"O Heal My Soul": Health and Healing in Anne Bradstreet's Poetry

The main concern of this article is a close study of Anne Bradstreet's recurrent focus in her poetry on health and healing in the physical and spiritual sense. For the Puritans in Bradstreet's colonial New England, physical afflictions meant God's trials closely associated with guilt and moral depravity. On the other hand, good health was commonly considered to be an indication of spiritual purity and redemption from sinfulness. It was therefore interpreted as a reward from God. In this regard, Bradstreet's poetry, which embodies various allusions and explicit evidence, recurrently gestures to this fundamental Puritan dichotomy of illness and wellness. Keywords: Anne Bradstreet, health and healing, spiritual healing, Puritanism, Puritan spirituality, colonial Puritanism, New England Puritans