1. Why is Phyllis Wheatley considered a remarkable individual? She was a slave who taught herself English and very well educated. She wrote poems about her race, native country, and life as a slave. She was also the first African American woman poet. 2. Describe the relationship between Phyllis Wheatley and her master/owner. Phyllis Wheatley’s master/owner treated her like family. She said that her master/owner, Susanna Wheatley, treated her like her own child. 3. To whom is "The University of Cambridge in New England" addressed? What is the theme of this poem? *The poem is addressed to the students she went to school with. 4. Choose a line from "On Being Brought from Africa to America" that reveals the theme of the poem “Remember, …show more content…
What is the theme of "Hymn to Evening?" Use material from the poem to illustrate. The theme is the beauty in things around her. “At morn to wake more heav’nly, more refin’d, so shall the labours of the day begin. More pure and more guarded than the snakes of sin” 7. What connection does Phyllis feel to the painter in her poem "To S.M., a Young African Painter?" What line(s) show this feeling? 8. In "To His Excellency General Washington" and other poems, Wheatley uses Columbia to represent what? Columbia was a goddess that in her poems that set the colonist free. 9. In several of her poems Wheatley refers to a "muse." What is a muse, and what does she mean by using this term? A muse is a person that is considered an inspiration. She refers to God as a muse and He is her inspiration. 10 When Phyllis Wheatley traveled to London, she met several nobles. Whom did she fail to meet? She failed to meet George the III. 11. Wheatley almost always wrote in heroic couplets. What are the characteristics of the heroic couple. Give an example of one of her heroic couplets (give the poem reference). In heroic couplets, the lines rhyme. One of the poems that have a heroic couple is “On Being Brought from Africa to
Wheatley was born in West Africa around 1750, and was captured when she was 7. John Wheatley purchased Phillis for his wife, Susanna; together they taught Phillis how to read and write, and as early as 12, Phillis was writing poetry and her first poem had been published. Wheatley’s poems implicitly advocated for racial equality, while condemning slavery. Her work received some negative feedback from political figureheads, such as Thomas Jefferson. White America classified a human as having the ability to read, write, and reason; therefore, leaving no room for the uneducated Africans, seeing Africans as nonhuman. Jefferson claimed Wheatley’s work was not literature because the moment he admitted Wheatley’s work was indeed literature, he would have had to admit she was a human being. The way Phillis Wheatley handled the adversity she faced is admirable. Wheatley definitely impacted American history, and “owes her place in history to advocates of inequality” (Young 1999
Readers unfamiliar with Phillis Wheatley may wonder of her background and who she was in particular to be able to gain rights to be mentioned in early American literature. Wheatley was born in 1753 and was captured by Africans, and sold to an American family known as the Wheatley’s. She quickly became a member of the Wheatley family, living in the home, and being tutored on reading and writing.
As a final point, Phillis Wheatley may have been bought a slave but she never lost faith and ended up being one of the best known poets in the early nineteenth century. This poem illustrates how she was living in darkness in Senegal, West Africa and because of slavery she was bought and brought to America. In this poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” Wheatley uses poetic devices such as similes, metaphors, hyperboles to illustrate color and darkness, multiple meanings of words, and the relationship between skin tone and salvation. This poem seems to be a narrative of her life and how slavery might have been the best thing that happened to her.
Throughout the poem, “To the University of Cambridge, in New England”, Phyllis Wheatley suggest that she accepted the colonial idea of slavery, by first describing her captivity, even though this poem has a subversive double meaning that has sent an anti-slavery message. Wheatley’s choice of words indicates that her directed audience was educated at a sophisticated level because of the language chosen. Her audience was assumingly also familiar with the bible because of the religious references used. The bible was used as a reference because of its accessibility. Wheatley uses religious references to subversively warn her readers about slavery and its repercussions and to challenge her reader’s morals.
On Being Brought from Africa to America, Wheatley’s short poem reads powerfully. How could one possibly breeze past such a sharply positioned argument which directly places her race front and center?
Mason, Jr., Julian D. The Poems of Phillis Wheatley. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
Phillis Wheatley, who is now known as one of America’s most scholarly writers, has made a major impact on American Literature today. Her role in Literature had influenced many African Americans during this time period because it was very uncommon for them to become educated. Her poems made some people realize that they shouldn’t have slaves. Many people say that Phillis Wheately should go down in history as a hero while others say that she should not. Phillis is a historical hero because of the extraordinary courage that she showed by writing her poems while facing the adversities that she encountered. People disagree with this statement because they say that she did not make a difference in history.
Wheatley, Phillis. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. New York: AMS Press, 1976. Rpt. of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Philadelphia, 1786.
Shields, John C. (Eds.). (1988). The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.
The poetry of Phillis Wheatley is crafted in such a manner that she is able to create a specific aim for each poem, and achieve that aim by manipulating her position as the speaker. As a slave, she was cautious to cross any lines with her proclamations, but was able to get her point across by humbling her own position. In religious or elegiac matters, however, she seemed to consider herself to be an authority. Two of her poems, the panegyric “To MAECENAS” and the elegy “On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years of Age,” display Wheatley’s general consistency in form, but also her intelligence, versatility, and ability to adapt her position in order to achieve her goals.
Phillis Wheatley, a poet of early modern poetry discloses a sonnet to Scipio Moorhead labeled To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works. The start of Wheatley life was being purchased by a white family and shipped off to Boston. She was an extremely intelligent child that was beginning to learn how to read, write and how to strongly connect to the Bible. When knowing the background of this poet, we realize first-hand how her childhood impacted her poetry. This piece of poetry was in the point of view of first person. Many poets use a type of sound devices or figurative language to enhance their message within. Wheatley introduces a sound device known as end rhyme as a way of intensifying the experience to the reader. The poet stated, “When first thy pencil did those beauties give, and breathing figures learnt from thee to live” (409) uses end rhyme to give connection between those two lines. My outsight on these two lines would be summarized as the poet trying to interpret the beautiful people the artist has drawn in her own words. Also, Wheatley communicates figurative language into this poem by using the several metaphors to put emphasis on her writing. The metaphor heavily absorbed by me would be, “Whose twice six gates on radiant hinges ring: Celestial Salem blooms in endless spring” (410) creating an image of Heaven.
The clash between racial reality and idea is what is artistically shown in “on being brought from Africa to America”. Wheatley is a subtle rebel. At the beginning of her poem she shows thanks for being enslaved because it brought happiness to her life in finding Christianity, but as time goes by we start to see the true tone of Wheatley, which clearly show in the last two lines of the poem, now Wheatley begins to take a big position of power as if she already has the attention of the reader. Wheatley continues by saying that Africans may not be perfect but the Christians who enslave human beings aren’t
Barnstone, Aliki, and Willis Barnstone. A book of women poets. New York: Schocken Books, 1980. Print.
The excerpt about Phyllis Wheatly’s philosophical views stood out to me. Although I am unsure as to whether I interpreted the poem accurately, the ideas were such which could easily be related to in this century’s daily life.
personal side. Any poem or work of literature can be interpreted different ways by different people but the author’s intention when writing should not be overlooked. These true intentions of who this poem is truly directed at and about lies with one person, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.