ANNE BRADSTREET
"THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT"
NOTES
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5-8.
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Flesh & spirit are sisters. But in Bradstreet's world view, the
spirit was superior to the flesh. Spirit, or reason, ought to be
in control of the flesh, or passion.
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14.
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Flesh holds that the physical is reality while the spiritual realm is imaginary.
Bradstreet of course holds to the old Platonic view that the physical realm
is less real that the realm of ideas. The chair you are sitting on
will probably be gone in 100 years. The idea of the chair will still
be around. Ideas are eternal and unchanging; the physical temporal
and changable.
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24.
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Flesh admits that the physical is changing, but still asserts that it is
the true reality.
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25.
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Flesh offers Spirit the temptations of the flesh - fame, riches, pleasure,
etc.
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37-42.
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Spirit gives the proper response. Unregenerate
part - the part of the person that cannot
be saved but instead must be abandoned through death.
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107-108.
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Just as flesh & spirit have different fathers (Adam vs God), so they
have different destinies (earth vs. heaven).