Anne Bradstreet: Poems Lesson Plan

Locate the sexual references in "A Letter to Her Husband Absent Upon Public Employment," and describe your reaction to finding these references/images in poetry by a Puritan woman.

The first reference is more veiled than the second. When the speaker references her "chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn," she is ostensibly speaking of her husband as the "sun" and her metaphorical coldness apart from his presence. There is a sexual connotation, however, in her suggestion that her husband will warm her body upon his return. This implies a craving for physical, sexual closeness. The second image is more overt. She speaks of looking at her children, "fruits" who were...