Name: _________________________________________ Period: ______ Date: ________________________________
“To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet
1. Title: What can you predict about the poem from reading the title?
2. Read the poem (page 76).
3. Summarize the poem by stanza. Identify the key ideas/details Bradstreet presents in the poem.
4. Connotations: Find two examples/uses of figurative language. Use two different stanzas. For each, identify the
figurative element, copy the relevant lines (with line numbers) and explain the connotation effect of the element.
5. Tone: Identify and clarify the speaker’s and the poet’s attitudes toward the subject of the poem.
6. Shift: Note changes in tone, content, rhetorical stance. Explain the effect of any shift.
7. Title: Yes, you already did this. Look at the title again. This time reevaluate the title in light of your examination of
the poem. How have your expectations been supported or challenged?
8. Theme: In a single, scholarly sentence state the universal truth of the poem. Do not include details from the poem in
this statement. Before you write the statement, complete the following:
a. Subject of the poem:
b. Poet’s comment on this subject:
c. Tie the two elements together and state the theme:
9. Golden passage: Copy one quote from the poem that best reinforces the theme. Do not forget the line numbers. Be
prepared to defend your choice.