JE08 Compare and Contrast: Bradstreet v Sor Juana

            The topic of Anne Bradstreet’s poem is “Upon the Burning of Our Houses”. Comparing to Sor Junan’s “World, in hounding me”,  Anne Bradstreet’s topic simply illustrated a happened event, while Sor Junan’s topic represents a deeper meaning of how she felt about world’s material possessions. Both Bradstreet and Sor Juana’s poems are about the vanity of material possessions. Sor Juana’s poem further suggested that knowledge in our minds is the real valuable possessions of ours. In the poem of burning house, Anne Bradstreet used “house on high” as heaven. Sor Juana described the treasure as the intelligence in people’s minds. In Bradstreet’s poem, she followed some simple rules of rhyme. In Sor Juana’s poem, she strictly followed the rules of sonnet. The key word in “World, in hounding me” is treasure; the key words in Bradstreet’s poem are God and material possessions.

           

            “Vanity”, by definition, means the quality of being useless of futile. It also means excessive pride in or admiration of one’s own appearance or achievements. This word was used by the authors to imply the valuelessness in material possessions. People have vanity because they are extravagantly proud of what they owned or achieved. Ironically, this word’s second meaning is to describe the quality of being worthless. Pride is a good thing; it comes from your hard works. However, when it is exorbitant, it became a bad thing. I think what both authors were trying to convey is that material possessions and pride worth nothing in life. Knowledge absorbed in mind is the most important of all.