Prologue

“Prologue” is in many ways a feminist argument for gender equality in the arts, a plea for male and female poets to share space. However, it also shapes another longstanding battle: Which art has value, and who gets to decide on that value? Bradstreet tries to articulate a place for creative work that is not art of “preeminence” (Line 41). In other words, her complaints may be directed to those critics who are restrictive regarding the perimeters of art—particularly limiting it to men, especially the men of the classical Western canon that she herself extols.

This is why the poem begins with the impassioned lines that frame her art as unexpected. She won’t “sing of Wars, of Captains, and of Kings” (Line 1). She isn’t Virgil or the “Great Bartas” (Line 8), nor is she the dedicated, eloquent Demosthenes. She knows that her art will receive “no Bays” (Line 46) and therefore doesn’t ask for them. She’s aware that standards and tastes shift and that there are simply those who look down on “female wits” (Line 28). Anything she creates may be judged as accidentally good—or, even worse, nefariously “stol’n” (Line 30). 

In another time or space, there might be appreciation for the poetry she creates.