Compare and Contrast: Bradstreet vs. Sor Juana

The biggest difference of these two poems is the use of language. In Bradstreet’s poem, Burning of Our house many of the sentences are inversions, they have the subject behind the verb, for example: In silent night when rest I took, and most of the sentences rhyme with each other. The English version of Sor Juana’s poem World, in Hounding Me did not have any rhyming, it’s probably because it’s originally written in another language, and the English words for the original sentences don’t rhyme. Despite the very different things that the two poems are describing, the poem has the similar theme “vanity”, but it is described in a different way. In Ann Bradstreet’s poem, the author described her feeling of vanity when she had her material possessions, and after God took away what he gave, she felt contempt because she thinks she has enough, even after everything is gone. In Sor Juana’s poem, the author described the feeling of vanity that doesn’t come from material possessions. She feels the world values people of their outside appearances, and not their internal beauty. She thinks that the world is shallow in viewing people, as if judging a book by its cover, and she thinks pursuing outside beauty gives her the feeling of vanity, and she prefers to stock her mind with knowledge.