Anne Bradstreet’s poem “Prologue” with the argument of nature in the third stanza change the attitude and tone from innocence to harshness where nothing is held back. In the beginning of the poem she writes that she is not as knowledgeable as the “poets and historians” and that her “obscure lines shall not so dim their worth” (6). Bradstreet also says that her poetry cannot compare to another poet, Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas, whom she admired most. Therefore she talks as if she is not as worthy as early predecessors who accomplished a great deal, but as soon the reader realizes that the author is talking about how women are looked down upon. According to nature whose “cause…made it so irreparable” she can not be seen as equal among men and therefore men look down upon her intelligence; this is where the switch from innocence to harshness transitions. Instead of being a poet many people believe that a needle, not a pen “better fits” in her hands. Bradstreet uses the example of the Greek Muses to show that women are just as important and intelligent as men although men still look down upon women; ergo, the Greeks “played the fools and lied” (36). She reaches a crude harshness when she sarcastically says that men are “high-flown quills” that if they choose to “deign these lowly lines” (written by a female) she asks no “bays” (45-46). Bradstreet never alludes to gender equality.This is seen clearly when she writes, “Men can do it best, and women know it well” meaning that women know that men “excel” at everything they do and women stand behind them and know it (40).
