Anne Bradstreet’s poem “The Author to Her Book” represents the speaker’s brainchild – her written work – in its living form. Yet, she holds little maternal pride for the “ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,” especially after this child was, from her side, “snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true” (1, 3). She seems to hold her own mind in some contempt, though false friends seem interested in what it produces, and thus decide to steal away her ideas. She still considers these friends somewhat senseless as well as disloyal; she does not believe they could see real merit in her creations.
When she finally reclaims this creation, she feels embarrassed, as her “blushing was not small” (7). She considers her reclaimed work, or her “rambling brat (in print) should mother call” (8), to be “unfit for light” (9). The speaker refers to herself as ‘mother,’ but not in a manner that radiates the love she holds for this child. Rather, she seems to consider her attachment as something out of her control, but also irreversible. She knows this child as a reflection of herself: “The visage was so irksome in my sight; / Yet being mine own, at length affection would / Thy blemishes amend, if so I could” (10-12). The child’s image being ‘mine own’ could describe her motherly responsibility, but could also describe how she sees herself mirrored in the child.
No matter what, her child’s existence reflects back on her. The speaker describes her tedious efforts to clean and polish their appearance: “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, / And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw. / I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet, / Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet” (13-16). She details her indelible sense of shame in the child’s flaws. Cleaning their face only reveals more ‘defects,’ and she attempts to literally mold their feet, though only further impairs their ability to run. The double meaning of ‘feet’ here, when thinking about poetic meter, also works really well when recalling that the child depicted here refers to a developing book. (see the footnote in Norton, 494). Ultimately, the disdainful portrayal of this child suggests the ingrained insecurities Bradstreet felt as a writer – especially as a female writer in the seventeenth century – releasing her work into the world.
