Compare and Contrast: Bradstreet vs. Sor Juana

The most similar aspect of the two poems are the themes of the poem. In both of the poems, the author believes that materialistic possessions are not important and that people should focus on the spiritual and religious aspects of life and afterlife. Although they have similar themes, the two poems have different topics. Bradstreet's poem is about the burning of her house and her own self reflections and self criticisms. Sor Juana's poem is about her distress toward the society's view toward material possessions. The style of the two poem are also different, which also caused the rhyming of the poems to be different. Bradstreet's poem is a lyric poem and the rhymes go in pairs. Her poem also used the plain style. Her choice of words are vocabularies coming from everyday speech of her time. Sor Juana's poem is a sonnet, so it  follows the sonnet's 14 line rhyme scheme.  

There are some phrases and words in both poems that refers to heaven and God. In Bradstreet's poem, she talks about a "house" built by the "mighty Architect". In this, the house is the heaven that is built by god, the Architect. In Sor Juana's poem, the "treasure in my mind" is a metaphor for knowledge.

A third similarity is that both poems use the word "vanity" and "treasure". In Bradstreet's poem, she wrote "Adieu, Adieu, all's vanity." She is dismissing all the material possessions that is lost in the burning of her house, and anticipates a better future in heaven. She also writes "My hope and treasure lies above". This also shows that she has faith that her life in heaven would be more pleasant than the one on Earth. In Sor Juana's poem, she want to "leave the vanities of life aside, not to throw [her] life away in vanity". The vanities she talks about here is also materialistic precessions. She wants to "[set] treasure in her mind" rather than having a "mind that set on treasure". In this. she compares in importance of knowledge verses materialistic possessions in her view.

In conclusion, there are many ideas in the two poems that are similar, but the ways these topics are discussed differ.