Friday, October 3, 2014

What literary devices are most important in Anne Bradstreet's poem, "The Author to Her Book"?

In her poem "The Author to Her Book" Anne Bradstreet
bemoans the quality of her work that has been exposed to the public because "alas [she]
is poor."  Most importantly, the poem is written as an extended metaphor in which her
literary endeavor is compared to "an ill-formed offspring," a child that has defects. 
Bradstreet blushes at the return of her cast-off child whose appearance was "so irksome"
in her sight, conveying her embarrassment that the work that "friends, less wise than
true," have had published.


Within this extended metaphor,
of course, there are other metaphors.  For instance, Bradstreet writes that she "washed"
the face of the book, meaning she made attempts at improving its appearance and content,
but in "rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw," in correcting one error she commits
others.  The use of these metaphors describing her actions upon the book certainly
personify the work as a child with an "irksome" face and "hobbling" legs that are
metaphors also for the sequence of plot events.  The last line contains both
personification and metaphor as the child/book (personification) is sent out of the door
(metaphor), meaning it is put out for publication.  And "door" is an example of metonymy
in which the door represents the whole house.

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