The Difficult Homages of Berryman and Bradstreet
Symbiosis 7.1 11-34
Author: Deanna C. Fernie
Pages: 29
'The Difficult Homages of Berryman and Bradstreet' by Deanna Fernie, offers a nuanced examination of John Berryman's 'Homage to Mistress Bradstreet' and its complex relationship with Anne Bradstreet's poetry. Originally published in Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, this essay delves into Berryman's intricate and often ambivalent homage to the 17th-century poet. Fernie explores themes of poetic legacy, gender dynamics, and literary influence, providing readers with a rich analysis of how Berryman navigates his poetic admiration and critique of Bradstreet's work. This scholarly work is essential for those interested in literary criticism, American poetry, and feminist studies.
Symbiosis 7.1 11-34
Author: Deanna C. Fernie
Pages: 29
'The Difficult Homages of Berryman and Bradstreet' by Deanna Fernie, offers a nuanced examination of John Berryman's 'Homage to Mistress Bradstreet' and its complex relationship with Anne Bradstreet's poetry. Originally published in Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, this essay delves into Berryman's intricate and often ambivalent homage to the 17th-century poet. Fernie explores themes of poetic legacy, gender dynamics, and literary influence, providing readers with a rich analysis of how Berryman navigates his poetic admiration and critique of Bradstreet's work. This scholarly work is essential for those interested in literary criticism, American poetry, and feminist studies.
Symbiosis 7.1 11-34
Author: Deanna C. Fernie
Pages: 29
'The Difficult Homages of Berryman and Bradstreet' by Deanna Fernie, offers a nuanced examination of John Berryman's 'Homage to Mistress Bradstreet' and its complex relationship with Anne Bradstreet's poetry. Originally published in Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, this essay delves into Berryman's intricate and often ambivalent homage to the 17th-century poet. Fernie explores themes of poetic legacy, gender dynamics, and literary influence, providing readers with a rich analysis of how Berryman navigates his poetic admiration and critique of Bradstreet's work. This scholarly work is essential for those interested in literary criticism, American poetry, and feminist studies.
 "John Berryman’s Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (1953) is a curious kind of homage. Berryman dismisses Bradstreet’s poetry, exclaiming, ‘[A]ll this bald / abstract didactic rhyme I read appalled’ (stanza 12, lines 5–6). Later he has Bradstreet herself lament how the ‘proportioned, spiritless poems accumulate’ (42.6), a sentiment which echoes her admission of defeat at line three thousand five hundred and sixty four of ‘The Four Monarchies’. Her physical person is equally unprepossessing: ‘pockmarked and westward standing on a haggard deck’ (4.5) she appears to him in his vision, her ‘cratered skin’ like her ‘Palissey ewer’, as he later has her refer to it (28.1), corresponding to her poetry’s lack of smoothness and beauty. The picture Berryman presents of this seventeenth century poet is of a writer commanding neither the fire of the great Renaissance dramatists (a quality to which Berryman aspired, as his early pseudonym, Alan Fury, indicates), nor the melody of a Sidney or a Spenser; a poor ambassador of the great Renaissance verse of England." |
