Grammatical Comparison

I didn't know how to find the percentages so I just left it blank until I can figure it out.

Anne Bradstreet Response
1) 603 words
2) 34 sentences
3) 50 words
4) 5 words
5) about 17 words
6) 6 sentences
7)
8) 9 sentences
9)
10) 10 sentences/5 sentences/9 sentences


Newspaper Article
1) 1187 words
2) 43 sentences
3) 55 words
4) 7 words
5) about 22 words
6) 13 sentences
7)
8) 7 sentences
9)
10) 5 sentences/ 2 sentences/3 sentences



Anne Bradstreet was like most writers of her time and ours. She wanted her work to be as perfect as it could possibly be. Her being a woman didn’t make matters any easier. In fact it made it much harder, seeing as how women were only expected to cook, keep the house tidy, and take care of the children. This is the reason why she kept her poetry a secret. Her poem “The Author to Her Book” showed how much she enjoyed writing poetry. However, she felt dissatisfied with her poetry after it was published, embarrassed, and maybe even a little angry. She showed this through diction.
Anne Bradstreet displayed her love of writing poetry many times throughout her poems. When she said “Though ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain” you see that she cares very deeply for her poetry (Bradstreet line 1). She already started referring to her poetry as her child. You start to see that her poetry is what kept her going during the day. She felt that since it came from her head, she was in control, that it really was her child. As you read on you see that there are parts of the poem when she writes about how embarrassed she was after she realized her poetry had been published. “At thy return my blushing was not small” (Bradstreet line 7)… “Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, who thee abroad, exposed to public view.” (Bradstreet lines 2-4). She might have been angry at her friends that took her poetry, and published it without her permission. She may have used the word “snatched” to show this anger.
She also wrote about her dissatisfaction with her poetry. Saying “I cast thee by as one unfit for light, thy visage was so irksome in my sight; yet being mine own, at length affection would thy blemishes amend, if so I could; I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, and rubbing off a spot still made flaw. I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet.” (Bradstreet lines 9-15). Anne Bradstreet’s need to make her writing nearly perfect was not unlike other authors of her time and the present time. However, what if there was a deeper reason? What if her need to make her poetry perfect wasn’t what most people believed? Suppose her need to make her poetry perfect was because of fear, she may have felt insecure and vulnerable because her work was out there for the whole world to see. She may not have wanted people to think badly of her work which is suggested when she says “In critic’s hands beware thou dost not come” (Bradstreet line 20). This may have been another reason why she wanted her work to be so perfect. You get the idea that she didn’t think her poems were complete when they were published because she says “Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge, where errors were not lessened” (Bradstreet lines 5-6). This may also have been a reason she didn’t want the critics to see her work.
Anne Bradstreet had many dilemmas in her life; from her anger with her friends for publishing her poems without her knowledge, to her dissatisfaction with her flawed work, and her fear of criticism. She was still a very talented poet even though, women were not supposed to be writing poetry. Some people could, and still can relate to her poetry, but because she used hidden meanings in it, you could only figure it out if you really analyzed it.