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11/28/2020 0 Comments Tolkien, dragons, & Christmas
In this brief chat I reflect on J.R.R. Tolkien's fascination about dragons and about the season of Advent, when we remember the coming of the Great Dragon Slayer, Jesus Christ.
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 Detail of Anne Bradstreet from stained glass by Harry Grylls, 1948, installed at St Botolph’s church, Boston, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. This weekend is the American Thanksgiving. Our friends to the south are experiencing one of the most challenging Thanksgivings in years, with social, economic, and political upheaval, coupled with a global pandemic and restrictions on personal liberties like travel and family gatherings. My brother and his family live in North Carolina, so it has been impossible for them to cross the border and visit loved ones in Canada. This reminded me of the earliest American settlers, the Pilgrims, who faced extreme hardship for many of their first autumns and winters. One particular Pilgrim that I have been reflecting on is the Puritan poet, Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672). She is on my mind because I am currently working on an annotated collection of her poems. Anne Bradstreet was a remarkable pioneer in two ways—she was a pioneering settler in 17th-century New England, helping to establish a new community in the New World. She was also a pioneering poet. Anne Bradstreet is known as America’s first published poet and she is also one of the first professional female poets in English literature. Despite these incredible “firsts,” she is not as well-known as some of her American contemporaries like William Bradford, John Winthrop, or Cotton Mather. Nor is she as well-known as her female poetic successors, such as Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Brontë sisters, or Emily Dickinson. Although Bradstreet was born in England, the reason she holds the unique title of the first “published American poet” is because she was among the original English settlers during the early colonial period in America. She participated in the historic pilgrimage to build a “City upon a Hill,”[1] having left her home in England and travelled to America with her husband, parents, and siblings in 1630. Sailing with John Winthrop’s fleet across the Atlantic Ocean, Anne Bradstreet helped to establish a settlement in the rough and wild country of the newly formed Massachusetts Bay Colony. The famed “Plymouth Rock” Pilgrims had already made landfall in the New World ten years before Anne arrived on the east coast of North America. However, the continent was far from “settled,” and in spite of a decade of European presence, the area of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was still a relatively hostile and undeveloped wilderness. As an aspiring poet, Anne did not write a great deal during those early days in Massachusetts. No doubt this is due to the amount of work required to establish a new colony in a seemingly inhospitable and foreboding land. Anne and her family, along with the other Puritan settlers, faced several debilitating challenges upon their arrival. There were limited supplies of food, textiles, tools, building materials, and other necessities for survival. The previous settlers had suffered significant losses, including illnesses and death, and they were unable to plant sufficient crops or build enough houses for themselves, much less the newly arrived Winthrop pilgrims. The Bradstreet’s first winter in Massachusetts (1630–1631) is known as “the great starving time” when two hundred settlers ended up fleeing back to England and tragically two hundred more perished.[2] Early life in the New World was not only difficult but deadly.
During her years in the New World, Anne often experienced serious sicknesses. In a time when death was common both in the Old World and the New, Anne often assumed her illnesses would result in her death. She also experienced the loss of friends and loved ones, including her parents, grandchildren, and a daughter-in-law. Such frequent brushes with mortality gave Anne a sense of sober contemplation on the priorities of life, which she frequently reflects on in her poems. The theme of her life and her poetry can be summed up with the words of the Apostle Paul, who writes in Philippians 1:21, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Over the course of her life she also embodied the truth espoused by the Apostle Paul who asserts in 1 Timothy 6:6, “godliness with contentment is great gain” (KJV). Like the Apostle Paul, Bradstreet learned contentment in all circumstances: “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:12–13). Because of her Puritan theology grounded in the Sovereignty of God, she believed wholeheartedly in the goodness of her heavenly father both in this life and the next. This is why Anne and her fellow Puritans could make the best of this world, working hard to establish a new community—content with setbacks and grateful for successes—but they knew that this fallen earth was not their final home. Ultimately her greatest joys lie ahead beyond the grave. This is why Anne’s priorities—as her poems clearly show—were with delighting in God and living her life in a God-glorifying way. She knew how she must answer the rhetorical question posed by Jesus: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36, KJV). Rather than fearing death and cowering from the wrath of God, Bradstreet’s contentment—whether in life or in death—is amplified by her absolute trust in the grace and goodness of God through Jesus Christ. This does not mean that she never struggled with doubts or fears—which she also reflects in her poetry—but it does mean that she lived with a grounded hope in God’s care both in this life and the next. A Poem of Thanksgiving by Anne BradstreetAnne Bradstreet wrote this poem in 1661 after her husband recovered from a serious illness. At a time when so many people perished due to illness, Anne is so thankful that her Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ not only carried her through her time of uncertainty, but also healed her husband.
Notes:
[1] This famous phrase is from John Winthrop’s sermon written on board the Arbella in 1630. He and his company of English Puritans were seeking to establish a new, model community (“City upon a Hill”) as a beacon of hope for the world and a fulfilment of Jesus’ call to Christians to be “the light of the world. A city set on a hill, cannot be hid” (Matthew 5:14). [2] The Works of Anne Bradstreet. Edited by Jeannine Henley (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard UP, 2010), xlvi. [3] Anne Bradstreet, “To My Dear Children” in Poems of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672): Together with Her Prose Remains (London, UK: FORGOTTEN Books, 2012), 315. [4] Anne Bradstreet, “To My Dear Children” in Poems of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672): Together with Her Prose Remains (London, UK: FORGOTTEN Books, 2012), 315. Check out my chat with Cody Kaufmann on the Poetry Piper Podcast! I count it a great privilege to be a guest on Cody's podcast. In this episode, we talk about poetry, pipes, my new book of poems, and all sorts of tantalizing tidbits... "Episode 7 - Jeremy W Johnston." Be sure to subscribe, listen to his other episodes, and keep tuning in for future podcasts!  |
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