Tongue in Cheek Poetry: Bradstreet and Wheatley's Use of Sarcasm

When trying to make a point, a little bit of dry wit can go a long way. This is a concept certainly well understood by two poets that we looked at this unit: Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley. These two women poets had to go through many struggles as women writers in their time periods, and their feelings on the subject of women’s rights, women in religion, etc. often shine through in their poetry. To further analyze this topic, I have selected two passages: one from a Bradstreet poem, and one from a Wheatley poem. I will compare the two side-by-side in order to demonstrate the similarities in the writing styles and use of “tongue in cheek” writing that both employ. First, a selection from Anne Bradstreet’s poem, “The Prologue”

            I am obnoxious to each carping tongue

            Who says my hand a needle better fits

            A poet’s pen all scorn I should thus wrong,

            For such despite they cast on female wits:

            If what I do prove well, it won’t advance

            They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance.

Although one must read the rest of the poem to truly grasp Bradstreet’s tone, one can here see her tearing down her own work, saying that even should it become famous, men won’t believe it was her who wrote it, but rather it was stolen, or written by chance. Bradstreet demonstrates in the rest of her poem, and the rest of her body of poetic works, that she disagrees with the traditional male sentiment often seen in her deeply religious Puritan colony. She believes women to be strong and capable, and that her written works are just as good as those of men, calling to mind imagery of the Greek goddesses of poetry, song, art, etc, the Muses.

            Next, we turn our analysis to Phillis Wheatley, a poet who also uses sarcasm to drive her points in. In her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” we see Wheatley “adopting” the stance of the white, Christian slave owner to show just how ridiculous their rationale is.

            ‘Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land,

            Taught my benighted soul to understand

            That there’s a God, that there’s a Savior too:

            Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

While some may argue that this style of writing comes off as bitter or scorned, and in some cases it can, it also gives these two writers the punch that their poetry needed in a time when they weren’t accepted.