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Leonard Crosby
Black Hills State University

Subject Listing - English
Advisor: Dr. Vincent King

Friday, Oral Session 6, Presentation 3, Owen Hall 113

ANNE BRADSTREET: A POET OUTSIDE OF PURITAN BOUNDS.

In this essay, I propose that Anne Bradstreet used her poetry to increase reciprocity between the sexes in the Puritan world in which she lived. Her poetry used two main tactics to do this: first, she showed that the different Puritan spheres of life and learning for men and women could be expanded to allow both sexes to occupy positions in the sphere of their opposite. Second, she showed the value of the secular world to increase the importance of secular issues, especially to show the need for more reciprocity between the sexes. In doing so she broke away from the genre of Puritan poetry, and carved a path for later American poets.

Advisor: Dr. Vincent King, Associate Professor, Humanities, Black Hills State University, Spearfish, SD