman, her work was strongly criticized, and some believed that she stole the ideas for her writing from men. In her earlier works, Bradstreet wrote in the style of male authors that she admired. She was careful about expressing her true feelings, and this limited her abilities. She wrote for her own satisfaction, and shared her poetry with family and friends. Without her knowledge, her brother-in-law, Rev. John Woodbridge, took a manuscript of her poems to England with him and had them published in a book called, The Tenth Muse Lately sprung up in America By a Gentlewoman in those parts, which Anne had dedicated to her father. Rev. Woodbridge wrote By a Gentlewoman in the title to stress that Anne Bradstreet was a virtuous Puritan who did not neglect her duties for her writing. These later poems were her claim to fame, bec ause they reflected actual experience (as a wife, as a mother, and a woman in seventeenth-century New England), combined with a poets imagination, warmth, and a straightforward humanitarian philosophy. Anne struggled to write poetry in a society that was hostile to imagination and to a woman writer. Seventeenth century Puritan women were expected to be deferential, and her education and her privileged status as a close relative of two governors could not completely protect her from the scorn and persecution that other women who stepped out of their role in Puritan society generally received. Anne wrote quite a bit about her experiences as a wife, mother, grandmother, and as a settler in colonial America. She also wrote about nature, science, religion, the social and political happenings of the time, and about her feelings towards the biases women of her time faced. Anne Bradstreet was, in some ways, an early feminist. Through her poetry, she asserted the right of women to learning and expression of thought. The stereotypical Puritan standards at that time indicated that a womans place was in the home attending to the family and her husbands needs. Women were generally considered intellectually inferior. The attitude of Annes day was accurately expressed by Reverend Thomas Parker, a minister in Newbury, Massachusetts, in a letter to his sister, Elizabeth Avery, in England: Your printing of a book, beyond the custom of your sex, doth rankly smell. As if the social pressure wasnt bad enough, many women faced crushing workloads and a severe lack of free time, as well. Some women suffered from the lack of an education. Others internalized the belief in intellectual inferiority Western society tried to push on them from nearly every authoritative voice. It was Annes personal situation such as an extensive education, support of friends and an influential family, which gave her the means to cope with some of these obstacles. One of her later works, In Honor of That High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory, defiantly proclaims her opinion that women are worth more than a mans servant. Anne was deeply interested in relating the arduous life of the early settlers in her poems. Her work provides an excellent view of the difficulties she and her fellow colonists encountered. From the loss of a house to fire, to the risks and difficulties of child-bearing, to the pain of losing children, Anne described such situations with deep emotion and faith. Her writing gives modern-day readers a glimpse into Puritan views of salvation and redemption, and reveals faith that continued even in the midst of doubt. The Puritans believed that suffering was Gods way of preparing the heart for accepting His grace. Anne had difficulty reconciling herself with this idea, and she wrote about how she struggled to do everything that she could to give into His will. Puritan wives were expected to defer to their husbands within the family structure, but they were treated as fully equal in the souls vocation and in church affairs and enjoyed extensive legal and social protection against husbandly abuse of power. The delicate complexity of this view was perhaps best expressed in the couplet which Anne Bradstreet addressed to men: Preeminence each and all is yours/Yet grant some small acknowledgment of ours. Puritans also abhorred any waste of time, energy, or talent as a sin against God; ultimately, this worked in favor of talented women such as Bradstreet and defined early indications of the womens movement and clearly questioned the role of women in Puritanical society. References Blackstock, Carrie Galloway. Anne Bradstreet and Performativity: Self-Cultivation, Self-Deployment. Early American Literature 32. 3 (1987): 222-48. Bush, Sargent, Jr. American Poetry Begins: The Confident Modesty of The Tenth Muse. Wisconsin Academy Review: A Journal of Wisconsin Culture 38. 1 (Winter 1981-1982): 8-12. Caldwell, Patricia. Why Our First Poet Was a Woman: Bradstreet and the Birth Of an American Poetic Voice. Prospects: An Annual Journal of American Cultural Studies 13 (1978): 1-35. Doriani, Beth M. Then have ISaid with David: Anne Bradstreets Andover Manuscript Poems and the Influence of the Psalm Tradition. Early American Literature 24:1 (1979): 52-69. Eberwein, Anne Bradstreet (c.1612-1672). Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 11:2 (1984): 161-69. Kopacz, Paula. To Finish whats Begun: Anne Bradstreets Last Words. Early American Literature 23:2 (1978): 175-187. Margerum, Eileen. Anne Bradstreets Public Poetry and the Tradition of Humility. Early American Literature 17:2 (fall 1982): 152-60. Salska, Agnieska. Puritan Poetry: Its Public and Private Strain. Early American Literature 19:2 (Fall 1984): 107-121. Schweitzer, Ivy. Anne Bradstreet Wrestles with the Renaissance. Early American Literature 23:2 (1978): 291-312. Sweet, Timothy. Gender, Genre, and Subjectivity in Anne Bradstreets Early Elegies. Early American Literature 23:2 (1978); 152-174.

