Reconciling Sexuality with Spirituality Essay - 1721 Words

At first perusal, Anne Bradstreet’s writing adheres to a very Puritan sensibility: she argues that women, though they are worthy individuals, are naturally inferior to men and that earthly treasures are mere distractions from heavenly eternity. But, woven beneath the surface of her poems is the subtle revelation of her sexuality. Bradstreet eroticizes the complex relationship between nature, religion, her husband and herself, seemingly contradicting her religion, but by contextualizing the sexuality in religious terms, she shows that sexuality can be reconciled with spirituality. In â€Å"Contemplations,† Bradstreet interacts with and glorifies nature in a surprisingly sexual manner. The first several stanzas talk about the Sun in a†¦show more content†¦Similarly, the glorifying of natural things is consistently grounded in the glorifying of the entity that made them that way, God. In stanza seven she writes, â€Å"Art thou so full of glory that no eye / Hath strength thy shining rays once to behold? ... How full of glory then must thy Creator be / Who gave this bright light luster unto thee?† (â€Å"Contemplations,† 7.43-49). Through this passage, Bradstreet attributes any attraction she feels for nature to the fact that God, who created it all, is so wonderful. In fact, she says that if what she sees in nature is â€Å"so full of glory,† God’s glory must be so much more than that. At the same time that this passage excuses the sexual nature of Bradstreet’s relationship to nature, however, it transfers some of that sexual passion to God. This leads us to look at how Bradstreet relates to religion in a sexual manner. Anne Bradstreet conflates sexual feeling with her personal religious devotion. First there is, of course, the constant personification of God as a man. But more than that, she also participates in the same Romantic language when talking about God, reveling in the sublimity of her religion like she expressed toward nature. In â€Å"Contemplations† she describes her desire to â€Å"magnify† the work of God (8.94) and wishes to be able to offer him â€Å"lays† (9.63). â€Å"Lays† could signify lyric poems or songs of devotion, but also prostration. Though not necessarily specifically sexual, the imagery ofShow MoreRelatedHow Fa Has the Use of English Language Enriched or Disrupted Life and Culture in Mauritius15928 Words   |  64 Pages 12. [pic]Genesis Lopez says: July 14, 2011 at 3:25 am Poem 1 and Poem 2 from â€Å"Songs of Myself† represent Walt Whitman’s transition from a transcendentalist motif to that of a realist one. Poem 1 is a description of Whitman’s spirituality and belief in a divine connection between all beings. Poem 2 describes the beauty in the nature of the environment and focuses more on demonstrating the majesty of one’s everyday surroundings. Though both poems were written during the same time