ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the ways in which Anne Bradstreet posits her identity as she tenuously inscribes herself within a collective public space in her poetry. In an essay titled 'Why Our First Poet Was a Woman: Bradstreet and the Birth of an American Poetic Voice', Patricia Caldwell surveys Bradstreet's reception by modern literary critics in America. However, the combination of a nationalizing of Bradstreet's poetry and an essentializing of her poetic voice has resulted in an elision of an Atlantic perspective that complicates and enriches our understanding of her sense of belonging in her earlier writings. What is remarkable about Bradstreet's Dialogue is its incisive investigation into British problems. An Atlantic perspective is alert to the fact that Anne is not simply 'American' or 'English'. Indeed, Bradstreet's poetry offers a fascinating instance of how one early modern female poet, writing from an Atlantic perspective sought to imagine herself within a collective community.
