Anne Bradstreet's Humility

In “The Author to Her Book” Anne Bradstreet presents a false sense of humility in her extended metaphor where she personifies her very own book as her child, calling it “ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain” (3). The author is practically saying her work is trash and that she isn’t good enough. This false sense of humility is common with authors, especially during that time when women weren’t considered capable of coming up with a good piece of writing. Bradstreet is not only self-deprecating her work, but also unveils her clear attachment to her work “Who after birth didst by my side remain” (4) until it was snatched by “friends, less wise than true” (5) “Who thee abroad, expos’d to public view”(6) meaning her friends acted indiscreetly
Line 9 implies the book was ultimately returned to the author and her blushing is a result of seeing that her work came back as an actual, published book. Her “rambling brat”, now in print, publicly affirms that its “mother” is the one and only Anne Bradstreet (10). Anne keeps on personifying her book to make it seem more awful than it actually is on lines 11 through 13 where she casts her book “unfit for light”(11) due to its appearance being so “irksome”(12) to her sight. Suddenly, her motherly instincts kick in and tries to make “amends”(14) with her “child” and fix its faults. She tries washing her child’s face but the “more defects”(15) she saw and “rubbing off a spot”(16) made matters worse. Washing and rubbing hint they are metaphors for editing. The poet’s strict iambic pentameter and rhymes shows that she’s, in fact, very skilled at poetry despite her claims in lines 17 and 18 that her book is a mess and is metrically uneven. Anne’s false sense of humility is perfectly displayed on these two lines as she proceeds to argue her book gaits on “hobling”(18) feet furthermore belittling her entire