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Notes
"To My Dear and Loving Husband" was written by America’s first female poet, the Puritan, Anne
Bradstreet. In fact, Anne Bradstreet is one of only a handful of female American poets during the
first 200 years of America’s history. After Bradstreet, one can list only Phillis Wheatley, the 18th
century black female poet, Emma Lazarus, the 19th century poet whose famous words appear on
the Statue of Liberty, and the 19th century Emily Dickinson, America’s most famous female poet.
"To My Dear and Loving Husband" has several standard poetic features. One is the two line rhyme
scheme. Another is the anaphora, the repetition of a phrase, in the first three lines. A third is the
popular iambic pentameter, and a fourth is the use of metaphors in the middle quatrain.
Iambic pentameter is characterized by an unrhymed line with five feet or accents. Each foot
contains an unaccented syllable and an accented syllable, as in "da Dah, da Dah, da Dah, da Dah, da
Dah."
The first stanza presents her heartfelt feelings within a logical argument, the repeated use of if/then
statements. The second stanza releases the logical argument and becomes truly heartfelt with its
metaphors and religious imagery. The last stanza returns to the reasoned nature of the first stanza
and concludes with a unique logical element, a paradox. Their love is so enduring that even in death
it will survive, a paradox consistent with puritan theology and with great love poems.
The subject of Anne Bradstreet’s love poem is her professed love for her husband. She praises him
and asks the heavens to reward him for his love. The poem is a touching display of love and
affection, extraordinarily uncommon for the Puritan era of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in which
Anne Bradstreet lived.
Puritan women were expected to be reserved, domestic, and subservient to their husbands. They
were not expected or allowed to exhibit their wit, charm, intelligence, or passion. John Winthrop,
the Massachusetts governor, once remarked that women who exercised wit or intelligence were apt
to go insane.
Anne Bradstreet was born Anne Dudley in 1612 in England. She married Simon Bradstreet when
she was 16 and they both sailed with her family to America in 1630. The difficult, cold voyage to
America took 3 months to complete. John Winthrop was also a passenger on the trip. The voyage
landed in Boston and the passengers joined the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The men in Anne Bradstreet’s family were managers and politicians. Both her father and her
husband became Massachusetts governors. Her husband, Simon, often traveled for weeks
throughout the colony as its administrator.
Anne Bradstreet’s poem, "To My Dear and Loving Husband," was written as a response to her
husband’s absence.
Very little is known about Anne Bradstreet’s life in Massachusetts. There are no portraits of her, and
she does not even have a grave marker. She and her family moved several times, each time further
away from Boston into the frontier. Anne and Simon had 8 children during a 10 year period, and all
of the children survived healthy and safe, a remarkable accomplishment considering the health risks
and the security hazards of the period.
Anne Bradstreet was highly intelligent and largely self-educated. She took herself seriously as an
intellectual and a poet, reading widely in history, science, art, and literature. Her library, before the
house burned in 1666, numbered about 800 volumes. However, as a good Puritan woman,
Bradstreet did not make her accomplishments public.
Bradstreet wrote poetry for herself, family, and friends, never meaning to publish them. Consider
that her friend, Anne Hutchinson was intellectual, educated and led women’s prayer meetings where
alternative religious beliefs were discussed. She was labeled a heretic and banished from the colony.
Hutchinson eventually died in an Indian attack. Is it any wonder that Anne Bradstreet was hesitant
to publish her poetry and call attention to herself?
Anne Bradstreet’s early poems were secretly taken by her brother-in-law to England and published
in a small volume when she was 38. The volume sold well in England, but the poems were not
nearly as accomplished as her later works.
Bradstreet’s later works were not published during her lifetime. Her poems about her love for her
husband were private and personal, meant to be shared only with her family and friends.
Though her health was frequently a concern, especially during childbirth, Anne Bradstreet lived
until 60 years of age.
Notes
Shakespeare’s sonnets require time and effort to appreciate. Understanding the numerous meanings
of the lines, the crisply made references, the brilliance of the images, and the
complexity of the sound, rhythm and structure of the verse demands attention and
experience. The rewards are plentiful as few writers have ever approached the richness
of Shakespeare’s prose and poetry.
“Sonnet XVIII” is also known as, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” It was written
around 1599 and published with over 150 other sonnets in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe.
The first 126 sonnets are written to a youth, a boy, probably about 19, and perhaps specifically,
William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. His initials, W.H., appear in Thorpe’s dedication, and the first
volume of Shakespeare’s plays, published by two of his fellow actors, Herminge and Condell, after
Shakespeare’s death, was dedicated to William Herbert.
“Sonnet XVIII” is one of the most famous of all of Shakespeare’s sonnets. It is written in the sonnet
style that Shakespeare preferred, 14 lines long with three quatrains (four rhymed lines) and a
couplet (a pair of rhymed lines).
The Sonnet praises the youth’s beauty and disposition, comparing and contrasting the youth to a
summer day. Then the sonnet immortalizes the youth through the “eternal lines” of the sonnet.
First Quatrain
The first line announces the comparison of the youth with a summer day. But the second line says
that the youth is more perfect than a summer day. “More temperate” can be interpreted as more
gentle. A summer day can have excesses such as rough winds. In Shakespeare’s time May was
considered a summer month, a reference in the third line. The fourth line contains the metaphor that
summer holds a lease on the year, but the lease is of a short duration.
Second Quatrain
This quatrain details how the summer can be imperfect, traits that the youth does not possess. The
fifth line personifies the sun as “the eye of heaven” which is sometimes too scorchingly hot. On the
other hand, “his gold complexion,” the face of the sun, can be dimmed by overcast and clouds.
According to line 7, all beautiful things (fair means beautiful) sometimes decline from their state of
beauty or perfection by chance accidents or by natural events. “Untrimmed” in line 8 means a lack
of decoration and perhaps refers to every beauty from line 7.
Third Quatrain
This quatrain explains that the youth will possess eternal beauty and perfection. In line 10 “ow’st” is
short for ownest, meaning possess. In other words, the youth “shall not lose any of your beauty.”
Line 11 says that death will not conquer life and may refer to the shades of classical literature
(Virgil’s Aeneid) who wander helplessly in the underworld. In line 12 “eternal lines” refers to the
undying lines of the sonnet. Shakespeare realized that the sonnet is able to achieve an eternal status,
and that one could be immortalized within it.
The Final Couplet
The couplet is easy to interpret. For as long as humans live and breathe on earth with eyes that can
see, this is how long these verses will live. And these verses celebrate the youth and continually
renew the youth's life.
“Shall I Compare Thee” is one of the most often quoted sonnets of Shakespeare. It is complex, yet
elegant and memorable, and can be quoted by men and women alike. It has been enjoyed by all
generations since Shakespeare and will continue to be enjoyed “so long as men can breathe, or eyes
can see.”
Bonus
Look up an image of a painting by Guiseppe Arcimboldo, from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in
Vienna, painted the year before Shakespeare’s birth. It is entitled, “Summer,” and may remind one,
in a humorous way, of "Sonnet XVIII."