Leadership Development Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Leadership Development - Case Study Example ermed as the major decision taken in the recent times and has been brought about in a forced way owing to the company performance and non satisfactory responses from the profit index. The global trends and the overall reduction in the profit as a result of it is another reason that has brought about such a move. The larger states such as Russia and its overall standing in the global economic market had its impact on the Ford’s overall performance leading to tougher decisions being made. Mr. Odell may have contributed on the structural function and strengthening of the Ford’s existence in the global innovations, however the domain and context of market capturing still desires to be gripped further in order to make most of the market potential. The experimental work on the Mustang comes as a challenge that has yet to be practically tested and determined with regard to its potential success. Mr. Farley has also got his work cut out in the form of fulfilling for the vacuum that is being created through the step wise retirement of the number of individuals who were long associated with the company. Replacing the expertise with relatively equal and effectively able individuals is a challenge that needs to be resolved. Bringing Ford to the previous top level of success and high profits is another challenge and goal that the two individuals must set before them in order to overcome the existing challenges. The job rotation helps the leadership in a way that it allows the individuals working in a different environment, meaning exposure to larger domain and coming up with improved performances. Rotation allows the employees working with freshness of mind and removes the element of redundancy and boredom by repeatedly working in a similar environment and similar surroundings. The impact of rotation can be either positive or negative for a given organization. It can be positive if it is handled properly as it promotes productivity and brings along diversity in the cause

Civil War Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Civil War - Research Paper Example Revolution is actually a change whereby legitimacy of one system is terminated and another originated within the same society, however, this change may not necessarily brought about by force or violence. History narrates the stories of several important revolutions e.g. revolutions in England and France of 1688 and 1848 respectively had not observed any military conflict. Scope of civil war is broad and it may accompany revolution, but in the great French Revolution, it only played a secondary part. Like revolution, civil war can also be distinguished from insurrection, which is a struggle from the bottom up, an uprising of a more or less politically unorganized group against an established authority. Civil war is horizontal, insurrection vertical, conflict which may result in huge numbers of fatalities and ineffective use of valuable resources (Hironaka, 2005, p.3). Classifications of Civil Wars The concept of war is as old as the human being is attached to religion, politics, and s ocial reforms. Likewise, civil wars may also be classified in terms of these three aspects i.e. religion, political or strategic objectives, and social reforms. The rise of Protestantism caused a whole series of religious civil wars between 1550 and 1648. The civil wars in England between during the years 1641 to 1651, in the United States from 1861 to 1865, and in China from 1921 to1928, were political. The history of ancient Greece and Rome shows a whole series of social civil wars between rich and poor, aristocrats and plebians. The Russian civil war from 1918 to1921was primarily a social war between the upper class on the one hand and the city proletariat aided by the peasants on the other. Religious civil wars have usually been very bloody and ruthless. Social civil wars tend to resemble them in this respect; while political civil wars are commonly humane, as years ago. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) primarily fought in Germany was indescribably ferocious; the recent civil wa r in Russia was marked by much cruelty; while the American Civil War was comparatively well controlled (Hironaka, 2005). Characteristics of Different Civil Wars The character of civil war varies considerably according to the type of political organization in the country in which it occurs. In unitary states civil war is likely to be amateurish and bungling in its early stages. The old government is weakened by the withdrawal of large numbers of its trained personnel, who then proceed to improvise an opposition government which does not at first function very efficiently. The English civil war of 1641 to 1651 and the American Civil War are cases in point (Keegan, 2009). In federated states, civil war closely resembles international war. Here organized functional governments already exist and the task of generating a civil war between them is relatively simple, especially when the nature of the federal bond approximates a league rather than a closer union. The Thirty Years War, the Wa r of the Sonderbund in Switzerland in 1848, and the American Civil War afford varying instructions of the nature of the civil conflict in federated states. In his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln said â€Å"slavery was some how cause of the war† (Brook and Nurphy, 2009). Civil wars in colonial states are in general much like civil