Tuesday, January 14, 2014

In Anne Bradstreet's poem "Contemplations," do you agree/disagree that mankind will glide along happily until faced with a catastrophe?

I don't think that Bradstreet necessarily implies that man
will "glide along happily" in life (catastrophe or not).  In Stanza 29 of her poem she
mentions that man might never find cessation from "sorrows, losses, sickness, and pain"
(199). 

Similarly, Bradstreet's version of happiness (or going through
life happily) is closer to contentment than it is to what we might think of happiness
today. While she does mention a mariner sailing through life with ease and then
encountering a storm and wishing for calmer waters (Stanza 31), the next stanza (32)
addresses Bradstreet's true perspective. She writes that after man is done partaking of
the pleasures of this world,


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"sad affliction comes and makes him see / Here's
neither honor, wealth, or safety. / Only above is found all with security"
(222-224).



It seems that the
poetess's actual message is that when one seeks contentment and happiness elsewhere, it
usually takes a catastrophe to show him the source of true happiness and
"security"--God. This is in keeping with Bradstreet's religious
perspective.

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